Why is Team Building Important?
Integrating team building programs into your office or organization is an important part of successful management. The benefits of team building are far reaching, and will help to improve organizational effectiveness and productivity for office employees, volunteers, student staff members, and more!
Team building games and activities enable participants to build camaraderie, improve communication, establish or improve trust, and develop decision making strategies. The successful completion of most team-building tasks requires cooperation, listening to others, sharing ideas, and the willingness to try new approaches to achieve a goal.
These fun and engaging activities help people see each other in a different light allow them to connect in a different setting. Participants are given the opportunity to see how their lessons learned connect back to the workplace.
Yes, corporate team building is an investment, but the benefits far outweigh the costs! The effects of those few hours spent together away from the office continue to positively impact office culture for years to come.
Employees can look forward to coming to work each day. They can show up early and decide to stay late. They can take the time out of their busy schedules to help and work with each other. They can work together not as a random assortment of individuals, but as a cohesive team. All of this is made possible by strategic and fun team building strategies!
What is team building, anyway?
Team building is the process of turning a group of individuals or employees into a cohesive and high functioning team. A team is a group of people organized to work together interdependently and cooperatively to accomplish their agreed-upon purpose and goal(s).
Keep in mind though, team building doesn’t just mean getting the team together. It is a well thought out process that is based off of psychology and a considered approach.
One of the most powerful reasons for team building is to get results. Through a series of planned team building events that are fun and motivational, teams build skills and relationships that they can transfer back into the workplace.
The 9 Benefits of Team Building Activities at Work
Increase Productivity
Improving productivity is one of the most common goals of team building activities. Team building activities encourage employees to learn to work together more efficiently and reduce any duplication of effort, which increases productivity. Take the opportunity to identify ways to improve the three “Ps” (policies, processes and procedures) that can affect productivity.
When teams learn to work together, they are utilizing each individual’s skills, knowledge, and talents to benefit the entire team and organization. Teams who are aware of their role on a team are able to understand their role, and focus on their own goals can better work towards the collective end goal.
Plus, getting a chance to clear the mind, have a little fun, and laugh as a team will help to increase productivity due to the healthy, and probably much needed, break.
Improve Motivation
Team building games can help increase employee motivation and nurture a successful company culture. When a group of employees successfully complete a team building activity it creates momentum and makes them feel good about themselves for a job well done. It increases employees’ confidence in themselves and their team’s ability to achieve goals and complete tasks.
It also shows employees that the organization is willing to invest in them and their professional development, which can help to decrease turnover while improving motivation. A friendly work environment is crucial, and if employees are surrounded by negativity during their workday, they may not feel motivated, and they may not stick around.
A motivated workforce is a happier workforce! Team building activities will help to nurture a successful company culture.
Spark Creativity
Team building activities take employees out of their usual environments and plunge them into a creative and fun experience. To have a successful business or organization based on creativity and innovation, employees with diverse perspectives and expertise will invigorate the organization with fresh ideas.
Out-of-the-ordinary team building tasks give employees permission to use their imagination to come up with creative solutions, and send the message that creativity in the workplace is welcome. These activities show employees that bouncing ideas off each other, and striving to be the best they can be together, is the key to success.
Once the activity is over, a simple debrief will show that these new skills and ideas can and should translate over into the workplace, and also into the personal lives of your employees.
Promote Collaboration
Another important benefit of a properly planned team building activity is greater collaboration between employees, which increases productivity. These two goals are closely connected.
Collaboration is about knowing who has what knowledge or resources, trusting them, their experience, their expertise, and being able to get access to that person when you need those particular skills. Team building activities build relationships and develop networks outside of the day-to-day roles. By creating activities that people enjoy and can experience as a group, helping them to build relationships they may not have otherwise had the opportunity to build, and will give them access to even more skills, resources, and expertise than they had before the activity.
Taking the “I” out of team and relying on the skills of one another is beneficial for everyone involved!
Encourage Better Communication
Without effective communication it can be argued that none of the other benefits of team building activities would come to fruition. Enjoyable, fun activities give participants the opportunity to get to know each other, create a better understanding of one another, and break down any potential barriers by encouraging them to focus on what they have in common, rather than their differences.
Team building games can be a powerful way to develop collaboration and trust, improve motivation, nurture strengths, address weaknesses, and enable employees to get to know each other better. They will also be more confident to reach out to their co-workers after the exercises now that they got to know their peers, understand how to communicate with one another.
However, to reap all of these amazing benefits, the chosen activities need to have a real purpose and be properly planned in order to make a genuine impact, rather than just being a ‘nice day out of the office’. It will provide employees an opportunity to talk about something else other than work, but will still provide transferable skills.
Not only do co-workers learn more about each other’s talents and skills, they might also learn about their personal cultural history. This helps participants to understand why people might act or speak differently from one another, and reduce conflict.
Boost Team Morale
Team-building activities are fun and engaging for everyone which helps to boost team morale.
Quirky team-building exercises, such as blindfolding a partner and verbally telling them how to draw a picture, or getting over a rope without stepping in “lava” may sound odd, but they all serve a specific purpose. Creative solutions are the result of out-of-the-box ideas, laughter, and a bit of competitive spirit.
These memorable moments transfer right back into the work environment, giving people a connection, increasing effective communication, and dramatically improving overall company morale. Great morale leads to improved productivity.
Plus, these activities give colleagues the opportunity to have fun and relax together, eliminating the competitiveness of the office, and letting them engage in healthy competition over something less intense (and much more fun!) such as dropping an egg from the second floor window without letting it break.
Raise Confidence
Team building increases confidence, not only in the participant, but also in their co-worker’s abilities.
Stepping outside of one’s comfort zone can be scary, which is why we stray away from those opportunities. But, team building activities force participants to try new things and challenge themselves in a safe and healthy way. Stepping outside of the comfort zone and succeeding can be a huge boost to a person’s confidence. Also, seeing a co-worker go outside their comfort zone can have the same effect!
Often, employees are reluctant to work together, and prefer staying in their lane. They feel unsure of the abilities of others and worry that they may have to carry the group (we blame you school group projects!), or they aren’t confident about their own abilities and don’t want to be seen as a “weak link”.
Team building helps to reduce or eliminate these pesky fears. When a participant sees their co-workers overcoming obstacles, or when they overcome those obstacles themselves, or even better yet when they overcome them together, the trust in themselves and their teammates increases.
Plus, knowing that their company or organization is willing to invest in them indicates a commitment to employees, and increases the confidence and commitment of participants!
This newly built confidence and trust translates into increased productivity back at the office, and more profits!
Improve Teamwork
Here’s the big one! all of this leads up to your employees working together like a finely tuned machine. All of the previous benefits culminate into incredible TEAMWORK!
When your employees care about each other, trust themselves and each other, believe in the company, understand their role, and willingly subscribe to the agreed upon “why”, they can then successfully act as friends working together towards a common goal.
They will also have a better understanding of each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and interests, allowing them to better find their role within the team.
Team building is an investment in the future of your company, and allows employees to have an increased sense of belonging to something bigger, something exciting and meaningful.
These team building games will not only help participants see how they can apply their newly learned or honed skills to their work, but also how to use them in everyday life situations. Understanding one’s co-workers, how they think, why they think the way they do, and what makes them tick, can make communication and collaboration much easier. This leads to increased productivity and lower stress.
Fun, meaningful, purposeful, and engaging team building activities bring groups together in a casual setting, without a lot of pressure, to ensure that everyone has a great time learning a bit about themselves and their team!
Have us do the work for you!
If you are tired of the everyday mundane tasks in the office, and are looking to get everyone together for an epic day of FUN team building, you are in the right place. You have a strong team and want to make it even more awesome. A customized team building scavenger hunt of your city is just what you need, and we are here to help!
CityHUNT offers a wide array of team building activities and we pride ourselves on our flexibility to all group sizes and locations. We are here to fit your needs – we listen to our clients before we begin the process of creating an event.
If you are even a little curious about what we offer, or are ready to commit to changing your team for the better, call us at (1-877)-HUNT-FUN or fill out our risk-free contact form to simply start the conversation today! When you fill out a form, you are taking the first step in making your employees, students, or volunteers even more awesome.
