Is corporate team building necessary for an organization and what are their benefits?
In this topic, we are going to cover a few important points related to corporate team building activities.
1.1 Team Building Activities are important for the corporate world in 2019, Why?
1.2 The need for corporate team building
1.3 Benefits of the team building initiatives
1.4 Why should Team Building Activities be a part of a company’s annual activities?
1.5 How To Connect Employee Engagement With Performance?
1.1 Team Building Activities are important for the corporate world in 2019, Why?
Team building activities are designed to bring the workgroups together and achieve successful cohesiveness between them. These activities may include coaching, group discussion sessions or shared learning opportunities to ensure the pooling of the key talent. For this support from top management along with suitable financial investments are a must for the attainment of overall strategic plans.
Corporate team building activities are therefore the new buzzword doing the circles of local organizational grapevine. Taking in view the high-pressure environment of the corporate world, the rising employee attrition rates and downward spiralling motivation, Employee engagement plans, and team building activities are central to the overall business success. For a business is truly defined by its people their view to the achievement of the corporate goals.
With the change in times and in the wake of cut-throat competition, companies and business’s reliance on one of their most important assets- their employees have increased to a significant extent. A business or organization is basically a collection of people coming from diverse backgrounds to fulfil a common goal.
When people with diverse skills, qualifications, experience, and capabilities come together, there is bound to be some stressful situations. If such situations are allowed to continue, it can have a detrimental impact on the work performance of the employees and the productivity of the business. It is for this reason, more and more businesses are choosing to organize team-building games to keep their employees motivated and encouraging them to work together in perfect tandem.
How Team Building has gained so much importance?
There was a time when team building was not considered very important and the focus was more on continuous and relentless work and meeting of goals. Soon employees start showing signs of disenchantment and frustration resulting in reduced work performance and productivity. This brought the focus back to team building activities.
Earlier, the idea of having a team-building activity was a picnic or at the most a few games without any focus on the desired outcomes. In the past few years, the corporate world has understood the significance of organizing professionally managed team activities.
Nowadays, team bonding activities and games are considered as the finest investment any company can do for its folks. These activities are focused on mitigating conflict, building trust. Increasing collaboration and encouraging communication. Effective and results-oriented team-building efforts help in more engaged and motivated employees. Such events make a robust business culture and increase the bottom line of the business. When planned and applied competently, it can help derive outcomes that are outside prospects. Creating these activities a slight fun-filled and pleasant ensures best employee contribution.
Businesses can make their workplaces as the greatest places to work with the support of team building events. While enjoying the unimaginable benefits of these activities, it is imperative to follow certain ground rules that are applicable when planning team bonding activities.
Do not force feed corporate stuff
It is important to understand here that when planning team building activities, steer clear of corporate stuff and do not try to force-feed it down the throat of the employees. A memorable and successful team activity is the one that feels different than a day at the office. Don’t plan activities that overtly aim at drawing practical takeaways or leadership lessons as such activities may fail to have an impact.
There are many activities that can be designed in such a way that team participants learn a lot without being forced upon them. Simple activities like sharing experiences, spending time together, or working in close tandem to meet a common goal results in developing a robust bond that is more effective and happens organically.
Company Picnics are Not Team Building Activities
One thing that companies need to learn is that planning a picnic is not a team-building activity. There is no goal and no expected result in a picnic. Plan some enjoyable outings with a few fun-filled activities thrown in as learnings and happenings are closely tied to each other. Whenever employees come together to try out a new activity, they invariably share good vibes with each other.
The initial hitch that stops them from interacting with each other is replaced with coming forward and making earnest attempts to communicate and work with each other. Such a change in attitude and working style proves to be quite beneficial for the business. Go for something unique and ensure that participants are forced to come out of their comfort zones. This way, they have no choice but to get together and look for new ways to complete an activity.
Consider it as an investment
Planning and organizing team building activities, games, and events is an excellent investment for the businesses and the results of this investment can be enjoyed for a long time to come. These activities make teams feel appreciated. They are given a chance to lead the team which help them to identify if they have all that takes to become an impressive leader. It also helps businesses to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their employees. They can make optimal use of these strengths and work on weaknesses to convert them into their strong suits.
Team bonding activity must not be considered as fluff. Willingness to make a real investment is sure to deliver results that are beyond imagination.
Create Positivity in the Workspace
Employees spend a major part of their day at their workspace. They want to work in a peaceful and positive environment that encourages them to create and innovate. If the environment is too toxic or vitiating, it will have a negative impact on their performance. The lack of motivation can hamper their creativity. Thus, management must plan team building activities that bring employees closer to each other, shed inhibitions, indulge in open communications, learn how to trust and respect each other, connect and interact with each other in meaningful ways.
This is sure to bring a remarkable change in the work environment where employees are happy, content, and satisfied. They are encouraged to work together and fulfil common organizational goals.
Most important of all, these activities must not be a one-time affair. It should be made a usual practice so that the positivity and excitement in the team keep going. The only challenge is to create interesting opportunities for employees that keep them interested. Simple activities like getting together to celebrate an achievement, assembling for a fast-paced meeting, talk about major projects and more can also keep the team together.
Getting team building activities is also a challenge. You will come to know if you got this activity perfectly right if the team enjoyed a lot, shared a lot of laughs and a sense of camaraderie and excitement is seen which means you are right on the track.
1.2 The need for corporate team building
Corporate offsite, as well as the team building activities, are designed to brainstorm and yield out the synergy. Clearly, the offsite meetings are lengthy talks about the future strategy, mission, tactical values, etc. These are brainstorming sessions designed to bring the team closer and aid in decision making, as well as the team building activities. With quick implementation the following day, these meetings are an extremely important part of organization growth.
With a goal to improve team cohesiveness and productivity, these initiatives allow employees to seek professional and personal settlement opportunities. By bringing them to these activities, the personal barriers, distractions and political issues are resolved amicably. The benefits of such activities are highly appreciated for the company’s growth curve and this is why leading corporations are incorporating these methods into their core training curriculum.
Further, corporate team building is important to ensure that employee motivation and morale are sustained. Nobody likes a conflict-laden workplace.
You might like: What are the best Team Building Games to play during a Corporate Team Outing?
1.3 Benefits of the team building initiatives
Corporate team building plans help strengthen the organisational structure. The process is also known to polish the negotiation and communication skills.
Further, the initiatives are known to boost employee planning, problem-solving skills and self-achievement goal setting. An employee feels refreshed and ready for the new challenges.
These activities are useful for creating the right organisation environment and networking framework for the quick response to the organisational tasks. Here, co-working spaces prove to be highly appreciated methods of promoting the harmony between the employees.
Corporate bonding is an important element of business growth and development as -
· It develops team spirit and sense of belongingness to the organization
· Boosts sense of corporate Citizenship
· Increases employee retention
· Likewise, employee productivity improves
· Improves the leadership outcomes
· Removes personal and professional barriers
· Promotes a clear definition of the process and goals
· Identification of the team’s strength and weakness profile
From the looks of these activities, they seem like an everyday game yet are essentially designed to achieve a particular purpose. Therefore, companies need to be aware that the required goals of these activities are achieved completely by concerned officials.
Perhaps this is the reason for the increased investment in the above process.
Corporate in-house team building
Importantly, the success of an enterprise lies in the collective action of the team members. However, the shift in culture, workforce diversity and changing employee expectations make the Employee engagement and team building a difficult process. Employees today, come from international recruitment pool and may speak different languages. There exist numerous on-site and off-site team-building activities along with varied budget needs. These activities are designed to help provide employees with a healthy team-building plan that is available for use on the job.
By encouraging participants to the team-building plans, the organisation actually invites them to the inclusive corporate environment. This diverse workforce finds itself making connections and understanding each other better. By boosting the connection between the employees, we indirectly augment our best outcomes. People understand what makes others different from each other and gives them support for achieving the best results.
Obviously, to create a strong corporate bond, the feeling of Mutual trust and respect is important. Team building activities are designed to offer instant progress on this front. Undoubtedly, the best organisations have the best engaged and motivated teams.
Likewise, people tend to be more creative around the people they are comfortable with. This may be partly because of the synergy between the employees and understanding that the team is there for them.
Problems with the progress
The major cause of failure to the team building activities are the reason that these are treated as a one-time process rather than a comprehensive plan. This, the employees learn and subsequently forget the key lessons. The challenge for human resources is to constantly create such opportunities for people to adapt to the scenario. The larger workplaces understand the importance of having an everyday collaboration rather than one-time team development opportunity. This is why they are able to redefine themselves as the centres of excellence.
On the other hand, critics believe that the consistency of such efforts bring more of a huddle rather than advantage to the business. However, it must be noted that a particular time each day can be reserved for assembly and celebrating the day’s achievements. It’s an efficient method to learn about people and their dreams, as well as to generate ideas for future team-building activities.
Measuring the results
Previously, human resource managers rued the lack of performance metrics to measure the impact of team building activities on employee motivation and morale. However, with the advent of new technology, the outcomes of the above-mentioned programs have become easy to evaluate. These can be further corroborated with the outcomes of the weekly or monthly performance appraisal, rate of employee absenteeism and even the workplace happiness assessment report.
1.4 Why should Team Building Activities be a part of a company’s annual activities?
Organisations — big or small — are thoroughly dependent on human resources for their success. Most corporate entities that have been able to create those impeccable branding in the market today are examples of some great teamwork, that probably started somewhere in the middle of the top but permeated down to the bottom. Team building is required in the super competitive and complex business scenario today. No doubt the HR and the training department of most corporates today are entrusted with the responsibility of planning and executing company team building activities that help employees not only bond with each other but also work as a united workforce to achieve the larger business goals. And to top it, team building activities are great fun and exciting too.
Therefore, corporate team building activities are so important: -
1. Collaboration
One of the primary reasons why an increasing number of corporates host multiple team building activities for their internal resources is to make them collaborative. What is a team if all the members are not on the same platform if each doesn’t leave aside his individuality and combine forces towards one objective?
2. Leadership skills
This is such an important life skill. The adage that leaders are born is no longer true. Leadership skills can be imbibed; can be learnt and picked up by people as they move along their professional lives. Team building activities that are oriented towards awakening the leader in each member of the group are tasks that are very essential because all organisations need strong and sound leaders to move forward.
3. Creativity and Innovation
Good teams are formed when individual members get the chance to showcase their talents and creative sides. A team must be open to accepting novel and innovative ideas from its members and one of the main focus of team building activities for corporate groups is to let ingenious side of each individual come out in the open so that there can be a healthy exchange of ideas and thoughts. And ideas, as we all know, have the power to move even the mountains!
4. Project Management
Strategizing, allocating and managing resources, managing time and working on strict deadlines are all features of a project. By using the right kind of team building activities organisations can make their project teams effective and successful.
1.5 How To Connect Employee Engagement With Performance?
Tips To Connect Employee Engagement With Performance
Having engaged employees is something that an organization should always keep on its top priority. Employee engagement is definitely not rocket science, but the organisational culture and the attitude of the top management have to be aligned for the same. For nothing can be truer than having employees who are completely in sync with the organizational goals and objectives — they can change the fortune of a business entity.
Employee engagement is the emotional attachment or commitment an employee has for the company’s overall business goals. This means that the employee when he comes to the office every day is not only bothered about his salary, his promotion, perks and increments but is motivated to work to achieve the vision of his employer too. This means that they care for their organization as much as they care for their own good.
An engaged employee will certainly have higher levels of performance, will be motivated to work and perform giving his best, will have high morale boost, takes ownership and accountability of jobs readily and most importantly stick by the organization at all cost — thereby enhancing the retention endeavours of the company.
Also Read: Employee Engagement: The Wonder Drug For Customer Satisfaction
Employee engagement, however, is a term that is often misconstrued to be employee satisfaction or happiness. While an employee can be happy that he is getting a fat paycheck at the end of the month, it does not necessarily mean that he is working in an engaging manner at the workplace. On the other hand, an employee may be highly motivated to work for the achievement of the organisational goals but maybe too stressed up and have a poor work-life balance and end up being unhappy. This shows that an organization should aim at not only having its employees engaged, it should also focus on keeping employees happy and satisfied and vice versa.
Engage Employees With Business Goals
Engaging employees with the overall business goals and having them perform at their maximum potential are two sides of the same coin. But it does not essentially mean that engaged employees will perform at their 100% potential automatically and mechanically.
Man is no machine and many organizations make the mistake of assuming that their staff and human resources will not need anything more than just being engaged with the organizational mission and vision statements. The truth is that employee engagement is a dynamic process and keeps evolving. It is a system that should be flexible and let to grow so that the performance levels of employees never get to suffer.
The secret to having engaged employees is to indulge them in regular team building activities. The outcome of these activities, whether held as a part of an annual corporate offsite meet or as a quarterly training program, is to let the employees know their value to the organisation that they work for. Corporates pamper and completely indulge their employees so that they return back to their desks and work with renewed enthusiasm and vigour to work harder and smarter.
Source: https://www.trebound.com/blog/how-to-connect-employee-engagement-with-performance
