Help desk technician Brandon McCullough carefully balances an orange on his head at last month’s meeting, during the teambuilding exercise devised by Arlen Tsao.
When Information Systems holds its monthly department meeting, it’s about more than getting everyone on the same page: Because IS employees rotate through running the meetings and devising fun teambuilding exercises, it’s also a chance for them to grow as workers and have fun as a group.
“I just think it’s a good idea to make sure that everyone’s involved,” says VP and department head Dana Scherff, who implemented the idea about three years ago. “Instead of just attending a meeting and listening to me, it’s good for them to take the lead and have some input, and come up with some creative ideas.”
With just over a dozen employees in IS, each one ends up running a meeting about once a year. When an employee’s turn comes up, they reach out to managers of the department’s applications, help desk, and infrastructure teams for agenda items — projects the teams are working on or that have just been completed, or pain points users have reported that the whole department should know about.
“We learn about budgets, what is going on with the bank, any important moves, and we discuss what our individual groups have been doing since our last meeting,” senior application analyst Dorothy Beringer says. She adds: “Our department is so much fun on meeting days!”
Application development team leader Sherri Scalish takes her turn with the orange.
“The first time took some planning, but after getting used to it, I’d say it really only takes about an hour now,” says help desk technician Arlen Tsao, who kicked off the rotation when it first began.
Besides the agenda and bringing in a snack, choosing a teambuilding exercise is the other major task. Arlen invented a fun one for the most recent meeting, in July.
“I had the department split into two even teams and line up,” he says. “One person from each team then put an orange on their head, and walked all the way to the other side of the room and back without dropping it. If they dropped it, they had to stop walking, pick up the orange, and balance it again.”
Application systems manager Kalim Khan keeps it steady.
“Probably my favorite game was one where we were secretly paired off through cards with animal names on them,” systems analyst Dan Fregoso says. “Then we all had to close our eyes and find our partner through everyone making the sound that the animal on their card makes. It was hard to make the noise since I was laughing so hard.”
That’s a big part of the point, says Dana.
“Being in IT, it can get pretty stressful, so it’s important to laugh,” she says. “After a teambuilding exercise — especially one that’s pretty funny — I’ve noticed that good feeling continues throughout the day.”
Dan agrees.
“It’s something fun to do during the day with your co-workers, which improves morale and brings us together through shared experiences,” he says. “The nature of IT is that our three teams mostly interact only when there are problems. This is a welcome change to that.”