Benefits of Hiking in Workplace
I was a University Professor for over 20 years. I worked at 4 different institutes all over the country, from Michigan to Colorado to Massachusetts to Tennessee. For those of you who don’t know the academic system, each department – such as Biomedical Engineering- has faculty and then each faculty member has graduate and undergraduate students who work in their research laboratories and conduct research based on the faculties expertise. For example, my research laboratory focused on Orthopaedic Biomechanics which is related to things like reconstruction of torn ligaments in the knee joint or osteoarthritis in the knee.
All that said, what does this have to do with the OUTDOORS? Well, I learned early on in my career that if you can get your team together in the outdoors, your team will bond and most certainly increase production. I don’t know why it works. I can take some guesses, but they would only be my guesses. For starters, when I was at Colorado State, team bonding in the outdoors happened at multiple levels. Our entire department went on a retreat in the great outdoors of Poudre Canyon. We went on hikes, we had campfires, we bonded outside of work. We were away from technology. You’ll see in the photo that most of us have our hiking boots on! You can get your best hiking shoes at
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Also while at Colorado State, I was able to practice this idea within my own team. My students (6 of them at the time) all went up to the Rocky Mtns. Part of the day was spent talking science, and then the rest of the time they are open to enjoy the outdoors and bond. Again, hiking and getting to know each other in the beautiful mountains of Colorado. Each team member told me upon return that they felt they knew their lab members better and that it would benefit them in the lab because it would be a lot easier to work together now that they know each other outside of the research laboratory setting.
Lastly, and most recently, when I was in Massachusetts, I took my lab group again on an amazing hike to Mt. Toby Forest. I hiked with them. We had all different experience levels from expert hikers to just beginners. We all made it to the top. Most of us carried a day pack with room for water and lunch- you can get your day pack at the link below from Fortheoutdoorenthusiast.com
We learned a lot about each other while we were hiking to the top. I feel it helped me to see my team outside of the work environment, and doing something physical. Sometimes you get to see what else they enjoy in life besides work, their partners or their pets. I feel it is such a valuable experience and all teams to take the opportunity to spend sometime in the outdoors together.
