Teams and individual employees at your company can remain poles apart if they do not communicate. This can affect productivity, as research shows that there is greater output from working groups when there is better communication. Finer details that are often left out due to low levels of communication can be reduced when teams are more cohesive. However, there has to be a way of bringing teams together, and this must be done with regard to your workplace culture.
Team building activities are thought to be a great way to bring your team members and teams together. Your selected team building activities may be competitive or simply meant for entertainment. Some companies organize multiple activities as a complete event. The amount of time and money you invest in this will be governed by the type of company you have and how often you engage in entertaining employees.
There are different approaches that can be used as well, such as holding one mega event with multiple activities (typically suited to large companies), single activities that are held more frequently (suits companies of various sizes), and activities that are held department-wise (again, this is suitable for large companies, where each department is allocated a budget).
Types of Activities for Team Building
For small or medium size companies, it’s best to build teams by holding small activities more frequently. This can is more cost-effective and can be carried out whenever there is sufficient budget available. Employees may look forward to these activities, but will not complain about not having them in case there is a delay. It’s not a bad idea to hold them quarterly if that fits your budget.
Ice-breaker/Team Building Mailing Activity
Boost team building with a simple yet satisfying creative activity can include a mailing activity akin to postal mail. The idea is to have employees send mail (not email) to one another introducing themselves. A list of employees is divided into two separate lists, and each employee from one list is assigned the task of mailing an employee in the other list. It’s best to associate an image of each employee alongside his/her name, which helps the identification process. This activity serves well as an icebreaker, although it can be used in an advanced form later.
Problem-seeking Mail Activity
The above-mentioned mailing activity can be used as a problem sharing and solution seeking activity. Employees mail each other with a work-related issue or a set of issues hoping to seek a solution. Employees can also mail multiple employees at a time. It’s worth adding that the issues that they can mention in their mail do not have to be related to operations, but can also pivot on social aspects, planning an outing, etc.
Hold Company Meetings as Outings
Speaking of outings, a creative day out with lunch or dinner is a great way to motivate employees. You can use just a dinner out to sort out work-related issues, and it’s definitely a good idea to tell your employees that this is the purpose of the dinner. This type of activity is similar to what you might do within your office with a few snacks. However, with this activity, you can offer a more elaborate environment to your employees outside of the office.
There are tons of team building activities that you can implement for your employees, and each of these has its own benefits. Your aim is to carry out creative team building activities successfully, which will depends on how well planned you are and what kind of budget you have.
