Just who got the most out of your last team-building exercise? Did you finish it with a new respect for your workmates? Did your bosses pat themselves on the back for a man-management chore well done?

Or did somebody else, who needed help more than either of you, get something out of it?

This, you need to know, is the big move in motivation and team-building schemes. A few years ago, it was all about "me fulfilling my potential", then it was all about "us, the team", and now it's all about putting this effort to good use, for charity and in the community.

Some employers have always done it in a way. The milkshake company Dinkum of Birmingham uses every opportunity to help out. When it recently sent its team down the river on a raft made of milkshake cups, to see if they could all make it work, they shook a few cups as well and gathered £500 for the Acorn Children's Trust.

Bringing others into your team

But suddenly the good-works element has become an integral part of team-building. Ian Wolter of PA recruitment specialist Eden Brown, says he has seen it coming:

"We've done exercises for Electricite de France, who run a lot of power companies in Britain. They suggested those exercises should have a charity or community role, so we devised a day-long outward-bound event, involving building a garden for people in sheltered housing. This involved some really clever work, because they had to cater for elderly, disabled, and partially-sighted people."

"This was classic team-building, but instead of the pointless games you sometimes see, this was a donation in kind to the community. It was also a very effective project, because the participants could lose themselves in it. Instead of feeling they were 'being observed' or 'being trained', they just threw themselves into achieving the target."

There are now specialist companies who will organise this for you. Probably the most active is Three Hands, where Simon Hamilton has already been combining team challenges with good works for six years, and has already won a national training award for his work.

These are individually-designed programmes. Simon Hamilton asks about a company's core values and interests, liaises with the employer's chosen charity or finds one to suit, and then plans the training programme which matches the company's training brief to something that the charity needs.

A tough challenge

He ran the first Pfizer Team Community Challenge, which helped out Action for Sick Children (Scotland), a charity which helps very young children with the fears they have before going into hospital. Part of the answer is a "hospital playbox", and the Pfizer staff were given a very short time to raise £7,500 to pay for the boxes, then deliver them to 23 hospitals including sites in Northern Ireland and the western and northern Scottish Isles, using only public transport. And while doing it, they had to raise public awareness of the charity through press and radio, carry out a survey at each hospital, and make a presentation on their work, all before a deadline.

Did the Pfizer team succeed? They raised nearly three times the cash target, delivered all the boxes, gave 18 interviews about the challenge and the charity to newspapers, radio and television, and finished with fifteen minutes to spare. The company's management confirmed that a great deal was also learned about working as a team.

Elsewhere, Three Hands had senior managers from the Appeals Service of the Department of Work and Pensions complete a challenge for a mental health charity. This was relevant training - people who come before the appeals service are often inarticulate, some have learning problems or other difficulties in coping with such things.

Against the clock

Three Hands challenged them to convert a piece of derelict ground at the back of a MIND drop-in centre in Macclesfield. The area was to be turned into a relaxing patio with garden furniture, a barbecue, plants and flowers, in three days - the twist was that once the team had started, they were advised that all the invitations had already been sent out for a high-profile barbecue on the Friday! They did it.

The Sandstone company of Cheshire, which has worked together with Three Hands, makes the distinction in such projects between team-bonding and team-building. If you want to "bond", says the company, then go to the pub - but socially-responsible team-building delivers far more.

And the CCC group, who will do everything you need to send your team on a sponsored abseil down the side of a building, recently totted up the amount they had helped employers raise for charities over 13 years' imaginative team-building - and found it came to over a million pounds.