We live in a society where communication sits at the top of everything. This is particularly true for companies where survival equals profit generation. Need to sell something? Your salesman needs to have flawless communication to tell why your product is the best without inadvertently giving away its drawbacks. Need to do damage control? You need to communicate to your stakeholders that the fire is not that big and you need to do so convincingly. Hence, communication happens to be the biggest skill an employee can have. If you are wondering how to build this crucial skill in your employees, here are the 6 best communication games and activities for employees to kickstart your corporate workshop!
- Back-to-Back Drawing
Here is the first communication activity for your employee. Called “Back-to-Back Drawing,” this is a fun way to see just how crucial clear communication really is.
Grab an even number of participants and pair them up. Each pair sits back-to-back with paper and pencil. One person describes a geometric image from a set, and the other draws it based only on verbal instructions.
After about 5-10 minutes, swap roles and discuss the experience. Use these questions to guide your chat:
Speaker questions:
- How did you make your instructions clear? How can you use these tips in real life?
- What can you do to reduce misunderstandings when you’re speaking?
Listener questions:
- What was useful about your partner’s instructions?
- How might your drawing have changed if you could talk directly with your partner?
- Effective Feedback in “I” Mode
Defensiveness can really mess up communication and spark conflicts. We all struggle with criticism, especially if it is not delivered well. This employee communication exercise is all about using “I” statements to give feedback in a way that focuses on your feelings without sounding accusatory.
Participants can either pair up or work alone with a worksheet containing imaginary scenarios. They use these scenarios to craft “I” statements to describe how these situations make them feel.
In pairs, they practice giving and receiving feedback. The goal is to communicate clearly and constructively without accusing the other person. It is a great way to learn how to express concerns while keeping the conversation open and respectful.
- Mimes
This is a fun communication game for corporate employees to learn why clear communication is so important. Grab a list of topics like weather or activities. Split everyone into pairs. One person acts out the topic from a card without speaking, and the other asks questions to guess what it is. This game shows how asking the right questions helps clear up confusion. After playing, the pair answers these questions:
- How did asking questions help you understand the mime better?
- Why are questioning skills important for understanding others?
- What stops us from asking questions when we should?
This corporate communication workshop activity is all about practicing listening skills and summarizing. Here’s how it works:
- Pair up participants. Each pair will take turns being the talker and the listener
- The talker describes their dream vacation for 3 minutes, sharing what they love about it
- The listener should pay close attention to show they are listening but they can only use non-verbal cues like nodding or eye contact
- After 3 minutes are up, the listener gives a brief “sales pitch” about the dream vacation based on what they learned. Then, both parties will discuss how well the listener captured the talker’s ideas
The pair will talk about how to improve their communication and listening skills, and then switch roles.
- Pet Peeve
Need to vent and practice active listening at the same time? This communication exercise for corporate workshops is perfect for that!
Here’s how it goes: Player A gets 60 seconds to rant about something that bugs them. It doesn’t have to be work-related. It could be something like hating pop-up ads or slow internet works. Meanwhile, the other person listens closely and tries to pick out:
- What Player A really cares about (like a smoother online experience)
- What they value (such as clear and honest ads)
- What matters to them (like getting work done without interruptions)
Player B then summarizes Player A’s rant by focusing on these key positive points, leaving out the negativity. They can use phrases like:
- “You value…”
- “You care about…”
- “You believe that… matters a lot”
Then, the players switch roles to repeat. This communication workshop exercise helps show that feedback can be positive and focused on what actually matters.
- Taboo
Taboo is a fun communication game for teams to boost creative thinking and communication. In this game, one player draws a card with a main word and a list of “taboo” words they can’t use. Their job is to get the other players to guess the main word without saying any of the banned words. For example, if the word is “chocolate,” you can’t say “candy,” “sweet,” “dessert,” or “cocoa.”
The challenge? Finding clever ways to describe the word without using the obvious terms. This game helps you think outside the box to communicate ideas more effectively. This will teach you patience and ways to communicate something when your teammate is unable to guess it at the first go.
Conclusion
Communication is a tricky skill to master. Everyone has their own style, which can lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations. Plus, it’s often challenging to convey ideas clearly. That’s where communication games and exercises come in. These activities offer a fun, low-pressure way for teammates to practice and improve their interaction skills.
If you are looking for effective corporate training or soft skills workshops for your employees, EducationNest will be the best choice for you. They are a well-known corporate training provider teaching essential soft and hard skills to corporate employees through expert-led programs. Their programs are also customizable which makes them the best choice for corporate teams with different needs.
