Team-Building With Digital or Virtual Scavenger Hunts

Create Fantastic Team-Building Experiences, Boost Morale, and Enhance Team Productivity with Locatify’s Location-Based or Virtual Scavenger Hunts

Team-building is a buzzword these days and for good reason! During COVID, there was a nearly 2500% increase in interest in online and virtual team-building activities, and according to Gallup, feelings of employee isolation can reduce productivity up to 21% (source: Teambuilding).

Employees are an enterprise’s most valuable resource, and team-building activities are essential for fostering collaboration, boosting morale, and enhancing productivity within a group. These activities are designed to encourage team members to work together, communicate effectively, and develop problem-solving skills. Outdoor activities such as scavenger hunts have gained popularity in recent years and can be great team-building exercises. By engaging in these activities, teams can strengthen their bonds and improve their overall performance.

The concept of team-building was first set forward in the 1920s with the Howthorne Studies, which examined what happened to a group of workers under various conditions. These results might seem obvious to those reading this today, but the study suggested that a group’s identity and cohesion grew due to increased interaction between the group members. Today, the area of research has grown significantly, and team-building activities are a common practice used to develop an effective work team by putting them under various conditions with the intention of better cohesion in the workplace.

In this blog, we’re going to explore how managers and enterprises can use the Locatify apps and CMS to create and use digital or virtual scavenger hunts for team-building activities and events, both with TurfHunt and their own branded apps.

Location-Based or Virtual Team-Building with TurfHunt

The TurfHunt app is a widely used treasure hunt game app that is increasingly being used by team-building companies to create engaging and effective team-building events. It was initially developed for youth in schools going on field trips with their instructors who had created the game, and while it is still a popular app in education, it has become extremely popular for businesses looking for team-building activities.

Games are created online via the Locatify CMS and published to TurfHunt. The games can be location-based, using GPS navigation to trigger challenges automatically on location, or virtual, resulting in a game that can be played from anywhere, which is perfect for virtual teams scattered across the globe. Features include awarding points and prizes for finding challenge locations and solving challenges, and the option to measure time played and apply score penalties for using hints. Challenges included are: Memory card games (easy, medium, difficult), Jigsaw puzzle (easy, medium, difficult), multiple-choice-questions (option of using images as answers), Single-answer written text questions, Open-ended questions, Photo Challenges (plain, with stickers, draw on it) and Draw on a canvas.

Players are either placed in teams or play individually. In team mode, each player is part of a team, who collaborates on the best strategy to visit all the treasure locations and solve the challenges (sometimes within the game’s time limit), and competes against the other teams. In individual-player mode, players solve challenges and compete alone against each other. The results of the game are presented on the game’s scoreboard, visible to players from within the app. The photos uploaded by players during the challenges can be easily shared to social media, either by the player itself straight from the app or downloaded by the game admin from the scoreboard.

Besides providing a fun team-building experience, the app also proves popular with (busy!) managers, as the app provides an easier way to create and maintain electronic treasure hunt games compared to traditional pen-and-paper games. Managers and event organizers can quickly create customized treasure hunt games from anywhere, eliminating the need to physically place treasures (although those can also be incorporated) in an area and the possibility that the treasures are removed by people before the game even starts.

Team-Building with Branded Apps

Locatify’s branded apps are a popular option for team-building businesses and we offer apps that can easily be branded with the company’s logo and color scheme. A recent example is the Onigo app which is used to facilitate the social start-up company’s outdoor adventure game experiences and is aimed at companies looking for a fun and different team-building activity. This pioneering approach combines clever twists and cryptic puzzles with advanced gamification techniques to motivate engagement and maximize the fun. Played in small teams and using the Onigo app, participants must visit locations, solve puzzles and earn points in a themed mission against the clock. The Onigo app features include penalty points for using hints or not finishing the challenges before the time is up, and the ability to share a published game and the invitation codes with a physical facilitator on location. The game admin publishes the game to the app and then shares a URL with the game facilitator on location via any commutation channel, enabling them to start the game from their mobile device without logging in to the Locatify CMS.

Google employees in Hyde Park after a successful team-building session using the new Onigo app

In Conclusion

Team building activities like scavenger hunts can be an effective way to promote communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills among participants. The Locatify TurfHunt Treasure Hunt app has gained popularity in recent years and is increasingly being used by team-building companies and managers looking to boost morale and enhance productivity within their teams. For those looking for their own branded apps, examples like Onigo show that these games can easily be monetized and provide a great experience for the players.