Sharvani ChandvaleA corporate team retreat in Goa is increasingly helping companies build a healthy work culture outside of office. Through sustainable and holistic team-building activities, and inclusive events, they can boost team spirit and help employees feel recognised. Employees have reported increased overall motivation and improved mood while building stronger team relations.
Your well-planned team retreat can be extremely beneficial to building more grounded, dedicated and connected teams. Goa’s abundant natural resources are facilitating some exciting interactions within teams. When you look beyond the four walls of a corporate office, you rediscover exciting ways of engaging with your team and finding their strengths and weaknesses.
Tap into Goa’s untapped resources to build the perfect corporate team-building experiences through these activities:
1. Games of Goa (to encourage collaboration)
Most childhood games have had the power to bring diversity together in a constructive environment. The local, age-old games of Goa are no different. A series of indoor and outdoor games such as Ticktem, Tablaam, Vhiraani, Logorio, Goddyaani and Raibet all contribute to bringing out a healthy competitive spirit and encourage team work. This can hone members’ leadership spirit by fostering collaboration, abd promoting delegation, communication, and coordination. Apart from this, some games always encourage working against each other without developing an unhealthy rivalry. Most professional team-building activities focus on similar elements, and the games of Goa are just a more fun way of achieving your goals of building a collaborative team.
2. Mud Bathing (to encourage bonding)
Your team is not in Goa to work. It’s there to connect without work dictating the rules of engagement. One of the major reasons for unhealthy professional relationships in offices is the lack of personal bonding. Often offices do not create an environment that may be conducive to developing interpersonal skills. Or it just happens because most of your interactions at work might be to get things done.
Mud bathing is an offbeat experience in Goa that takes you away from the competitive environment before it becomes unhealthy. You can spend hours in a natural pool and get some rejuvenating clay therapy with your corporate team in Goa. A space like this can help encourage connection between your office teams without the boundaries of professional roles.
What’s more? The Soul Travelling team can add a whole bunch of fun, team-focused activities and games that further encourage communication and bonding.
3. Treasure Hunt (to encourage delegation)
Treasure hunts test team work in one of the most fun ways. If you are planning a team retreat to Goa, instead of hosting some workshop in a closed auditorium, book a treasure hunt for your team.
How does a treasure hunt help your team work? Treasure hunts have an end goal, just like your team might have one in the office. To effectively reach the treasure, i.e. achieve this goal, your team needs to choose a leader, follow their instructions, communicate effectively and work to their strengths. Only when you do that will you increase your chances of getting to your treasure. As your teams strive to work towards a common goal, it can greatly influence their team spirit and bonding. Moreover, it helps you better understand your own strengths and weaknesses, and what you can bring to the table. As a bonus, you get to explore a unique side of Goa by figuring out clues to some offbeat landmarks!
4. Cultural Day Program (to help define your company’s culture)
Every company needs a culture that focuses on more than just productivity. How you treat your employees and engage with them helps set you apart as an organisation. When you add cultural events to your company’s team retreat itinerary, it shows that having fun without any goals is just as important. This helps boost motivation and mood since teams aren’t constantly pressured by work-oriented growth.
The Goan culture is so much more than what meets the eye. Your corporate team can attend a cultural day program in an unseen location in Goa. These spaces are holistic, sustainable farms or outdoor areas in nature’s embrace, perfect to disconnect from the chaos. Witness a Kunbi dance, listen to some traditional Goan music, play local games, unwind with some delicious feni and finish off with a wholesome lunch.
5. Safarnama (to inspire your team and connect with it)
Travel has been one of the best ways to encourage connections between strangers. A post-pandemic ritual that corporates should opt for their teams is to share travel stories. It’s no secret that the entire global population has witnessed a common phenomenon that has completely overturned their lives. In a sensitive time like this, talking about pre-pandemic travels and discussing future travel plans can help boost feelings of hope and happiness. Teams that have been forced to work from home or return to their offices could do well with talking about experiencing new things again. Safarnama is a beautiful initiative by Soul Travelling themed around travel. Participants can share stories, engage in interactive musical sessions and just be part of something bigger than themselves.
Final Thoughts
Why should you plan a team retreat in Goa? Team building for corporate teams has traditionally been restricted to indoor activities focusing on developing skills required within the workplace.
However, the pandemic has emphasised the importance of focusing on employees’ mental health building a more sustainable work culture. Unwinding in Goa through a mud bath, indulging in cultural programs and sharing travel stories with your colleagues can help improve their emotional well-being. Apart from that, the local games of Goa and treasure hunts that take you through the state’s history, are a more fun way to hone professional skills as well. The bottom line is that Goa is not just your average travel destination; it can be perfect to host your corporate team retreat and engage in team-building activities.
