Team building is one of the most important investments you can make for a productive and positive work environment. Team building builds trust, mitigates conflict, encourages communication, and increases collaboration and employee engagement.
Getting new employees to mesh well, and creating a team that is a well-oiled machine rather than a bunch of individual parts is a challenge most companies face. Collaboration is hard to force, but luckily, there are low-pressure, fun ways to build your workplace team.
- Get Creative: Try setting aside a little time to play games in the workplace, but avoid basic ice-breakers a high school orientation that can feel juvenile and awkward. Competitive and team-based games encourage collaboration and engagement.
- Get Out of the Office: Another strategy is taking your team out for a day trip to encourage more casual bonding and interaction off their timecards and the pressures that lie therein. Interacting outside the workplace will deepen and refine members’ bonds.
- Get Inspired Together: Sometimes all it takes for a team to mesh is having an outsider unify and inspire everyone together. This takes the pressure off management to read their teams’ minds, and reduces the sense of hierarchy that can divide teams rather than bonding them together. Bringing in an inspirational speaker or teambuilding expert can be a fun and exciting experience for everyone.
- Keep the Office Positive Everyday: When your team knows that they are valued deeply as individuals, they will be motivated to work together as a team. Brian Scudamore from 1-800-Got-Junk suggests creating dreamboards, and having employees share their personal and professional goals with one another, to create a sense of unity and working towards collective happiness both in and out of the office.
Check out fun office game ideas here.
