Organizations in every industry look for better ways to improve their performance standards. While they may recruit the best employees and spend money on performance-enhancing resources, it’s vital to focus on teamwork and strategies to enhance collaboration.
Some HR departments have great programs to cultivate teamwork, but most organizations overlook team-building activities due to logistics and scheduling hassles. However, team-building activities are essential, especially in the evolving workplace models that include hybrid and remote teams.
Here are a few ways team building activities can improve teamwork to ensure better productivity.
1. Improve Collaboration
At least 75% of employers value teamwork and collaboration in the workplace. It allows team members to focus on a particular activity and work towards a common goal. In addition, it’s essential to ensure jobs are completed on time. Teams can be more effective in handling demanding tasks than when working independently.
However, this doesn’t mean that if a group gets along, they will do the job effectively. Each team member has various responsibilities and schedules, making collaboration difficult for remote teams.
With sufficient team building, teams can work as equals and learn how to complement each other’s strengths. Team building teaches team members how to delegate tasks, contribute value, and exchange ideas.
2. Enhance Communication
Effective communication is critical in professional and personal relationships. Typically, communication barriers can cost your business lots of money due to the disconnect it creates. Most organizations invest in communication to ensure trust among employees and a free flow of feedback. Good communication in a company fosters employees’ engagement and productivity.
Most importantly, excellent communication is essential for virtual teams. Many details often get lost in translation since the teams can’t read voice tones and body language. While video and voice calls can eliminate communication breakdown, virtual teams can work for years without getting a chance to communicate face-to-face. It’s essential to facilitate team-building activities to ensure members are familiar with how teammates communicate.
3. Boost Morale
Employees are valuable members of any company and should be treated as such. Team building sessions are a good way for organizations to show appreciation to employees. People who are satisfied with their jobs are more likely to perform better at the workplace and personal life, unlike less motivated employees.
People that enjoy working with their colleagues are more engaged, creative, and productive. Employers can make their staff more excited about the workplace by making them feel appreciated in different ways. While most companies and employees embrace the work-from-home model, it’s easy to become complacent. In fact, it can lead to burnout, loneliness, depression, and lack of motivation.
On the other hand, team participation activities give employees new things to look forward to. Regular team-building activities can help renew the team’s energy and sustain motivation. When a company dedicates resources to organizing an interesting team-building retreat, the employees will feel appreciated and valued. This boosts the team’s motivation and overall productivity.
4. Problem Solving Skills
Most people don’t achieve optimum success when working independently since they need to consult and ask for advice on certain issues. Typically, groups of five can outperform an expert working alone because it’s easier to generate accurate ideas and solutions regarding the problem at hand. On the contrary, groups of two may not be as effective as trios.
Subjecting your team to a team-building environment helps everyone to brainstorm and contribute ideas in a favorable environment. Since the issues they solve are unrelated to work, it’s easier for everyone to ask questions or air their opinions.
5. Increase Productivity and Healthy Competition
Teams share the workload when they work together, meaning a member with less work can lend a hand to other members with more work. This collaboration ensures projects are completed on time, thus improving productivity. Team building enhances individual and collective productivity, leading to efficient processes.
As individuals participate in teamwork, they get a chance to learn new skills while enhancing existing skills. When team members learn to complement each other, they develop seamless working routines and practices, ensuring they complete tasks faster.
People tend to achieve more when participating in a competition. Team building activities at GetoutGames.com provide the perfect opportunity to foster your team’s competitiveness. The exercises are fun, and participants compete in completing various challenges in a team setting.
However, the main objective is to ignite the team spirit by ensuring all activities are completed in teams. The sessions treat all members equally and give them access to the same resources and time to achieve the goals.
6. Build Trust Among Team Members
Trust is essential when building a great team since people tend to be more effective when they can trust their counterparts. Any team member knows they can count on other members when necessary. Most importantly, teams built on trust have healthy autonomy levels to enhance an efficient working environment and results.
Since trust makes people feel safer, they can open up on pressing issues and eliminate unnecessary bottlenecks in the workplace. Also, when your team understands their strengths and weaknesses, they can come up with ways to complement each other and ensure important tasks are completed on time. It also makes members more proactive when taking calculated risks necessary for the seamless working of an organization.
7. Provides Networking and Socializing Opportunities
Socializing with workmates can boost productivity in physical, remote, and hybrid setups. It improves office morale and helps teams embrace the challenges of virtual work environments. Whether the team-building activity is brief or lengthy, it allows your employees to socialize and mingle with their peers.
A connection between teams in different departments is critical for the progress of any organization. Successful businesses have functional teams across all departments to ensure the organization is united toward a common goal. However, collaboration can be difficult when teams in different departments barely know each other.
Organizing events that facilitate social connections when employees are free from pressure is essential. Moreover, better connections make people feel free to reach out to other team members when urgent tasks are at hand.
Endnote
Team building activities can be an effective and fun way to build efficient teams. It helps boost communication and collaboration across various departments to ensure the organization moves ahead in unity. Whether you want to start with a few minutes or plan a day-long session, team-building activities are a great way to keep your teams motivated.
