Bringing together colleagues and staff for group activities can help create better morale, more collaboration and, ultimately, help grow your company’s productivity. Matt Carter of Team Wellness Solutions offers some tips on how to get the most from your team-building days once we’re out of lockdown…
I have been told many times, by many employers, and from many sources, that the most valuable asset in any company or organisation is its employees.
It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is, if your team doesn’t get on as a whole then they will not be performing at their full potential. And this will eventually lead to low morale, a lack of interest in their job role, turning up for work late – and leading to a high sickness rate. And, finally, resulting in a lack of productivity and a detrimental effect on the business as a whole.
A happier team can be beneficial for a company for many reasons: increased morale, therefore a happier, more comfortable workforce where staff are able to communicate more efficiently. This can only benefit work ethic and improve their quality of work.
I have participated in many team building days over the years, from outdoor adventure parks where teams have to get an object across a rope bridge without dropping it; to army style military fitness assault courses where teams work together to negotiate their team through and over many challenges; to the traditional carrying of the wood log from one position to the next.
Other activities include sitting in classroom lectures on team development, and learning workshops on how best to describe your colleagues and managers, as well as analysing yourself and looking at how to improve working relationships, job satisfaction and increase morale.
So when I was in the planning stages of formulating a business plan of how I was going to deliver team development and wellness workshops, I drew on all of my past experiences and created a programme of all kinds of team games, categorised into three stages.
The first is to ascertain the team’s knowledge of each other by using a series of getting-to-know-you games to build on and increase their overall working relationships. This can be carried on through the whole of the workshop.
The second stage is designed to get the group working together as a whole, or delegating team members to organise a group in team-related, problem-solving games: building games, skill games, memory games, etc. This creates an element of team camaraderie with the teams working together and creating a closer bond between them.
The final stage involves games which are more relaxed where the teams are quizzed on their ability to remember how much they have absorbed about their colleagues, and games which use the whole of the team in either one big group or smaller groups working as a whole to further increase team bonding.
I believe that team development wellness workshops like this can benefit all companies, as they are mobile and can be brought to your place of work, minimising costs and providing a fun-filled day. And ultimately, it allows staff to return to their desks happier and working better together, to help grow their company’s future progress.
