Team building events are often viewed with a sense of scepticism. Many individuals, from directors to trainees, believe that team building events aren’t useful and that they don’t have a positive effect. This is far from the truth. Whilst some team building activities are undoubtedly poorly designed and ineffective, others can do wonders for a company’s culture and workplace.
In this short guide, we will work through a few of the most notable advantages of a well organised and competent team building event for your business.
Cooperation and Bonding
At the heart of employee satisfaction is the working environment and inter-staff relationships. Being part of a team that doesn’t get along or doesn’t know each other well results in a disgruntled and unhappy employee.
Well-designed and focused team building ice breakers are excellent for bringing staff together because they require teamwork and understanding. For example, tasking your staff to create a brand logo, strapline and mission statement calls on multiple different skills including artistry, marketing knowledge, industry awareness and presentation abilities. This forces your team to work together and utilise each other’s skillsets, creating an avenue for them to learn about each other and succeed as a group.
Encouraging your team to bond and cooperate through team building makes it easier for them to do the same in the workplace – it’s really that simple.
Company Morale
It’s very clear if your company is suffering from a low workforce morale. People drag their feet during the working day, rarely laugh or discuss and teams isolate themselves from each other. In every sense, a low company morale actively harms the business by hindering effective communication and employee productivity.
Some of the more structural ways to improve company morale is through giving employees purpose. A value statement that represents the company’s goals is great at this because it shows staff that they are contributing to a good cause. Other techniques for improving company morale are ensuring that you celebrate staff accomplishments, enable employers to see the benefit of their work and most importantly – have some fun now and then.
A well-thought-out team building event is excellent at combining fun with productivity. Use these occasions to mix up the working day and break up everyday life, removing any feeling of monotony and creating a talking point for staff. Enjoyable experiences are what people like to discuss, if you link these enjoyable experiences with the workplace then employees will find it much easier to associate the two and enjoy work more.
Focused Skill Development
Aside from formal training, there are very few ways of constructively develop a single set of skills for the workplace. Furthermore, it can be difficult to make formal training enjoyable and engaging, which hinders the lesson being taught.
One of the few informal development systems that actually works is the use of ice breaker team building events. Ice breaking activities are incredible at indirectly educating and developing targeted skills for your employees. Furthermore, if you want to formalise the instruction, it’s easy to conclude the ice breaker with a summary session that highlights the most important lessons being learnt.
If you’re trying to develop and emphasise the importance of a soft skill, don’t hesitate to use a well-chosen team building event as a catalyst for this discussion. You will be surprised at how well employees respond and recall lessons learnt through engaging activities as opposed to serious presentation.
Hopefully this post will have highlighted some of the major reasons for your business to make use of team building events. These activities are an extremely versatile tool that can be useful in all industries and all scenarios; just ensure that you do your research and find the right offering for you and your business.