What is team building?
Team building is transforming several individuals with similar roles at the workplace into a cohesive group. By providing their teams with team-building opportunities, employers show successful collaboration and enable their employees to more effectively accomplish tasks together. The coordinated team can then merge the efforts of the individuals to promote productivity and better meet client or customer needs.
The importance of team building at the workplace
The following are some of the top ways that team building can benefit your team or company:
Related: How to Conduct an Employee Evaluation
Improves employee motivation
Team building helps to nurture your organisational culture and give employees insight into functional communication and working relationships. This increases employee motivation and their chances of success when completing tasks. By showing them how much they can achieve, this success fosters their confidence and builds their momentum. In this way, team building augments a group’s potential and shows how much your company will invest in them.
Increases collaboration
A properly formed team has members who collaborate well with each other and trust one another. They can access each other whenever necessary and get the help they need. Team members that support one another ensure that tasks do not lag behind and that most business operations are streamlined.
Three team building activities you can try this week
Consider the following three effective team building activities:
Related: New Hire Onboarding Checklist
1. Two truths and a lie
Start by asking team members to write three things about themselves on pieces of paper. Two of the things they write should be truthful and the last thing should be a lie. Once they have all written down three things, allow them to interact with each other for up to 15 minutes and ask other members what they wrote down.
The point is for each employee to try to convince their colleagues that their truths are lies and that their lie is actually a truth. This means that they should not reveal which ones are which. Then, settle the employees down and have each of them state their three things and the rest of the team should vote on which they think is the lie.
2. Picture pieces game
Choose a cartoon or picture that all team members are familiar with. Cut it into as many pieces as there are team members. Hand each participant their piece and task them with recreating the piece at five times its original size. You can give them pencils, a ruler, paper and markers to make the activity easier for them. When they are done, ask them to work together to put their new pieces together, recreating the original image on a larger scale. This activity demonstrates to employees how their roles or departments contribute to the success of the organisation as a whole.
3. Scavenger hunt
Hide miscellaneous objects throughout the office or building, keeping track of each hidden object. Split your employees or team members into groups of three to five individuals, and have them search for the items you’ve hidden. You can set up the game either inside or outside, depending on the space your company or department has access to. Make the activity more competitive by having a timed deadline for the teams to have found the items. The winner will be the group that finds the most or all the items by the end of your allocated time.
