Companies are using Escape Rooms for better efficiency and improved performance which leads to better customer and employee relationships. Not only do these activities allow managers to better pinpoint areas of improvement but also employees who have hidden talents.
Escape Rooms may yet be unconventional but are gaining popularity yearly due to their low risk, high reward nature that promotes efficient problem-solving and better communication within organizations. Improvements in technology have made these activities easier to organize and more widely available which makes them perfect to improve your company’s efficiency.
The History
The concept of escape rooms was first heard of in 2003 when Jeff Martin created a game where players had to work together to solve the puzzles while exploring a physical space. Of course, back then, the game was not called an escape room.
Escape rooms as we know today came into existence in 2007. Real Escape Game (REG), based in Japan, was the first genuine escape room experience. The games in Japan consisted of mostly logical and mathematical puzzles. It then expanded to countries like Australia and Singapore and eventually spread like wild-fire all over the world.
There are approximately more than 50,000 escape rooms worldwide, out of which over 2000 are in the US. Puzzle Break, a Seattle-based company, was the first escape room company in the United States of America.
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Virtual Escape Rooms
Escape Rooms have evolved along with technology. Online and virtual reality escape games are now widely available and popular, especially in circumstances when the players’ physical presence might not be possible.
These online or virtual escape games operate from various video conferencing platforms and have their perks. Some of the advantages of virtual escape rooms are:
- They are mostly cost-effective and sometimes even free.
- They don’t require any additional setups like catering or transport.
- Online games can often host a larger number of people than physical escape rooms.
Escape Rooms as Team Building Activities
The corporate world is mostly dependent on the smooth functioning of its internal organizations or teams. Team-building is a tricky technique to master, but it can vastly improve the efficiency and performance of the workforce when done right.
The benefits of team-building activities are abundant. These tailored activities can help:
- Build trust.
- Encourage communication, creativity, and risk-taking.
- Improve conflict resolution, morale, and collaboration skills.
- It helps in pointing out particular strengths and underlying weaknesses that may have gone unnoticed.
Team building activities have evolved from traditional scavenger hunts and retreats to more advanced meta-team building activities and live-action games like escape rooms. At Growth Hackers, we’ve seen how escape rooms transform teams: boosting trust, collaboration, and problem-solving skills in ways traditional workshops can’t.
With the rise of remote workers and as technology evolves, so must your strategy for building stronger bonds within your team. Whether it’s an event at a physical location or in virtual form, Escape Rooms are the perfect way to create a positive working environment, improve company morale, and help your employees gain confidence by promoting more efficient problem solving and unlocking hidden talents.
Why Escape Rooms Are Perfect For Companies
1. Escape Rooms are an unconventional yet effective space
Escape Rooms not only give a different environment and set up; they provide a fresh perspective for your team to learn to work together, bond and ultimately strive for a common goal.
2. Strategizing for the win
Escape Rooms help teams find out what their strengths and weaknesses are as a collective unit. The detailed report that escape room companies provide after the game (regardless of Win or loss) delivers strategies that can be used for improvement. Most of the time, the takeaway or the memorable experience is the reason people return. When we ran a recent team workshop at Growth Hackers, one struggling department cracked their “puzzle” in record time, leaving with a clear strategy they still reference months later.
3. There is no risk if you succeed or fail; it’s all a part of the game
You may not want to take risks, especially when at your job. Escape rooms provide a safe place to test ideas, which boosts confidence and acknowledges that risk is part of the riddle!
Escape rooms help in building healthy esteem, which translates to positive results in the workplace. When you get comfortable offering information, contributions in the workplace, see a confident and upwards graph!
4. You may just discover hidden talents on your team!
Fresh ideas and solutions are always welcome, but sometimes, unexpected team-members are the ones who come up with some out-of-the-box ideas! Escape rooms are a great way to level the playing field and allow everyone to exhibit their skills.
In escape rooms, individual efforts and communication are the keys to solve the puzzles and successfully escape the rooms. It’s a perfect reflection of the workplace where smooth functioning can only happen with each team member’s co-operation and independent effort.
5. Improves company culture
Company culture can be defined as a set of shared values, goals, attitudes, and practices that characterize an organization. It is important to reiterate these core values to ensure that every team member is on the same page.
- Escape room adventures allow your employees to assess each other’s skills. It brings out who functions the best under pressure and who thinks most logically during their escape room attempt. This realization can unlock their potential that could be very helpful back at the office.
- Identifying clues, solving puzzles, and finding their way out of a tricky situation lets your team learn to work together toward creative solutions. Imagine how those skills will come into play the next time they’re putting together a client presentation or working hard to turn a problem client into a brand advocate.
During a recent Growth Hackers workshop, one team discovered untapped leadership and creative thinking in their members, turning what started as a fun exercise into lasting improvements in how they work together.
6. Promotes efficient problem-solving
Escape Rooms are examples of creative solutions structured for instant results! Find the leader, the finder, the worker, and the challenger. You might be pleasantly surprised by what you find. Before our Growth Hackers workshops, teams often struggled to assign roles effectively; after experiencing our problem-solving exercises, every member knows their strengths and contributes with purpose and speed.
When you examine the roles people take on during escape rooms, you can gauge precisely which of these roles would be best suited for the workplace. The information that you find can be kept in mind when handing out promotions or projects!
7. Gives supervisors & managers a fresh perspective
In some escape room games, supervisors and managing personnel can observe the game in the process. This provides valuable information about your team’s structure, capabilities, and creative skills.
The manager(s) might even be able to communicate during the game or help solve the mystery from a separate room.
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Steps to Follow in Order to Facilitate an Escape Room
1. Define goals
Establishing goals is the first step to maximizing the escape room team-building experience. For example, if the goal is only to have fun, there’s little to no effort needed from the company’s side. But, if the goal is to induce indeed a team-building event that will help in the employees’ long-term productivity and hence the company, a bit of research will need to be undertaken.
We treat goal-setting like plotting a map at Growth Hackers: without a clear destination, even the most exciting journey risks getting lost. Properly discussing the set goals with the escape room staff will also ensure that both the escape room staff and the company are on the same page.
2. Identify options
Not all escape games are created or are tailored for team-building. The escape room selected should come stocked with engaging puzzles, logical flow, and multiple intelligences for success for optimal results.
3. Choose a room
With thousands of escape room owners relying on highly variable quality standards and pricing strategies, higher cost doesn’t always translate to better experiences. A bit of a background check will go a long way in ensuring that your team has the best possible corporate event.
4. Foreshadow
Most escape games feature a point at which various team members must simultaneously share their individual results. Foreshadowing helps team members recognize opportunities for delegation, compartmentalization, communication, execution, prioritization, etc.
These words can sound vague and daunting at times, but escape rooms bring them to life and provide long-term, overall growth opportunities.
5. Experience
Upon entering the room, different bits of intelligence and other personalities will have a condensed, unique, shared learning experience.
The playing field for all team members is leveled as all voices are required to solve the puzzle.
6. Debrief
Debriefing may be the most crucial step of all. Letting all the team members know their weaknesses and allowing for a healthy discussion and resolution of the points will optimize the experience.
It should be kept in mind that some teams may require multiple debriefing sessions to address the specific source of conflict or miscommunication. As your goal is to use the Escape Rooms for better efficiency, this step is vital to your outcome.
Post Event Questions
As mentioned above, debriefing is an essential step to make sure that the team-building event was a successful one and you’re able to maximize your use of Escape Rooms for better efficiency.
Here are some questions that can help you get started off with the debriefing
1. Did you work closely with anyone to help during the experience? Did you feel good about working with this person or group?
2. Explain a time during the game where you felt everyone was working together. Did you at any time feel that the team was struggling? Identify the causes of these two situations.
3. According to you, what was your role within the team? How did you contribute to the group?
4. What all would change if there were different rules? Imagine that nobody was allowed to talk. How would that alter the final result?
5. What was done effectively and what was tried that didn’t work well? Is there anything that you would change?
6. What skills and knowledge you had to use during the experience?
7. Do you think that time management skills played an essential part in completing the game?
8. If you and your team came back to attempt escape rooms, what would you do differently? Is there anything that you would do entirely the same? Why?
9. Could you relate the experience with what you do at work? Some points include working together as a team, time management, communication, and using your strengths to benefit the team.
10. What would you consider to be the most enjoyable part of the entire event?
11. Is there any part of the game that you did not particularly care for? What was it? How would you change it to make the event better?
12. Overall, do you believe that this team-building event was successful?
Increase Your Efficiency by Improving Company Culture
Escape Rooms are just one more cost-effective tool for your company to work with its employees to built trust, encourage communication and collaboration, and promote creativity. Traditional team building is at a crossroads so why not try Escape Rooms for better efficiency?
With the rise of remote workers and as technology evolves, so must your strategy for building stronger bonds within your team. Whether it’s an event at a physical location or in virtual form, Escape Rooms are the perfect way to create a positive working environment, improve company morale, and help your employees gain confidence by promoting more efficient problem solving and unlocking hidden talents.
By gaining a fresh perspective of how your company operates, you’ll be able to incorporate your employee’s strengths and weaknesses into your strategy to gain an advantage over your competition.
Growth Hackers is a digital marketing and growth hacking agency that helps businesses from all over the world develop strategies to become more efficient with their employees and customers. We create an effective plan and implement it for you! If you want to improve your company’s efficiency while driving more leads and sales, contact Growth Hackers today.
