As your business grows and competition in the marketplace heats up, so do the stresses and demands put upon your employees. To help improve team dynamics, build trust, and facilitate communication within the workforce more and more companies are discovering unique team building activities to help achieve these goals.
Whitewater rafting takes everyone in the raft working together as a single unit following the directions from their guide to safely navigate hazards on the river and to respond quickly and safely to possible swift water rescue situations. Your success as a business is also dependent on your employees’ ability to work together as a cohesive team and follow specific directions to achieve your desired business goals. And, just like a good manager who can lead and motivate their staff in the right direction, an experienced raft guide can quickly assess the skills, strengths, and weaknesses of their team and make decisions about how to best convey critical information in their safety talk, placement of paddlers within the raft, and how to best approach each rapid to ensure that everyone is having a fun ride and most importantly staying safe.
Whether you’re a small business with just a handful of employees or a Fortune 500 company, it’s important to regularly check the pulse of your staff and offer team building opportunities to raise moral, build camaraderie, or learn new skills to boost productivity. A good group activity for your business should be an experience that is challenging, relevant, and accomplishes a definable goal. “A team-building activity is any positive, shared experience that reinforces positive, team skills,” says David Jacobson, founder of the New York City-based corporate entertainment and team-building company TrivWorks.
Whitewater rafting is a positive shared experience that brings people together as a team. There can be many challenges to overcome in a single raft with up to 8 different people each with their own unique physical and emotional limits. Rising to the occasion and facing these challenges together as a team is important because learning happens when you’re outside of your comfort zone. Whitewater rafting is an extreme sport, but because of advancements in technology and training making it safer, it has become an activity that has been attracting the attention of more and more companies each year as a great team building experience. We have dozens of businesses big and small that have now made whitewater rafting with High Desert River Outfitters an annual team building event for their company. “If the exercise is good, your team will take what they did or learned back to the workplace,” says Jacobson. “They’re going to collaborate and communicate better.”
We’re not only experts at having a fun time on the river we are also very passionate about logistics and planning. Facilitating a team building activity can be a daunting task, but let us take the worry and hassle out of it. We can help you plan the kind of team building experience that will reinvigorate your staff and have your employees working and communicating more productively as a team.
To learn more about corporate team building opportunities with High Desert River Outfitters please call our office 1-800-461-5823 or shoot us an email at info@highdesertriver.com
