When Michelle Todaro, HR Manager at eSuperfund, sent out an employee survey, she wasn’t expecting a single response to set the agenda for their next team event. But one staff member’s suggestion — “Let’s do a bonding session with Urban Quest” — quickly gained traction.
That’s how eSuperfund ended up at Urban Quest’s Melbourne CBD team building event on an afternoon that Michelle describes as one of the most successful team activities they’ve run.
The Brief — Breaking Down Department Silos
eSuperfund operates across multiple departments that don’t always interact day-to-day. Michelle’s goal was specific:
“We’ve got lots of different teams in our company. We wanted to mix up everybody — different groups they don’t normally associate with. So it was great to have our accounts team and our IT teams all mixed up on the day.”
That deliberate cross-department mixing is the structural decision that makes team building events genuinely useful rather than merely enjoyable. When existing friendship groups stay intact, people have a good time but don’t discover anything new about their colleagues. When the accounts team is competing alongside the IT team, the usual office dynamics don’t apply — and people see each other differently.
A Team That Surprised Itself
Before the event, Michelle had concerns she shared openly:
“I thought they might get a bit bored. And people were worried that the questions were going to be too complicated.”
The reality was the opposite. eSuperfund’s team turned out to be exactly the kind of group Urban Quest’s format suits best:
“I think we’re a lot better — a lot better than I thought. Everyone seems to have been able to answer some questions pretty easily. The clues were good.”
The challenge calibration is deliberate — Urban Quest’s challenges are designed to be accessible enough that every team makes progress while still being genuinely difficult enough to require real collaborative thinking. A team that’s never stumped is bored. A team that’s permanently stumped disengages. The balance between those two states is where the competitive energy lives.
The Energy Shift — 3 pm to 4:30 pm
Michelle’s most vivid observation wasn’t about what happened during the challenge. It was about what happened afterwards:
“You can see the difference in the team vibe and the noise level from when we first arrived here at 3:00 to now — it’s 4:30 and everyone’s buzzing and chatting and talking about how they were running around and following each other and the clues and trying to eavesdrop on each other. It was really funny.”
That shift — from the slightly formal energy of arrival to the animated, laughing conversation of a group who’ve just shared something — is the outcome that’s hardest to manufacture and easiest to recognise when it happens. Michelle saw it in the noise level. In a staffroom, it shows whether people are actually talking to each other or staring at their phones.
Why Urban Quest Worked Better Than Bowling
eSuperfund had run other team activities before. Michelle had a clear sense of what made this one different:
“The other team things we’ve done in the past is usually like bowling or some sort of games. But this has been a lot more fun because our team loves trivia and clues. They’re really smart people — so they just thrive on competition.”
The match between the activity and the team’s character matters more than most organisers realise. A team of analytical, curious people who love a good puzzle responds differently to Urban Quest than they would to a cooking class or a paint-and-sip evening. Both have their place — but knowing which fits your team is half the job. Michelle knew.
Inclusive by Design
One of Michelle’s closing observations addresses the concern most HR managers have about team activities with mixed groups — that some people will feel left behind:
“It’s great because everyone loved it, no matter your age or your ability. Because you’ve got a team — so even though you may not be very good at trivia or clues, somebody in your team is. But you might be good at another component of getting the team over the line.”
That inclusivity isn’t accidental. Urban Quest’s challenge structure requires multiple types of contribution simultaneously — navigation, clue reading, problem solving, answer verification — which means different people are the most valuable team members at different moments. No single skill set wins the game. The quiet analyst, the social connector and the fast navigator all have their moment.
Michelle’s Advice to Other HR Managers
“Just do it. It’s great fun. Everyone loved it.”
And her specific observation for HR managers thinking about cross-department bonding:
“You get to know people on a personal level. When you’ve shared an experience like this, it really helps to bond team members — which they really need.”
The employee who suggested Urban Quest in the survey got their wish. And the event delivered enough that Michelle has a clear answer for any colleague who asks whether it’s worth doing.
Explore Urban Quest’s corporate team building formats →
Read what actually changes after a team building event →
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Michelle Todaro is HR Manager at eSuperfund. Urban Quest has delivered team building events for eSuperfund across multiple cohorts, including accounts, IT, and mixed department groups.
