If you own a business, whether it's big or small, it is important that you have a set of employees who understand each other well and work together as a team for the venture to experience success. The philosophy behind the team building concept is, “what a team can achieve is much more than what individuals can achieve." Related: 5 Ways To Attract (And Keep!) The Best EmployeesIt is a dog-eat-dog world out there and team building becomes critical to improve company productivity and remain competitive.
Team Building – What Is It?
It is a process by which cooperation and teamwork are developed in a work unit within a company. In order to build an effective team, the members must have a common goal, respect each other, and be motivated enough to achieve objectives. The corporate philosophy is that each member in a team has an integral part to play in the company’s success. Team building effort offers a number of benefits. Some of them are listed below:Encourages Creativity
Team building activities help your employees to have fun and relax. They forget about work pressure for some time. A relaxed mind becomes more creative.Motivates Employees
Employees get a chance to interact with one another in a different setting outside the work environment. This helps them to loosen up a little and winning competitions boosts their confidence levels. It also helps employees to gain trust and work as a team.Communication
The communication capability of your employees improves a great deal as they participate in team building activities that are conducted inside or outside the company campus. When your employees experience improvements in all of the above areas, their productivity automatically increases.Team Building Exercises For Increasing Productivity
It is the teamwork that differentiates winners and losers. Members of a team need to trust each other and work together in order to efficiently and effectively complete a project. Each member will bring out his/her best performance, which leads to an overall improvement in productivity. Organizing team building exercises helps companies to enhance trust and cohesion between team members. Either companies can organize their own exercises or take the help of professional companies that have the expertise to design specialized events for your employees. You can see an example of what these companies can offer here on Corporate Challenge website. Listed bellow are some services these companies provide that are specifically designed to improve your teams effectiveness and team spirit of your employees. Employee Surveys/Feedback: They are a great way to break the ice and encourage the employees to provide suggestions and share ideas. Ultimately, it leads to an increase in productivity. Back-to-Back Drawing: Divide your employees into pairs and make them sit back to back. Give a picture to one person and to the other person paper and pencil. The person holding the picture will provide verbal instructions and the other person will replicate the picture based on the instructions. This exercise helps to impress upon the employees the importance of communication in improving productivity and also tends to be a lot of fun and a cause of many laughs. Stereotype Party: This fun exercise helps the team to understand the need to work cohesively to increase productivity. Pin nametags on which different personality types are written on the back of team members. No one should know what personality tag is fixed on their back. Each member can see others’ tags, but not theirs. Ask stereotype-based questions and get them to find their personality type. Outdoor Activity/Themed Event: Such events help to address specific team issues. During the course of such events, the importance of sharing vision, communicating and teamwork should be emphasized in a recreational manner. All said and done, it is important to organize follow up activities for team building exercises. Otherwise, employees will lose their sense of creativity and collaboration. Have in mind that team building is a continuative process, but its benefits are worth it.Related Posts
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