The term ‘team building’ had been buzzing around in the recent decades and has been one of the most influential terms in any type of company. Team building is the process of bringing a group of individuals to work together effectively and strengthen the relationship between them through activities or event specifically designed to motivate and encourage cooperation. For a team to work efficiently and effectively, its cohesion between members is very important. Thus, team building comes into the fray and help companies to enhance interpersonal relationships between their employees.
Team building participants working together to complete the mission. (Image Credit: Flickr//The Amazing Race Bangkok)
Why is Team Building so Important?
Other than companies and workplaces, even among student organizations, team building is a fairly important facet. The importance of team building is often emphasized in educations like doing group assignments and group projects or even organizing an event for the school. In fact, most of the people are already exposed to the concept of team building since young ages. As no man is an island, teamwork has become utmost important to achieve success and so does team building.
It is important for organizations to pay attention to team building so that the productivity level of the whole organization can be increased. Within organizations, most of the works are not done individually but by a team. For example in a company, there will be a sales department, HR department, marketing department and many more. The department can only achieve success when all of the members work well together as a team.
Team building is also important because it usually let the employee take a rest from the usual workplace as a change of environment. This can be seen as a reward for employee’s hard work during their working days. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, a change of scene will definitely lighten up the mood of your workplace. Most of the team building trips travel to outdoor resorts and stays for 1 or 2 nights. All those who joined will be able to spend some time to relax and have fun with their colleagues. Some of the organization even allow their employees to bring along their family members making the trip even more fun.
What are benefits or team building?
Communication is an important tool within an organization.
1. Better Communication
Communication plays a major part in the workplace. It is inevitable that communication must be done in order to pass information around the office. More so, an effective communication is what most organizations are looking for. An effective communication can increase efficiency greatly. In order to improve communications between personnel within the organization, the bonding between each of them should be stronger. For example, the workplace is like a family. Everyone works towards the same goal and objective in a team. Thus, people will open up to each other easier and talk comfortably if they know each other more.
Team building activities include a lot of fun and interesting activities that let people know each other more and then creating a better understanding between the participants. By doing so, it enables the office to have a comfortable environment because people are more comfortable with each other and happier at work. This will create a friendly workspace that will bring in many more benefits to the organization.
Teamwork collaboration helps teams to work well.
2. Increased Collaboration
Within a team, collaboration is necessary to achieve an effective outcome. One of the benefits of team building activities is increasing collaboration. A properly and well-planned activity will aim to increase collaboration between employees. Collaboration happens when people know each other well and understand what are the strengths and weaknesses of them. When you understand and know someone well, you will build a trust towards the person and thus a team that trusts each other will collaborate well. A collaborating team can work effectively to solve any problems or develop any new ideas because everyone knows who is good or bad at what so they can help each other out. As team building activities are heavily influenced by group-based activities, people will learn to work together to solve a problem and slowly learning about their teammates.
Motivated employees can help the company to grow and work more efficiently.
3. Increased Motivation
Motivation is an integral part for employees to work both effectively and efficiently. If the employees are motivated to work on something, you can expect a good result from them. The act of organizing a team building trip is already an indication of appreciation towards the employees. When employees feel appreciated on what they had done for the company, they will work even harder because they know their work is appreciated. It will generate a positive vibe to the whole office, instead of competing with each other but to be appreciated by the company and may be looking forward to their future reward. Another way to increase motivation within an organization is to set clear goals. When there is a clear goal for an organization to work towards, employees will be motivated because they know exactly what they are supposed to do and have a direction on what they should aim for.
Team building activities also have a very strong component on self-development. Through some of these activities, individuals get to learn various skillsets that can potentially help them to develop their personalities. Other than learning, individuals might find out new talents of themselves that they do not know previously. In a company, many employees want to gain self-development in their job as it means that their ‘value’ is higher with more skills or knowledge. By involving their employees in team building activities, companies is providing the opportunity for them to development themselves. This will show that the company actually cares about the wellbeing and development of their employees which will motivate employees to work harder.
Team building participants enjoying their activity as a team.
How do you build an effective team?
An effective team is essential for the success of either a department in the company or the whole company itself. Therefore, team building for corporate is important to establish an effective team. An effective team can increase efficiency, productivity and achieve a greater success that is in line with the organization’s goals.
One of the ways to build an effective team is to build good relationship employees which include bosses and managerial positions. By maintaining a good relationship among the employees, it can create a comfortable environment to work at. A friendly working environment means the information sharing will be better among the employees, communications will be improved because of this. Team building is a great option to foster relationships within the team because they will learn about each other more and creates a better understanding. Most of the team building activities require people to work together to complete it. Thus, people will need to help each other out and work together to win or complete the activity. Thus, team building is definitely one of the best options to build an effective team.
How do you motivate your team members?
It is certain that work is much easier and much more efficient when it is done with motivation. However, motivation isn’t always present in any situation. Many organizations find it hard to keep their members motivated and commit to their objectives. In fact, people nowadays often feel stressed out during work and not motivated at all to go to work. It has become a big problem for many organizations whether big or small ones.
Team building seems to be one of the solutions to the motivation problem. There are a few types of team building activities, but the underlying concept is very simple which is to build a team literally. In order to build a team, the relationships between the members must be fostered to create a better understanding and then lead to a comfortable environment. By organizing a team building activity, it can give a break to the members for a change of scene. Team building aims to enhance the team through exciting and fun-filled activities.
The team building activities often consist of team games that need the members to work together to achieve the target. This can help foster relationships and let people know each other more and improve communications among each other. Some other team building activities favour the bonding part with some relax hangouts such as campfires in a peaceful setting which can be in a nature lodge or a resort by the beach. Employees will feel that their hard work is appreciated and take it as a reward which will then motivate them to work harder for a better reward. Team building activities can be a great change of scenery from the repetitive works and a time for the employees to recharge themselves.
Team building activities can be exciting and adventurous too such as white water rafting.
IN A NUTSHELL
Despite the fact that team building is now being regarded as important by many organizations, there are still questions about why team building works in the mind of many people. Nonetheless, many organizations have followed the step to implement team building into their company’s policy and it has positively impacted the company in many aspects. While team building is certainly beneficial, it should be done at a correct approach in order to achieve that. If executed properly, team building can have a huge impact on an organization positively.
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