Team building activities boost output
May 29, 2011
BUSINESSES of all sizes across the globe are beginning to understand the importance of taking part in team-building exercises and activity days in order to develop stronger relationships within their teams. <br>
HR INSIGHT With Paula Kyabaggu Mukama
BUSINESSES of all sizes across the globe are beginning to understand the importance of taking part in team-building exercises and activity days in order to develop stronger relationships within their teams.
It has been found that paying your employees to participate in a team-building activity, away from the office environment, can dramatically increase their productivity and ability to work well together.
Team-building retreats have become an annual event for some companies. Other companies do it more regularly in the hope that the company’s profits will improve significantly as a result. There is a lot of confusion about team building event days.
Often it is seen as an exercise to boost morale, to help workers bond better, improve communication and as a fun day out at the company’s expense. It can be all of those things, but if it fails to improve business effectiveness, then it has failed overall.
The games and activities allow team members understand how colleagues think and work in given situations and can be the most beneficial in improving business effectiveness. It is not enough to just be a team member; members have to understand each other and know how to react accordingly.
Being committed and engaged in the work and in understanding how each team member fits in to the overall pattern is also important.
Members have to want to be where they are and understand why they are there. Team-building games that can enhance and consolidate this awareness are likely to work best and have the greatest long-term effect.
It should be a relaxing time for all concerned. It should be a day, or several days, when the team can let their hair down to some extent.
Lower-ranking team members can lower their guard a little in the knowledge that the rigidity of office life is distant and not applicable during the event.
Managers and directors can become more ‘human’ and less authoritarian. Games that allow this kind of relaxed atmosphere allow members to see each other in ways that the workplace can never do.
The true person can be revealed. Strict authoritarians can be seen to have a sense of humour. Timid juniors can be seen to have a valid opinion and ordinary people can be seen as extraordinary in a multitude of little ways.
The true value of the activities is the knowledge gained in understanding between individual team members.
This can allow better relationships to be forged in the office or work place environment.
The workers may go back to playing their office roles after the team-building event is over, but each member will not forget what they learnt about the others and that is where the real value lies.
There should be specific objectives to be achieved and the opportunity for each team member to reveal the way they think and work, plus allowing their individual behaviour patterns and attitudes to emerge.
By the end of a team-building day, you will have a team which is confident and able to work together.
Email: eresources@consultant.com
BUSINESSES of all sizes across the globe are beginning to understand the importance of taking part in team-building exercises and activity days in order to develop stronger relationships within their teams.
It has been found that paying your employees to participate in a team-building activity, away from the office environment, can dramatically increase their productivity and ability to work well together.
Team-building retreats have become an annual event for some companies. Other companies do it more regularly in the hope that the company’s profits will improve significantly as a result. There is a lot of confusion about team building event days.
Often it is seen as an exercise to boost morale, to help workers bond better, improve communication and as a fun day out at the company’s expense. It can be all of those things, but if it fails to improve business effectiveness, then it has failed overall.
The games and activities allow team members understand how colleagues think and work in given situations and can be the most beneficial in improving business effectiveness. It is not enough to just be a team member; members have to understand each other and know how to react accordingly.
Being committed and engaged in the work and in understanding how each team member fits in to the overall pattern is also important.
Members have to want to be where they are and understand why they are there. Team-building games that can enhance and consolidate this awareness are likely to work best and have the greatest long-term effect.
It should be a relaxing time for all concerned. It should be a day, or several days, when the team can let their hair down to some extent.
Lower-ranking team members can lower their guard a little in the knowledge that the rigidity of office life is distant and not applicable during the event.
Managers and directors can become more ‘human’ and less authoritarian. Games that allow this kind of relaxed atmosphere allow members to see each other in ways that the workplace can never do.
The true person can be revealed. Strict authoritarians can be seen to have a sense of humour. Timid juniors can be seen to have a valid opinion and ordinary people can be seen as extraordinary in a multitude of little ways.
The true value of the activities is the knowledge gained in understanding between individual team members.
This can allow better relationships to be forged in the office or work place environment.
The workers may go back to playing their office roles after the team-building event is over, but each member will not forget what they learnt about the others and that is where the real value lies.
There should be specific objectives to be achieved and the opportunity for each team member to reveal the way they think and work, plus allowing their individual behaviour patterns and attitudes to emerge.
By the end of a team-building day, you will have a team which is confident and able to work together.
Email: eresources@consultant.com