Is it possible a boring colleague to turn into a great joker, or two ladies in an office war to bury the hatchet and start helping each other? It turns out that it is possible and the so-called team building contributes to that. It is an organized adventure for a certain team, aiming at its uniting, improvement of the working atmosphere and better results at work. Team buildings have become more and more popular in this country too. Dozens of agencies offer team building programs in both Bulgaria and foreign countries. The Edelweiss Alpine Club offers such services and it is profiled in extreme and adventurous tourism. “We started to organize team buildings in 2004,” Mr. Hristo Hristov from the club said.
“Our first customers were truck distributors for Bulgaria, a group of 60 people. We have developed different team building concepts over the years and now we have permanent clients. I can state that these activities contribute to the increased potential of the employees and also to a better labor productivity, while fewer people would quit at the same time. This is a tool for good management of the members of a team. Farseeing employers can spot its advantages in times of crisis. For example, last year we thought that the crisis would reduce the number of team building groups, while exactly the opposite happened. We have organized programs for several big companies for three years and we do not repeat these programs. Team building is something like a marketing campaign – it changes through the years due to new requirements. Our programs are based on customers’ feedback.”
“The Mission”, “Adventure”, “Adrenaline”, “Show of the Colleagues” – these are all formats, offered by the Edelweiss Club. The Show of the Colleagues requires artistic skills too. The participants perform at the same time – they dance, they do the catwalk, turn into actors… This is a format that has to break the ice before the real part of the team building.
“The key words for the other formats that we offer are: motivation, chasing of a goal, group organization in a tense situation, courage, determination,” Hristo Hristov claims.“A program takes about 2 days. Usually we work with a certain company once or twice per year. The character of our programs is mostly adventurous and those take place among nature. We select places, where different adventurous elements can be included in the program – caving, climbing, rafting, gliding etc. One can find many spots of this kind around Sofia – for instance, the Vitosha Mountain. The participants in the adventurous format have to go through a series of challenges, in order to reach the final and the award.”
The club works predominantly with groups of up to 30 people. They set a record with a group of 300 – the employees of a major telecommunication company. “It was a sea program with different stages included – one part was carried out on a ship, another – in the port town chosen, a third – on the beach… At a certain stage the participants had to swim to a ship in the sea and to discover several objects, hidden onboard. Then they had to take them to the land and to look for messages and hidden keys that would lead them to the box with awards, dug in the sand. We divide the participants in groups of ten people, when the team building is so big. An employee from our company accompanies each of the teams for monitoring”, Hristo Hristov goes on to say.
“There are many requirements to us as organizers. In case adventurous elements are included, the presence of experts in climbing, rafting, gliding etc. is mandatory. On the other hand the organizers should be able to lead the group, but not as leaders, but as assistants. Decision-making, development and the end of the game should depend entirely on the group. We are mainly in charge of the comfort and security of the group. One needs psychological skills for things like group dynamics and processes that take place inside a team that has to start working well.”
English version: Zhivko Stanchev
