Are you looking for a team building exercise for your next employee meeting? Look no further than this challenge.

Turn off all the lights in your office, blindfold everyone at their workspace and put on some relaxing music for about 10-minutes. Encourage your employees to relax and take a break. Let them know this is a team building exercise and at no point are they allowed to take off their blindfolds.

While your team is relaxing place some obstacles in the path of egress to exit doors.  If you have more than one exit door, feel free to block one of them.

At the 10-minute mark sound an alarm for evacuation. Yell “FIRE DRILL” or use an air horn and get everyone to evacuate the workspace!

While timing them (5 minutes or less to evacuate) observe how people move around and help one another to evacuate the building.

Upon conclusion of the drill, discuss with your team the problems they faced and how they overcame those issues to make sure everyone got out safe.

Now imagine a real-life emergency situation where finding your way to an exit is the only thing that will save your life. Imagine this happens to you in a building you have never been in before and don’t know your way around or even how to get out.  This is a good time to make sure your emergency lights are operational and is required by NFPA. Monthly and annual testing is necessary to ensure people are safe.  A good time to schedule your annual emergency and exit lighting 90-min discharge test is during your annual fire alarm test and inspection.