Successful companies realize strong team spirit affects the entire office environment and culture. Teamwork helps to accomplish tasks quicker and also serves as a great tool for unifying employees. You want your employees to support rather than compete with their coworkers. Although it sounds simple, creating, building and managing a team-oriented environment can be difficult. In order for the team building process to go smoothly, there is a lot of preliminary planning and strategizing that needs to be performed.

Benefits of Team Building

One of the most important things to remember when building a team environment is to make sure all employees are involved from the very beginning. If employees feel needed and valuable, they will feel empowered and successful and will be easier to manage.

A team-oriented company or department helps encourage employees and team members to search for ways to improve how they perform their individual job as well as how they can improve the team as a whole. A company that adopts a team-oriented work structure needs to make sure that employees understand that this structure is a way to make the company and each individual better.

Keys to Successful Team Building:

In order for teams to be successful, every team member must feel equally important and exhibit the same focus and effort.

1. Each team member needs to understand why they have been chosen for the team and be willing to participate on the team. If an employee is reluctant to participate, it would be wise to assign them to a different task or team. An unwilling or less motivated team member could derail a team’s success.
2. Team members need to understand why the team was created and the level of importance management has given it.
3. Make sure leadership has clearly stated goals and defined company expectations. All team members should fully understand what part they are responsible for to achieve the final result.
4. When assembling teams, make sure the skill sets available among team members are sufficient to accomplish the assigned tasks without any team member needing to rely on another for help. This will reduce the chance for any competitiveness and help each team member feel essential to the project’s success.
5. Involve team members in designing their team’s projects and assigning responsibility among team members. Allowing employees to help define the procedures and goals they need to accomplish will help build trust between coworkers and management.
6. Leadership needs to make sure that team members have enough confidence and freedom to own the projects they have been assigned and do whatever is necessary.
7. Management must define all boundaries and limitations that apply to the assigned project, and see that all team members fully understand and adhere to them.
8. Encourage team members to search for ways to improve projects and redefine areas in order to exceed corporate expectations.
9. Management needs to make sure all necessary resources are readily available to each and every team member, not only to ensure projects are completed in a timely manner, but to further promote staff unity and successful collaboration between team members.
10. Problem areas need to be discussed openly and honestly with all team members, with emphasis on positive feedback to find viable solutions that support the entire team.
11. In order for the team environment to be successful, employees need to know that their accomplishments will be recognized and rewarded. Management must provide a worthy reward system in order to keep team members motivated and content.

Risks of Team Building

Although there are clearly more benefits than risks to a team-oriented environment, it is necessary to be aware of the possible problems that could arise:

• Employees may become cynical or concerned about the company’s current status and future success. This is particularly true if the team building events go too far beyond the company’s normal way of doing business.
• If the reward system currently in place is based on individual achievements, employees may perceive the change to a team-oriented office as temporary, thereby diminishing the effectiveness of this strategy.
• If poorly organized, employees may become less productive and complain that team projects and activities are consuming too much of their time and not allowing them the opportunity to do their individual jobs efficiently.

Conclusion

Successful team building can make your employees feel empowered and more focused. Team members will be encouraged and motivated to achieve not only what is expected, but also search for ways to improve themselves and their team. When employees feel they are a value to the company, they become more valuable.