The Importance of Team Building in the Workplace

When you become an employer, you take on all sorts of responsibilities that may be unfamiliar to you. You have to provide your workforce with a safe, healthy and (wherever possible) happy work environment to operate in during their working hours. But why stick to the bare minimum requirements when it comes to taking care of your staff? Going above and beyond can benefit you, as well as them, as they’ll be more content working for you, improving your retainment rate and reducing the amount of recruitment you have to undertake. They’re also more likely to be productive in the workplace and may go above and beyond for you in return. Now, one important aspect of the workplace is team bonding. The better your employees gel together, the better work they will produce. Sure, individual brilliance is desirable, but the most successful companies usually require their staff to work together to produce the best results. A simple way to do this is to put on team building activities!

Why Consider Team Building Activities?

Team building activities usually receive a sigh and a raise of the eyebrows. But ignore this. Sure, they may feel a little awkward at first, but people generally quickly get involved and it serves as a great means of breaking the ice between your workers. This can help to foster professional and creative communication between different individuals in different departments.

Ideas

So, what kind of team building activities can you put on for your staff? They can be casual. They can be organised. Whatever works best for your team may take a little trial and error. But here are a couple of ideas to get you started!

Drawing Games

One great game that will improve communication between your staff members is to split them into pairs. Give one piece of paper with the name of a common item on it and one person a piece of paper to draw the item on. The aim of this game is for the first person to verbally dictate to the other how to draw the object, without ever stating what the end result of their picture should be.

Treasure Hunts

Chances are you’ve done a treasure hunt at some point or another – either when you were little or with a child of your own. Completing a treasure hunt successfully requires effective time management, collaboration and problem-solving. Plus, once everyone’s in the spirit, it’s particularly fun so helps build bonds of friendship between your staff too! To add a layer of complexity, you can always add puzzles that will help your workers find their way to the clue, which can make things a little more challenging.

These are just a few different team building ideas to help you get started but there are plenty more options out there. However, hopefully, we’ve given you a little insight into just how important team building days and activities can be!