The beginning of the year is a crazy team for businesses and the people who work for them. During this time, motivation can be low especially with people still reminiscing about their December holidays. With all this low energy, it’s the duty of business leaders to build up team morale and motivation.
Team building is not just something that is done for fun. According to statistics from Teamland, productivity rises by over 13% when employees feel enthusiastic about their roles and the company.
In this article, we look at team building and its benefits and give you ten amazing team-building ideas.
Benefits of Effective Team Building
Here are some benefits to emphasise the importance of having team-building activities.
Increased Productivity
As mentioned already, good team building can significantly increase productivity. It encourages employees to work towards common goals and increases their creativity. When your employees feel connected, they’re most likely to apply their best efforts to their work.
Also, team building can help get rid of duplicated work because your team is collaborating more, and they provide updates on projects more frequently.
Encourages Creativity
Team building activities remove your employees from their normal work setting and can enable them to look at situations differently and more creatively. During these activities, employees will discuss new and existing creative ideas from a fresh perspective. This can help them solve problems more effectively and collaborate with their coworkers better.
Enhances Communication
Team building can help your employees understand each other better and create an environment with more open communication. As your employees develop relationships through team building, they’re more likely to have natural conversations which can contribute to an improved employee workflow.
Improves Morale
Team building involves games and fun activities, so it can be an effective way to boost employee morale. When your employees can complete a fun task with each other, it will help them find common goals and create a positive work environment.
Additionally, having employees compete against each other in friendly competition can improve morale and increase their creativity.
Helps Identify Strengths and Weaknesses
Team building can help you as the leader identify employee strengths and weaknesses, based on how they perform during team building activities. You can use this knowledge to form more effective teams in the future and understand how to best utilise team members.
Additionally, team building can help you see which types of employees work well together.
Creates a Positive Work Environment
Team building can help businesses build a more positive work environment for employees. Scheduling regular fun activities can also cause a positive work shift in your team’s normal work routine.
Team building can also reinforce your company’s culture. If you are building a company that values supporting the local community, you can organise team building activities that focus on community service.
Now that you know the benefits of effective team building, let’s look at some ideas for team building.
Ten Team-Building Ideas
Here are some team-building ideas you can try with your employees.
1. Personal Presentations
This activity involves asking your employees to prepare a presentation that includes three things they believe have shaped who they are as a person. Encourage your employees to think creatively and use visual elements within their presentations.
2. Office Trivia
You can do an office trivia challenge by getting your employees into small teams and competing against each other. You can provide different categories such as sports, food, brands etc. This game is fun and low stakes but can have positive effects on your employees.
3. Best and Worst Game
The best and worst game involves asking your employees to ask each other one question about the best and worst thing they want to learn about each other. For example, “What’s the worst food you have ever tasted?” or “What’s the best sports team in the world?”.
4. Count up Game
In count up, you get your employees to come together and count to twenty with their eyes closed. If two people repeat the same number, the team has to start from one again. This game might seem easy, but it can help build teamwork.
5. Snowball
Snowball involves asking your employees a question and needing them to write answers on a piece of paper. Once done, everyone must have a snowball fight. After the fight, everyone must keep a snowball and try to find the person who wrote the answer.
6. Wink Assassin
This game asks every employee to try to catch the person appointed as the wink murderer. The wink assassin is tasked with trying to eliminate other employees by winking at them without being caught.
7. Egg Drop
Egg drop is a game where you divide your employees into small groups. In these groups, they must build a freestanding structure that can support the dropping of an egg from a high drop.
8. Lego Challenge
Using LEGO bricks, you can get your employees to get into small groups and build figures. You can also introduce challenges and rewards during the challenge to make it even better.
9. Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunt is a classic game. You can conduct a scavenger hunt in the office or on an outside location. Use office trivia, inside jokes or aspects of your company culture to guide the scavenger hunt.
10. Translated Rant
In translated rant, you pair employees into pairs. One person must rant about a pet peeve for 60 seconds and their partner must translate the rant while focusing on what the person really cares about.
Using these ten ideas you can create a fun, productive and positive work environment not just for you and your employees but for outsiders looking in.
For more information on building a positive company culture, visit our article. Head over to the SME SA Funding Summit page to get your ticket today!
The beginning of the year is a crazy team for businesses and the people who work for them. During this time, motivation can be low especially with people still reminiscing Read More
