Team building takes time and some preparation, and it slows you down in getting your team to its goals… or does it? While it might seem like a waste of valuable time, some of the benefits of team building include:
- Increased employee engagement
- Increased creativity
- Improved communication
- Better problem-solving skills
- Better conflict-resolution skills
- Development of leaders
- Improved customer service
- Positive effects on corporate culture
- Attraction of candidates
- Reduced turnover
- Improved productivity
(1) Increased employee engagement and job satisfaction
Employees who feel connected to a team have a sense of comradery. They belong to something with others. Associates who feel more connected to others within their department have more buy-in regarding the team goals. Collaboration is essential in many team building exercises, which ultimately improves group dynamics. As a result, trust comes more easily.
All of this can lead to more job satisfaction. Individuals with an overall sense of satisfaction on the job are typically more engaged and are likely to be more productive.
(2) Increased creativity
Team building activities often enable individuals to be creative in ways that they otherwise may not get the chance in their day-to-day routines. Depending on the activity, they may be able to add interesting solutions to an exercise, or might even be able to demonstrate unique ideas that enable them to shine in front of their peers or supervisors.
(3) Improved communication
Corporate team building activities force employees to work on their communication skills, helping them improve the way that they get ideas across to others, as well as how they listen and process ideas that others present. This translates to improved communication throughout the team on corporate initiatives.
(4) Better problem-solving skills
The nature of team building exercises is to have a group work on a project together. The goal of each activity varies, but many are designed to have groups work on solving specific problems through collaborative effort. Having your group do this through short, fun activities helps develop their ability to solve problems with others when the results directly impact the company.
(5) Better conflict resolution skills
Again, each team building exercise will have its own goal, but many games/projects in team building are designed specifically for the purpose of practicing the give and take of problem-solving in groups. No one is always right, and no one should always have the best idea for the circumstances. Some team building projects focus on the “push-pull” that is at the core of working well in a group.
(6) Development of leaders and their skills
All of the benefits mentioned so far are skills needed for effective leadership. And great leaders develop other leaders. Team building exercises can help you hone the leadership skills of your associates, developing a potential successor, or a leader in a different area within the organization.
In an article about leadership published by Jimmy Brown, Ph.D. and senior-level management consultant, he states that “the number of people that the average person can directly influence is finite. To be able to lead large organizations, however, leaders need to be able to influence hundreds to thousands of people. How do they do this? They lead other leaders who in turn lead others, and so on down the line.” (Benedictine University, Developing Leadership Skills in Others.)
(7) Improved customer service
It can be argued that any team has customers that they serve; even teams that don’t deal directly with the public or groups outside of their own company have “internal customers.”
There are many team building activities that focus specifically on the group delivering the best results to their customer, whomever that might be. And, truly, in most cases, the bottom line should be how well a team meets or exceeds their customers’ needs.
(8) Positively affecting corporate culture
All of the positive effects mentioned above directly influence corporate culture. When teams are doing good things to improve how they interact and deliver results, the company gets the benefit from that positive momentum.
(9) Attraction of candidates
With competition stiff for the best candidates in certain verticals, companies able to tout team building initiatives have an additional advantage over others. The best candidates often want organizations that do positive things that other companies aren’t willing to do. (Who wouldn’t be more interested in a company knowing that they take proactive steps to ensure that their teams are collaborative and cohesive?)
(10) Can reduce turnover
If a result of team building is improved employee engagement, which in turn improves employee satisfaction (or visa verse), the employee will be less likely to seek other opportunities. And company turnover (and the direct and indirect costs associated with it) impacts the bottom line.
(11) Increased productivity
A result of all of the preceding benefits is that of increased productivity. Teams perform better when they have more engagement, more creativity and better communication, are able to develop better problem-solving skills, and improve customer service. The company not only benefits from those direct results, but by also attracting better talent, reducing attrition, and slowly improving the corporate culture.
Now that we’ve talked about the benefits, what are the best ways to incorporate team building with your team?
Let’s start with some important things to keep in mind when team building:
- Start each team building activity with a goal in mind. What are you wanting to do? Are you wanting your team to get to know each other? Work on problem-solving? Improve clarity of communication? Develop trust? Just have fun? Determine what you are focusing on within the team and focus on one thing at a time.
- Find the commonalities, but also celebrate the differences. Diversity of people, their methods and idea, and sometimes how they communicate them create a stronger team.
- Healthy, fun-seeking competition can work towards accomplishing the initiatives of the team building, but sometimes competition can backfire. Some people just don’t like to compete, and some people want to win at all costs, and both of these can set the team back. Be careful not to let the competition get in the way of the objectives.
- Team building can work well in-office and can work well in different settings.
- Benefits of in-office team building- may be more time efficient, less preparation, and the team can easily take care of company business if it crops up
- Benefits of team building outside the office- a new, different setting, more focus on the team activities, employees may relax more knowing that they won’t get called into company business
Examples of Team Building Activities
Lunch and Learns
- These can be having lunch on-site together where group member bring their own meal, open topics are discussed, planned topics are discussed, or a little of both, or
- The lunch is together on-site, but outsourced
- The group goes off-site
Job shadowing in other departments
- this helps associates learn things outside of their dept
- promotes a positive corporate culture because departments are interacting in a work setting
- could encourage career growth by introducing them to an avenue they may want to explore
Collaboration on involvement in community events
- Does the company have community initiatives that it’s passionate about? Does your department? Either way, getting involved in a group or small groups to help in the community fosters teamwork outside of the corporate confines, and promotes a greater good together.
- This could be a team building activity where a department orchestrates the outreach project, or just participates in it
- An additional positive from this type of activity is with public relations in your company’s involvement with the community. A press release would let the public know about your company and how it participated, spreading positive awareness regarding your organization’s outreach.
Ice breakers at meetings
There are heaps of ice breakers that a department can do at various times throughout the day. Often, these are done at the beginning of meetings to bring the group together after a fun activity.
Know the intent of the ice-breaker. Is it to encourage involvement? For them to get to know something new about participants? Is it to improve communication skills? Focus on the purpose when finding and putting these into action.
Note: Some ice-breakers work well, and some that you might think would go over well just fizzle. The duds are also a great opportunity for discussions and a laugh!
Book clubs
Does your group like to read? Even if some don’t, can they manage a chapter or two from week to week? These can work well to bring a group together for discussion of either a book that was decided as a winner by the group, or one picked to help develop certain skills.
Note: These usually only work as a team bonding thing when you get everyone’s buy-in and everyone participates.
Bring-a-child-to-work-days
This is an infrequent opportunity for employees to show off their family and for associates to know more about the outside life of those they work with. (It’s also a great way to get young people excited about the work your company does!)
Department versus department competitions
Some companies have yearly (or more frequent depending on the event) competitions between departments. This can bring each department together in a fun way to win a prize — even if it’s just bragging rights — over the rest of the departments. It also helps build unity through a large team- building (or company-building) initiative.
We’ve seen events like home-made, internal putt-putt golf. Each year the company puts out a theme and each department is responsible for creating their “obstacle” for their specific hole. It’s crazy how involved some of these folks would get to have their department win!
Outsourced, outlined team building videos
There are SO many resources these days that enable team leaders to pull together effective team building exercises without having to do much planning or organizing on their own.
Many training companies today provide digital downloads of just about any topic that can be delivered in modules during a weekly meeting. Many good ones also have discussion questions outlined for the group to talk about after the videos. The only steps for the leader to take are to determine the topics of focus, and to decide what training organization provides the best delivery and value.
In summary, there’s no question that team building activities can strengthen a team and help the team more effectively provide their deliverables. It’s just a matter of deciding what areas the team should work on, the time frames that work best for your department, and the best methods to use. Then…. just get started!