When thinking of team building, most people remember the awkward and uncomfortable (yet hilarious) scenes from popular TV series like The Office.
But how exactly can team building help your company?
Well, to give you a better understanding, here are five undeniable reasons why you should invest in team building activities in the workplace.
Keeps Your Employees Engaged
According to Gallup, a staggering 70% of U.S. employees aren’t working to their top potential, which is costing the U.S. economy up to $500 billion every single year.
That’s a very worrying number, but it’s also not surprising at all when you consider that most companies don’t have the faintest idea on how to keep their employees interested and motivated to give their best every single day.
But while that is certainly not an easy thing to achieve, and thus it doesn’t have a simple fix, team building activities can contribute to an increase in employee engagement and better overall office culture.
With the help of team building activities, you can help your employees learn to work together, get to know each other better, and become more associated with your company, which in turn will make them more eager to achieve the common goals that are set out and be a part of a successful team.
If you can keep your employees engaged through team building, the challenges that they go through during the activities are bound to translate to the workplace as well, which can have long-lasting effects on engagement and performance.
Improves Communication
Another reason why team building activities are essential for any company is that they are one of the best ways to develop communication and collaboration skills between your employees.
Since your employees will need to work on complicated projects at work, it’s essential that they have a system for communicating, working together, and making important decisions as a team if they are going to work through various challenges and consistently find the best solution to move forward.
Numerous studies, including extensive research by MIT, found that communication patterns are a crucial part of success in team-based projects. Although that’s not shocking, the actual impact that even subtle communication differences had on performance showed that we still don’t fully grasp just how crucial it is to learn to share ideas and work together in the most efficient way possible.
Team building activities in London can be the perfect learning opportunity for establishing better communication patterns in a fun and engaging way, and then taking those lessons and applying them to the office setting.
Better Relationships between Colleagues
Just as communication is important, so is office morale – to put it simply, your employees need to get along and care for one another to be able to work towards a common goal and work out any issues in a productive way.
One of the worst things that can happen to a company is a culture of alienation and isolation developing between co-workers – if the people in the office don’t want to communicate and only do it out of necessity, that can have detrimental effects not only on office productivity but on your bottom line as well.
Luckily, with team building activities, that doesn’t have to be an issue.
If you hire team building and conference organisers who know how to use team building to improve co-worker relationships, you can use those fun and engaging activities to get your employees to get to know each other on a personal level and become a more cohesive unit.
Having mutual respect and an understanding of each other that stretches beyond work projects can be immensely valuable in an everyday setting – people will be more encouraging to each other and will be more willing to help those that need assistance to get their part of the job done.
What’s more, if conflicts were to arise, knowing how to work through tough situations from team building events will make it much easier to find a resolution without hurting overall team morale.
Become More Attractive to Top Talent
In today’s hyper-competitive market landscape, companies have a tougher time than ever attracting or even retaining their current best employees.
With large companies with multi-million dollar budgets being able to provide unique perks to their workers, small and medium businesses need to find other ways to attract talent or else the prospects of the future will become gloomy.
However, one area that small companies can compete with the largest corporations is office culture – developing a place of work where employees love to spend their time is something that’s not only attainable but essential for any company that wants to grow and be appealing to the best minds of the industry.
If your company’s team building events are exciting and innovative, that can serve as a powerful recruiting tool for attracting talent. The young generation of employees are placing a stronger emphasis on the company culture, and with team building events, you can nurture and develop a creative and collaborative environment that will be appealing to both your current employees and those that are considering joining your company.
Increased Profits
Finally, you can’t underestimate the effect that team building events can have on your bottom line.
All of the previously-discussed points lead back to office performance and potential, and all of them are influenced by how well you can put together your team building activities.
So, while team building activities may not seem like something that directly relates to your profits, they play a critical role by keeping your employees motivated and engaged, helping them communicate more effectively and develop better relationships, and by creating a culture that’s desired by the top talent in your industry.
So, the next time you’re trying to sell the idea of team building event to the decision makers at your company, you will have arguments for why it makes sense.
You can point to the fact that while it may be difficult to measure the importance of team building events right after they happen, the benefits that it produces are clearly visible in all organizations that employ team building, and there’s no reason why it can’t have the same effect for your company as well.
Team building doesn’t have to an uncomfortable way to force employees to hang out together – the right venue finder and event organizer can help you put together an event that’s just right for your company and your goals.