Apart from your home, a working professional spends most of their time in the workplace. Though you enjoy your work, there can be nothing more lackluster than a boring, dull working environment. And your interactions with your colleagues are just occasional exchanges of His and Hellos. Taking this as the prevalent situation in most workplace, team building has become a necessity for better productivity and employee motivation. It is not only important for improving the overall productivity of the team, but also to improve workplace communication, group skills and develop a team bonding.
Advantages of Team Building Activities
The benefits of workplace activities dedicated to build a strong team are so significant that many offices have included this in their training curriculum. Though the main objective is to improve the production and motivate the employees, there are several other benefits like:
- Improves morale
- Identifies one's leadership skills
- Improves problem solving skills
- Identifies strengths and weaknesses
- Taps creativity and hidden potential
- Makes the objectives and goals clearer
- Improves the productivity of the organization
It is not just team building, but also the choice of team activity is crucial, as it can make or mar a team. Here are two games, especially for the workplace, that would help create a unified, cohesive and committed group.
I am an Amnesiac
In this game, sit in a group and take turns to participate and act as an amnesiac. The participant sits in the middle and pretends not to remember any of their past life. The participant can ask questions like What is my favorite drink?, What do I dislike?, etc. Other people in the group answers his questions and helps the amnesiac to remember. This game is fun, as people get insight and know some fun things about the participant. This game can get quite humorous at times and is a great indoor team building game.
All Aboard
This is one of my favorite among outdoor team building activities and good for a team of twenty people or more. Take a large sheet of paper or plastic and spread it on the floor. Make everyone in the group stand above the sheet. Fold the sheet in half and ask the group again to stand on the folded sheet. Repeat this till the sheet is small enough to hold just half the team. Just keep in mind, this is not a competition where we declare the ones left standing on the sheet as the winner. The winner is the whole team which manages to support and balance each other in the sheet. If anyone falls out of the sheet, the team loses. Hence, it is not just fun to see the amount of teamwork and cooperation, amidst the commotion, it also gives an insight into their team building techniques and skills.
More Ideas for the Workplace
Apart from games, these two activities are an instant hit and enjoyable activities for the workplace.
Potluck
A great way to have fun with your team is by sharing each others delicacies. Everyone enjoys a wholesome meal, a rarity in a workplace. So potluck is a great way to share your favorite dish with your teammates. Here the group makes a list of items, and each member selects one item from the list. If a few team members do not have the convenience of cooking, then there is always the option of buying cold drinks or an ice-cream treat after potluck lunch.
Team Outing
A team picnic or going for bowling, go kart, baseball games can be a huge stress buster. It need not necessarily be an expensive outing, it is the quality time spent with the team members that creates the bonding.
Charity
There is no better activity for building a team, than getting together for a good cause. Choose from a list of charity events and one cause that most of the team members believes in. Collect donations from your family and friends, or organize events to collect funds to donate the charity organization. If you do not want to give monetary help, then you can go together to an old age home on a weekend and help the people there with their daily chores.
One must always remember, just organizing a team activity does not guarantee success. And organizing one once a year also does not suffice and it needs to be held continuously. Organizing interesting activities for the workplace at least weekly or monthly, to keep the employees motivated and focused, is the key. For effective team building, it is also important to identify the issues and plan an activity to tackle this issue. If there no issues, then plan activities to maintain and improve performance, but always avoid making these exercises competitive.
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar