Communication is vital for any group of coworkers, no matter what industry you work in. Whether you work in healthcare, education, marketing, or public relations, your team needs to be able to communicate clearly and efficiently no matter what they face. Unfortunately, building on these communication skills can be difficult.

Planning office team building exercises that are entertaining and helpful isn’t easy, but escape room games certainly make it better. With an escape room game, solving problems encourages better communication between your team and further builds this important soft skill in more ways than one.

How Team Building While Solving Problems Aids Communication

You Must Work Together

There’s a lot to do during escape games, not unlike a hectic workday. With a ticking clock and a deadline looming overhead, your team must work together if you have any hope of escaping in time. This means that you’ll have to communicate amongst yourselves, whether this is sharing clues, asking for help, or pointing out things you’ve noticed.

As you’re forced to work together, your team learns how to work with each other and communicate vital information. Later in the office, when your team is forced to work together on a project, they’ll refer back to the skills they developed during their escape game.

There’s a Lot of Problem Solving

Escape room games are full of many small puzzles that must be solved in order to escape. While having many minor problems may seem easy enough, it can get overwhelming if everyone tries to do things their own way. To successfully complete the problem-solving tasks, your team must communicate in a way they otherwise might not.

As an escape room throws problem after problem at your team, you’ll need to share thoughts and ideas with each other to figure out a solution. However you choose to organize your team and solve the problem, you’ll need to do it by communicating.

With problem-solving skills polished and communication improved, your team will be better prepared to handle challenges that work throws at them. Although they develop these skills during a game, they’ll be able to rely on them in the office and improve their communication and group problem-solving skills.

Win Together, Lose Together

Escape room games are fun, but perhaps the most fun part about them is that you’re not competing against others. It’s you and your team against the clock, which means that whether you win or lose, you’re doing it together. Without the stress of competition looming over you, you’ll be able to think clearer and communicate easier with those on your team. Not to mention the significant morale boost you’ll all get when you win.

Even if you don’t escape in time, losing together does not mean that all was lost. You still played a good game and had fun, but you also learned how to interact and communicate with those that you work with. You’ll learn how to encourage each other, not just work together in a potentially stressful situation.

You’ll Build Trust

Whether you’re new to the team or you’ve known your coworkers for years, escape room games help build a level of trust, unlike any other type of team bonding event. While you work together to solve problems, communicate, and escape the room, you’ll learn to trust and rely on your coworkers in a way you may not have otherwise had to. This new trust is vital in developing good communication skills and will help pave the way in the future.

Conclusion

As far as team building exercises go, escape room games provide one of the best environments for aiding communication and building up a sense of teamwork. Whether you win or lose, you and your team will develop vital skills that will later transfer into the work environment, allowing you to work better together, provide better customer service, and communicate more efficiently.