Strong team building in the workplace is a necessary feature of a healthy company culture and benefits teams and individual employees as was as customers. An improved sense of teamwork improves the business spirit across divisions and gives a full rise in company performance and productivity. There are many different ways to improve team building at a company that can leave everyone with better skills and well-equipped to handle the workday ahead. Here are five useful ways to improve team building in the workplace.
- Establish leadership and relationships
If your employees believe in your judgement and you have earned their trust, they will work well together and individually even when you’re not in full supervision. This way of working is proven to be much more productive than incessant micromanaging, where a boss is constantly looking over the shoulder of the employee and correctly every detail. Micromanaging kills morale and leads to worse productivity, especially with teams.
Before working on a team building exercise, you first need to develop the best type of leadership skills. This does not mean declaring authority but instead trying to promote trust through transparency and honesty. This skill is especially useful in bigger companies where managers cannot be everywhere at once. If teams believe in your ideas, they will enact them in the most beneficial way possible. Try to include your employees in the decision-making process and instead of delegating jobs, give your teams open-ended projects. Permit them extra time and space to work on separate projects they are passionate about. More freedom for teams can give them the ability to develop problems you weren’t even aware the company had.
- Promote teamwork
Once you’ve established relationships between yourself and your team, it’s time to give your full support. Speak highly of your team to others at the company, and encourage suggestions, concerns, and recommendations from others teams. Speak to each team member separately about their own problems, concerns, or values, and incorporate their ideas into projects and the work environment. Do everything you can to communicate as openly and clearly as you can, without hiding anything from other team members or showing favoritism. Your team cannot function without your moral support, so give them the boost of confidence that they need to be highly productive and engaged.
- Establish team goals and values
Be sure to discuss growth and values with each member so that they understand the challenges they are facing and the victories that they can accomplish. Ask them individually and together:
- What does the word victory mean to this team?
- What do we truly care about in the work we’re doing?
- What actions can we take to live up to our stated values?
Ensure that you have a best idea of what they need to achieve and that you understand what your standards for success are going to be. Set up the right timelines and realistic goals, and make sure every team member knows their responsibilities, in order to forge ahead to success.
- Increase well-being and decrease risk
Looking after employee’s well-being will have an amazing impact on team building and overall performance, not just within the team but for the company as a whole. Problems within a team can lead to anxiety, stress, and reduced performance, so dedicating the right amount of time and energy to each employee is vital. If you manage a team at a physical setting like construction or mining, then safety talks and procedures will not only boost morale but keep everyone looking out for one another’s safety. Theories like zero harm will help decrease risk in the workplace and boost communication, morale, and team building.
- Set ground rules for the team
Building trust, working together, and opening communication are vital for the success of a team. However, there also needs to be a set of instructions that everyone can follow in order to stay on track and keep everyone on a lateral playing field. Establish rules for efficiency and success, including general guidelines for communication, problems, commitments, goal settings, etc. Write them all down and post them on the wall so that team members can be reminded of the procedures if there’s any problems.
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