Team Building Activities at Work

Gone are the days when employees were treated like machines and all that was expected from them was finishing the work. With time, the employers realized that boosting the morale of the employees and ensuring their job satisfaction are most important factors in increased productivity in terms of quantity and quality.

Ensuring the satisfaction of the employees is important. It is even more important that employees as a team are getting along and achieving results. The relevance of team cohesiveness come into picture in scenarios where employees are interdependent on each other and work together to achieve a common organizational goal. Since, team-work is so critical to organizational success and staying competitive, team-building is vital within the organization. A few of the team building activities that can be implemented at work are the following

• Team dinners or lunches: A number of companies have already embraced the idea. Getting to see the team members in a different light will help in building deep personal relationships.
• Take-an-employee-to-work day: Introduce the employee to other teams and expose them to the job role of other teams and departments. This will feed the curiosity of the employees about the work others do, help in opening new career path for them and increases interdepartmental bond.
• Book-worm days: Once in a month or a week, employees can get together for an hour or two to talk about the books they have been reading. This will encourage reading habit in the employee. The bond built between two people who share the same interest is a strong one. The meeting can also be based on music interests, tv-shows or even sports.
• Ice-breakers: The teams that have been working together for a long time do not need ice-breakers. Members of a newly formed team may not know each other and hence before every team meeting, the simplest ice breaker like reshuffling the seats can go a long way.
• Fun-classes: Organizing classes that both the employees and their families can attend will improve employee engagement. The team members organizing the event will automatically will experience some serious team building after the planning and arranging the event.

There are a number of benefits to having several team-building activities at work.

1. Improved team performance: A cohesive team can perform much better and ensure productivity.
2. Motivation: People who are comfortable with each other will be able to work better. This improves productivity which in turn will motivate the employees to work better. A motivated team has more fun and celebrate the smallest achievements.
3. Creative ideas: When it comes to brainstorming and coming up with innovative ideas, more the merrier. More people, more ideas.
4. Open communication: A team that is highly cohesive can create way for open discussion. A highly cohesive team takes accountability of each other and can criticize the behavior of team members.
5. Reduce conflicts: A group of people who have different preferences and different work styles may have disagreements in terms of work. This may lead to conflict. Team building activities result in team members getting to know each other and their working style well. They will know what to expect from each other and hence gives no opportunity for conflicts and differences.