There has been something of a team building revolution happening over the last ten years or so, with companies finally realising that their team cohesion is incredible important. Lots of research has in fact been done on this area and it shows that those teams who understand each others roles and communicate well, always perform better than teams who might sound better on paper, but don’t interact well.

The number of companies choosing to use team building days has risen by 23% in the last 5 years, and the range of activities open to businesses has more than doubled. You can now partake in virtual reality team building computer games, or help run a farm for a day. One type of team building day that has proved very popular is corporate cookery days. These usually involve 2 or more teams competing against each other to produce restaurant-standard food, under the pressure of a time limit and usually an overzealous head chef breathing down your neck.

The cooking days have been helped along by the increasing profile of Chef Gordon Ramsey and his straight talking management style. Indeed, the cookery days often adopt a Gordon Ramsey style approach, with a demonic chef and lots of verbal ‘discussions’ going on. Some might consider this a little intimidating, although it really is just a bit of fun and nothing gets taken too seriously when someone gets told off for burning the omelette for example

These fun, tongue in cheek style team building days are even starting to replace corporate hospitality events.For years companies arranged boring corporate dinners and spectator sports events, where clients and management could mingle.Nobody wants to be sitting around idle, having to produce forced smiles every five minutes, they want to be getting involved with the entertainment. And who can blame them, starting a food fight at someone else’s expensive has to be the best way to have fun doesn’t it?