The performance of your business relies not only on how each individual part of your business works together to create your production process, but how well your employees work and interact together.
The more your employees are able to work together as a coherent team, the more efficient your business is going to be and the more positive the work environment will be. To ensure that your entire work force continually has the best communication levels possible, you should look to carry out various team building activities on a regular basis.
Meal & Drinks
Something as simple as you going out together as employees and having drinks and a meal on an evening can be a great boost for morale, giving people a chance to talk and get to know each other outside of the work place in a more relaxed social environment.
It doesn’t have to be regularly, it could just be a once a month activity. Although only one day a month doesn’t seem like much, you will be surprised how it can help greatly increase communication between all members of your business.
Corporate Retreat
There are a number of different corporate retreats that a business can undertake. You could decide to take your business to an outward bound facility where they can take part in a number of team building exercises such as orienteering and other tasks that require a team to communicate and work together.
Alternatively, you could decide to go for a much more relaxed retreat, taking them to a spa resort where the employees can relax and unwind, getting to know each other in an environment away from a stressful workplace.
When deciding where to go, it is best to look at not only what is the best value for money, but which type of retreat would best benefit your staff. If it has been particularly busy at work lately, the spa option could be the better choice. Whereas, if there has been a number of errors caused by poor communication, an outward bound activity would help improve those communication levels and help everyone work better as a functional group.
Charitable Event
Taking part in a charitable event is a brilliant way to bring your team together for a greater cause. When deciding on what to do, you could do something based on fitness and activities, like a sports event or marathon. Alternatively, you could do something more light hearted like fancy dress work day or some other event that will lift morale. However, for long term success, the fitness activity would be the way to go. For example, if members of your staff were to run a marathon in order to raise funds for a charity, they would work together on a regular basis in order to train and build up fitness prior to the marathon.
Going through this experience creates a bond between your staff because they know what the other person is going through in their dieting and training regime. This bond will not only improve their friendship, but increase their interaction within the workplace.
While preparing for the marathon, you could have a number of printed t-shirts created with the name of your business, the charity your staff are running for and even their personalised names on the back of each shirt. These can not only be worn by the competitors as they run the marathon, but could also be worn by your staff who have come along to support the runners, making them feel like a real part of the team.
On the other hand, a less active event, while not creating the sort of deep bond a marathon would generate, could be better in terms of getting more people involved. While you may get a good few members of staff involved in the marathon, it most likely won’t be everyone as there will be people who would just not be physically or mentally up to what would be required. However, the less active event like a fancy dress day is something that everyone would be able to do no matter what their fitness levels may be.
Paintballing
In recent years, paintballing has become a very popular activity for businesses, allowing them to not only bond as a team, but release any stress or frustration that may have built up through work. Especially if they have never done anything like this before, whether they are good or not, your staff will thoroughly enjoy giving it a go, having a lot of fun while learning valuable core team building values that they can then transfer into the office and help your business.
Volunteering
Just like running a marathon for charity, doing something selfless as a group is a fantastic way to bring your team together, increasing morale as you know that what you are doing is benefiting a lot of people. In terms of where you want to volunteer, the choice is up to you. It could be working at the Salvation Army, a children’s hospital or something as simple as helping clean up rubbish. No matter what you do, it will all be beneficial to everyone involved, providing you and your workers with that feel good factor.
What’s more, any volunteer work you do for a local charity or organisation, reflects fantastically well on your business. Not only does it paint your business in a positive light, it improves people’s opinions of your business and enhances your overall brand image.
