Highly successful businesses usually consist of high-performing teams. But how do you build your team so that it's best suited for success? One answer: team building!
Team building brings employees together and motivates them to collaborate toward a single goal and maintain a strong company culture. It allows employees to learn from each other, creates a cohesive unit, and makes employees feel like they are an integral part of the company’s success. In fact, snacknation.com reports that 36% of employees would give up $5,000 a year in salary to be happier at work. We know that employees appreciate the feeling of being part of something greater than themselves.
Here's a look at some effective team-building practices:
Take the team building outside of the usual work environment
Develop exercises that require employees to work together towards a particular goal
Select exercises that utilize skills that are needed in a normal work day
Make sure employees apply what they learned in the exercises in their day-to-day work lives
Benefits of team building for the employee and the business
Employees feel appreciated and valued through recognition of their behaviors and skills put to the test in team building challenges. When you value employees and show them, they often have higher job satisfaction rates, which assists with recruitment and lowers turnover rates (www.indeed.com).
Some larger companies have team members who never interact or have never met. Team building activities allow for these people to meet and interact across departments. This fosters collaborative idea creation that would otherwise never be reached.
Team building exercises can uncover unknown skills in employees that can be utilized in their jobs.
Team building can increase communication and trust between team members and also enhance employees' morale and passion for their job. The Deskless Report shared that 65% of leaders plan to invest more energy or budget into employee experience in the coming year – which means organizations that don’t start to invest more in employee engagement will quickly lag behind.
When companies hold team building events and employees dive in and truly participate and engage in the exercises, the results are usually very positive. The positive workplace culture becomes evident to current employees and possible new hires or people in the job market. You become the place people want to work, the place they want to stay!
There is still one additional benefit of team building that is HUGE! It creates free marketing for your brand! When employees are happy at work, they talk about their jobs, use your products, and promote your services. Additionally, you can share photographs from events on your website and social media platforms to demonstrate the kind of company culture you are building. What’s better than having your own people stand behind your brand with pride and passion?
So what are you waiting for? Get started planning your next team-building event! Your employees will thank you!
