What is team building?
Team building is the process of creating a team that cohesively works together towards a common goal. The importance and main purpose of team building is to create a strong team through forming bonds and connections. Creating these bonds through team building is very beneficial to businesses and organizations. The benefits of team building include increased communication, planning skills, employee motivation, and employee collaboration.
Fun activities that help people see each other in a different light allow them to connect in a different setting. People on your team are asked to think about the implications of these activities at their workplace.
One of the most powerful reasons for team building is to get results. Through a series of planned team building events that are fun and motivational, teams build skills like communication, planning, problem-solving, and conflict resolution. These team building activity ideas help to facilitate long-term team building through fostering genuine connections, deeper discussions, and processing.
A close-knit team will ensure productivity and a good work environment. Here are 12 reasons to start team building: motivate your team members and bring them closer together, even in the virtual workplace!
- Networking, socializing, and getting to know each other better
- Teamwork and boosting team performance
- Competition and bragging rights
- Celebration, team spirit, fun, and motivation
- Collaboration and the fostering of innovation and creativity
- Communication and working better together
- Enhance company culture
- Create something to look forward to
- Show employees appreciation
- Build bridges across departments
- Unlock leadership potential
- Improve employee engagement and morale
Learn more about the 12 reasons to start planning team building activities at your company below.
The TOP 12 REASONS FOR TEAM BUILDING
1. Networking, socializing, and getting to know each other better.
Socializing and making friends in the workplace is one of the best ways to increase productivity in the virtual, hybrid, or in-person workplace. Not only does it increase morale in the office: it will help your team adapt to a virtual work environment more efficiently, solving issues that come up with the “new normal.” Holding a team building activity can be short and sweet, or it can be a more complex event that everyone has more time to plan for! Either way, TeamBonding has all the resources you’ll need to make it fun. Try one of our virtual team building events to bring your team members closer together and show your appreciation.
2. Teamwork and boosting team performance.
Team building activities also work to improve workplace projects that involve teamwork because it helps the teams understand each other better. After completing team building activities together, employees better understand each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and interests. This understanding helps them work even better together on future progress vital to a company.
When everyone is contributing their best, it sets the tone for a positive work culture. Each team is different and every individual has something unique to contribute. Once you can identify and encourage everyone to reach their individual potential, your team will be able to reach its collective potential as well.
3. Competition and bragging rights.
Competition has been shown to increase productivity. By channeling that increased productivity into a fun, inclusive team building activity, teams can bond in a more effective way than by other methods. Learning to work well together can take some time, but you’d be surprised at how fast teams can come together when there is an incentive to win on the table.
4. Celebration, team spirit, fun, and motivation.
After any sports team wins a major championship, they celebrate and have fun, which motivates them to want to win even more. This extreme example shows that the celebration, cheering, and fun that comes with every TeamBonding event can motivate employees to bring their job to the next level!
5. Collaboration and the fostering of innovation and creativity.
People tend to have a larger imagination when they are around people they are comfortable with. Successful team building events not only bring people closer together, but they also contribute to a more successful and creative workplace. Everyday workplace collaboration is key to a successful business. For example, a coach always has assistants to help out when needed.
6. Communication and working better together.
To no surprise, communication and working better together is the top reason why people choose team building. Everybody wants a friendly work environment, where people are comfortable and happy to talk to and work with anyone.
One of the best outcomes for team building is that the activities actually work to improve communication.
Many hold these activities with the specific goal of working on communication and trust. While this is a general goal for every office, you may find certain areas of communication that could be focused on. You can also learn more about the crucial factors of team building success.
7. Enhance company culture
Company culture can be explained as the values, norms, goals, and attitudes that exist within your organization. Simply put, it defines the environment you work in and makes up the personality of the company. According to Indeed, job seekers highly value a company’s culture, and 46% of those who considered a job, but did not apply to it, said they ultimately chose not to because they didn’t feel it would be a good culture fit.
Regularly scheduled team building events can improve your company culture and provide a space to understand your employees’ wants and needs. Sometimes the culture of management doesn’t match up with that of the employees, so finding a middle ground is an important step in creating a more positive environment. Team building activities help to cut out workplace toxicity and get everyone on the same page while working together. The benefits will be sure to follow you back to the office.
8. Create something to look forward to
Whether it is once a week or every few months, scheduling team building activities will give your employees something to look forward to other than those project deadlines. No one wants to look at their calendar to see what seems like a never-ending list of tasks. Have your employees get excited about non-work-related events during the workweek, not just on the weekend.
It is also important to recognize that these events give employees a shared goal that doesn’t have to do with their work. This much-needed break is good for employee mental health and ties back into the idea of creating a more positive work environment for the people who make your company successful.
9. Show employees appreciation
Along the same lines, team building events let employees feel appreciated for their hard work. Many times, great work can accidentally be swept under the rug due to a sea of other things going on. Prioritizing these events shows employees you care about them and appreciate their efforts by rewarding them with a fun activity the team can enjoy together.
10. Build bridges across departments
The connections between employees within one department aren’t the only ones that matter when it comes to building a stronger team. “Team” doesn’t have to be confined to the sales team or the marketing team. It is a unified collection of all the working teams that make up your organization. Ask yourself – how well do you know employees in departments other than your own? If the answer is not well or not at all, then team building will surely bring departments closer together to encourage cross-functional collaboration that will benefit your organization as a whole.
Urge employees to familiarize themselves with people in other departments, instead of working in a silo with members of their immediate team. You will likely find that this practice will help everyone to feel more comfortable in the workplace and open doors to new relationships. Bridging those divides allows for positive relationships to form, which leads to a more productive company.
11. Unlock leadership potential
In a more relaxed and creative environment, you may find employees have hidden skills that haven’t been discovered in the office. Leaders can arise in the simplest of activities and may surprise you. Regularly scheduled team building events can feed employees’ confidence in the workplace. You may discover that the quiet new employee is incredible at inspiring their peers and with the right mentor, development opportunities, and encouragement could be your company’s next rising leader.
Consider creating a mentor program or leadership development program to help employees achieve their highest potential. After each team building event, reach out to team leaders and request nominations for these programs based on colleagues that have stood out during these experiences.
12. Improved employee engagement and morale
Committing to regularly scheduled team building events can build comradery, make employees more excited to come to work, more enthusiastic about their work, and more comfortable approaching each other. It also may help employees to feel more encouraged to step away from their desks and have some fun, which in turn will help them return to their work feeling refreshed and re-energized.
Team building activities give employees something common to talk about other than work. They can break down communication barriers and help teams work more efficiently. Most importantly, employees are able to take the skills that they learn from these events and apply them to their everyday tasks, such as creativity, thinking strategically, adapting quickly, and working collaboratively with their peers.
Testimonials all over the TeamBonding website will attest to the importance of team building.
A successful team building activity will surely mean a more comfortable, successful workplace environment for any company, large or small. Are you ready to improve your team’s communications, skills, collaboration, and performance, among other abilities?
We’ve got you covered! We offer a few different program and activity categories designed to fit the structure of your company.
If you’re still adapting to the new normal and looking to keep your virtual team engaged, view our Virtual & Remote Online Team Building Activities.
If you have a hybrid company culture and are looking to reconcile your remote teams with your in-person teams, view our Hybrid Team Building Activities.
If you’re starting to return to your office space and resuming in-person activities, view our In-Person Team Building Activities.
