As a business owner or manager, your goal is to ensure your company always runs smoothly. If all members of your team cooperate and work together, you will be more efficient at everything your business does, whether that is brainstorming or completing a project. Instead of just hoping your employees choose to work together, make the most of your available resources to encourage team building inside and out of the workplace. You will notice an improvement in efficiency as well as morale.
Ensure Open Communication
Your best efforts at creating a feeling of being in a team will fail unless there is open communication. By maintaining a clear method of communication between employees and with you or other managerial staff, you encourage this type of conversation. That is the only way to ensure that everyone feels comfortable sharing their ideas so they can be improved upon in a group.
In addition to keeping communication open and ensuring that you are approachable, you should set up regular meetings where team members can voice their concerns. This will allow you to work towards a solution before any problems develop, saving time.
Make Team Goals the Focus
One of the best ways to encourage strong team cooperation in your business is to create goals that everyone has to work on achieving together. Instead of seeing who can complete a task first, create a group goal. Retail businesses, for example, would want to consider setting sales goals for the entire store instead of for each individual. This way, every member of the staff can play to their strengths, working together seamlessly. If you were to create individual goals that are the same for everyone, this may actually lower productivity as not every person is suited to each task.
While team goals should be the focus, you can still set individual goals for employees. The key here is to be sure that everyone understands how their individual targets will help the group as a whole reach their larger goals. In this way, everyone feels as if they are making a contribution and the business continues to run smoothly.
Give Out Team Rewards
Just as with the goals you set, the rewards for meeting these should be given out to the entire group as a whole. Instead of giving every member of staff a gift certificate to a restaurant, for example, plan an afternoon off work and take the entire team to that specific restaurant as a group. They can celebrate their achievements together and even bond over the experience. Of course, individual rewards, such as annual bonuses, are still useful, but these should be carefully balanced with team rewards.
Plan Team Building Days
Not all of the team cooperation efforts need to take place within your building. In fact, it can sometimes be more beneficial to bring your employees out of this familiar territory for a team building day. You can find a wide range of London team building activities, most of which will encourage your staff to work together to solve problems or perhaps simply give them the chance to bond. By taking part in these activities outside of the workspace, you also give your staff the chance to relax and unwind.
You can choose activities that involve active teamwork such as completing some sort of challenge or treasure/scavenger hunt or activities that are all about relaxing and getting to know each other better, such as a workshop or making a food item together. Even if you are not able to designate an entire day for team building activities, you can set off part of the day for it. Some activities can be done right in the office, meaning you only need an hour or so to take advantage of them.
