Benefits of Team Building Activities at Work
Team building benefits are the organizational gains of investing in team building activities, workshops and exercises for employees. For example, these benefits may include helping your team stay happy and work better together, and improving company culture. These benefits are also known as “team building advantages.”
Here is a list of reasons to do team building at work. This list includes ideas related to company culture, employee productivity and workplace relationships.
Create friendships
When working in a company, team members are not regularly in contact with all members of your organization, especially if the company is large. Because of this challenge, team building activities are an opportunity for your team to get to know members from other departments. Team building activities are also a great way for your employees to meet new colleagues. A report by Gallop states that having friendships at the office can lead to being twice as likely to be engaged at work.
Boost company culture
A major benefit of team building is that it can boost company culture. When you devote resources to team bonding, you show what kind of company environment you want to create for your team. By doing fun activities together, you show your team that you value who they are and that you want to cultivate positive relationships within your workplace. Establishing a company culture that values these connections draws in great talent and increases employee retention.
Uncover hidden talents
Ten years ago, a woman named Susan Boyle made a big stir on the show Britain’s Got Talent when she dazzled the audience and judges with her lovely singing voice. Boyle’s exterior made everyone underestimate her, but when started singing, spectators were speechless.
As humans, we tend to make quick judgments about other people that can make it hard to see an individual’s true potential. When we only see someone in one way, for instance by job title, we overlook other abilities.
A unique benefit of doing team building activities is that coworkers occasionally reveal surprising talents. For instance, perhaps Lucinda in accounting is a talented artist who can lighten the graphic designers’ workload during crunch-time. Maybe Arthur in human resources is a classic car buff who can give you tips on woo-ing a muscle-car-loving prospective client.
Increase team cooperation
The best team building exercises require employees to work together to accomplish a goal. While cooperation is crucial for teams to work well together, it may require some practice. Team building offers the perfect opportunity to practice collaboration and learn what workflow works best for your team, helping your employees become more efficient in the process.
Create shared memories
When team members who do not frequently interact do so, a lot of the awkwardness stems from not having shared memories or talking points. Doing even simple team building activities like icebreaker questions helps find commonalities that participants can talk about when they next meet. A clear benefit of team building exercises is helping your employees build shared memories so they can more easily make friends with each other.
Boost team spirit
Participating in team building exercises boosts team spirit and morale. Completing team challenges will give your people a sense of solidarity, and also help boost participants’ self-efficacy. This sense of solidarity makes your team feel more invested in each other and in their work.
Inspire productivity and motivation
A study by Gallup found that employee isolation reduces productivity up to 21%. Working your team non-stop leads to burn-out, which is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” Setting aside time for team building relieves stress and re-energizes your team, which increases productivity and motivation at work.
