5 Reasons to Plan Your Next Team Building Retreat in the Yukon
Just as in the workplace, there are always difficulties and unexpected circumstances that occur in the wilderness. Northern expeditions can be unpredictable, the weather may not cooperate, and the terrain can offer surprises - but the rewards reaped from the journey make it even more worthwhile. You want a team that can handle it all.
The Yukon is an unparalleled classroom for leadership development, team building, critical thinking, and rapid decision-making. Whether it's brainstorming as a team how to light a campfire in the wind or sharing personal stories with colleagues on a hike up Grizzly Ridge in Tombstone Territorial Park - your team will be faced with challenges that encourage them to improvise and work as a cohesive unit.
There are many reasons to go on a Yukon wilderness team building retreat. Here are five of the best.
Problem Solving & Decision Making
By participating in various problem solving and wilderness skills exercises, like fire building, paddling, and shelter building, your team will learn to work under pressure and have a good laugh in the process. Using these activities, colleagues will be able to better understand how they and others react during times of healthy pressure and stress.
Whether you're looking to promote unity with your workforce or boost employee morale through the challenges of COVID-19, Overland Yukon offers a variety of team building travel packages to help your team foster innovation and success. With a variety of car rental options, including camper vans and Jeeps outfitted with rooftop tents and all-inclusive camping gear, you will be equipped with all the supplies they need to begin their unity building expenditure. Customized itineraries and guided tour options make it easy to make your team building retreat a success.
Building Interdependence and Trust
In the Yukon, your team will encounter many unique challenges that will require them to be vulnerable with one another. As colleagues learn to navigate the wilderness conditions and depend on one another when they need it, they will gain a deeper understanding of trust and empathy for the people they work with.
On team retreats, Overland Yukon offers the option to add guided hikes and other wilderness activities designed to foster collaboration. Bring your team together, get moving, and end the day with a trust-building moment where everyone shares a personal challenge they’ve been struggling with recently. The emotional bonds built through these activities will allow for increased team engagement and productivity both in and outside of the workplace.
Better Communication
It’s no surprise that teams with strong communication skills complete tasks in quicker and more efficient amounts of time than others. Because of this, you should always be looking for new and creative ways to improve communication amongst your workforce. When a group of colleagues are placed in the wilderness for weeks at a time, their communication skills with one another are almost guaranteed to improve.
Try planning a canoeing activity as a group where your team will embark on a journey along one of Canada’s most historic fur trade routes, the Yukon River. Taking part in paddling is an excellent communication challenge since each member needs to listen to the other to move forward. This activity will teach your employees how to rely on teamwork to successfully complete their journey.
Teamwork makes the dream work
When planning team building activities, it’s crucial to ensure that the exercises aren’t individually competitive. This type of atmosphere encourages your employees to work against each other, and this isn’t a good thing when trying to build unity amongst your team. Both in the wilderness and the workplace, teamwork makes the dream work.
Set up a guided team hike where an Overland Yukon officer accompanies you through a one-of-a-kind experience through the extreme wilderness of Kluane National Park and Reserve. This dynamic activity will be a great way to connect with your employees, while taking in the spectacular nature around you.
Shared Experiences
Most workplace relationships between colleagues are civil but tend to stay on the surface. In our busy lives, we sometimes neglect our work relationships because of other matters. Another factor is that most of us have never even seen our colleagues outside work.
Bringing your team into a new environment will encourage them to get to know each other on a deeper level. Absent from distraction, colleagues will have a chance to bond over shared experiences such as driving the Dempster Highway together or seeing a grizzly bear for the first time. They will also be faced with challenges that allow them to grow their understanding of one another. This will help gain a new sense of intimacy and move into a more united workplace.
From communication exercises to trust-development, an activity-rich wilderness retreat in the Yukon will help your team foster the creativity and unity it needs to succeed. Nature at its purest, this area offers a certain sense of closeness for team building that you just can’t find anywhere else. Its beauty is plentiful, as are its challenges. At Overland Yukon, we want to help you uncover the parts of the Yukon that will engage your employees on a personal level so that they will perform better.
It's time to inspire your team.