Around 400$ per employee to make your team happy. That’s the average spend a company pays for corporate team building activities to boost its employees’ performance and motivation at work. Would you pay for it?
No doubt that staff engagement has built its way into the top management’s agenda, judging by the amount of corporate events held nowadays. But is that the only way?
An event is a one-time opportunity to create some interest in your employees, and it can even be counterproductive if the office routine doesn’t follow up with this practice.
We’ve done our homework to offer you the 5 tips for your corporate team building activities that will definitely make a difference in your employees. It’s time to raise the company spirit once and for all!
1. Better smaller but often!
You don’t necessarily need to spend a huge amount of money - have it or not - to make your employees happy. Neither is always about spending an entire day bonding. Wasn’t it the small details that count?
You can as well take corporate team building activities at work as a habit rather than just a special occasion. It’s all about creating a routine that will, little by little, make your employees feel more comfortable sharing time together
Start with easy, low-effort simple team-building activities that don’t involve much effort for everyone to join - everyone needs a bit of time to get used to something new!
For instance, try holding a “Breakfast Monday” in the office. Simple team building activity is to engage the team by bringing some warm buns, butter and coffee, and just enjoy half an hour of quality time together. Trigger casual conversations to break the ice or, if lacking initiative, you can even bring some fun facts to the table.
2. Stimulate teamwork
Of course, this changes from business to business, but there’s always room for a bit of teamwork!
You, as a manager, will provide much-needed social connection by engaging your crew, having team building at work, and your workers collecting your employees together from time to time to focus on a specific assignment.One by one or in small groups, they will get to know each other, and the friendly atmosphere in the office will come along.
Also, teamwork is a great tool for creativity! From our years in school, we learned that working with a colleague helps you discover new angles and approaches that you’d have never seen otherwise.
If you don’t have small tasks in every department, you can take one or two employees from each team and have them meet for a certain project. For example, coming up with new ideas for ads, content for the website or new tools that can be useful to get their tasks done. Trying out this technique will improve relationships and create great teamwork at work, but will also create a pleasant work atmosphere.
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3. Share your agenda with your team
It may not sound like a team building activity itself, but it will surely help you create a more transparent environment.
It’s simple, and everyone likes it - admit it or not. Give your employees the possibility to know what’s happening at the office, and by that we mean “what everyone else is working on right now”.
It can be as simple as allowing the team to see each other’s calendars, as well as making it easier to book a meeting with them. This helps with trustworthiness and makes your employees feel more part of the whole team.
4. Celebrate good times, come on!
Not the kind of celebration that takes place at a party and probably champagne. We’re talking about celebrating work-wise achievements.
Probably, each employee already has some objectives to reach in a certain period. That’s work, after all. But achieving goals is not exciting if nobody else recognizes your milestones. Team building, remember?
This has a name, and it’s called gamification. Making it fun and entertaining for everybody to follow both self and others’ achievements. Again, no need for big occasions. Actually, having gamification elements between your employees, it is one of the most exciting team building activities. A new sale, a new follower, a closed budget… engage the team with giving them reasons to enjoy their work!
As an idea, for corporate team building activities you can create small notifications to trigger when one of these goals has been reached. Personalize a sound or a video and display it so that everyone in the office can see it. This will not only boost motivation, it will also increase performance and efficiency.
Who wants to be the next one?
It’s a celebration!
5. Get managers involved into team building at work
It wouldn’t make any sense to have simple team building activities if the management team is still in an unapproachable stage. Make them join the mood!
Did you know that employee engagement is 70% influenced by managers? Sounds fair enough to have them taking part in the team building routines.
This can be an ice-breaker for the rest of the team to actually believe that all these initiatives can be useful. Encourage conversations, teamwork and cross-department interactions, and have the managers walk the talk.
You now know where to start to have a more engaged and motivated team, on a daily basis! What are you going to try first?
