As an employer, you want to do everything you can to support a collaborative work environment that fosters teamwork and good communication. Team bonding activities are one way that you can encourage productivity and creativity, and build trust among your employees. To achieve this, take a look at a few fun activities you can try to boost team bonding in the workplace.
Make Teamwork a Key Objective
If you want your employees to collaborate successfully, you need to make workplace collaboration a primary objective for your team. It is important to allow your employees to see how the leaders in your company interact and band together to accomplish goals. When teams work together well to complete an objective, they should be publicly commended for their hard work and praises for how their contribution supports the team overall.
Employers should also do their best to maintain an open environment where employees are encouraged to share ideas. Ideally, teamwork should be incorporated into every company’s mission statement to ensure that collaboration remains a priority for both management and employees.
Provide Employees with Essential Resources
With access to better resources comes more improvements to communication in the workplace. Employees should be provided with comfortable work spaces that allow each member to interact in a designated setting instead of being spread out in different locations. When face-to-face meetings are not possible, having access to remote technology, such as video conferencing, can be invaluable in retaining a sense of team bonding.
Setting up an online collaboration portal for workers can also be useful for improving communication among co-workers. There are a number of tools available online, such as Skype and Slack, that can allow employees to communicate from different departments. Having these tools at their fingertips can help ensure that your employees are putting forth effort to maintain proper communication.
Create Ongoing Learning Opportunities
Not everyone is born with naturally amazing communication skills. Sometimes it takes a little training and practice to develop good teamwork skills. As an employer, it is your responsibility to invest in your workers. This means providing the necessary training to hone their skills so that they can become effective communicators and collaborators.
One key skill that all employees should have is the ability to work with coworkers effectively. There are a number of ways that employers can help their workers improve these skills, such as through workshops, training seminars, or public speaking exercises. In addition to improving their communication skills, these activities can also boost their self-confidence.
Encourage Get-togethers Outside of Work
It can sometimes be difficult to get to know someone in a workplace setting. For a team to be highly collaborative together, they have to know each other on a more personal level. This can be achieved by spending time together away from the office environment.
From casual lunches to having drinks after work, these brief get-togethers can help co-workers build trust with one another and become more comfortable sharing ideas. Moreover, fun social events can help employees ‘break the ice’ and better understand each other’s unique personality, strengths, and weaknesses.
Assign Roles and Set Expectations
While every member of the team should put forth an equal amount of effort, not all members will offer the same set of skills. It is important to assign roles to workers based on their unique skill-set and ensure that your employees understand their roles. When assigning roles, leadership should look at each team member’s unique strengths and weaknesses to develop a strong team.
It is also essential for the leaders of the team to express their expectations regarding important details like project objectives and deadlines. When these details are clear from the start, there will be less confusion of what needs to be accomplished and when.
Be Prepared to Resolve Team Conflict
No matter how well your team works together, there will inevitably come a time when conflicts arise. Knowing how to resolve these conflicts quickly and professionally can make a huge difference going forward.
Ideally, you want to create a system that allows employees to share any feedback and concerns that they may have without fear of repercussions. In addition, employees should have the ability to add their own input when it comes to finding solutions to conflicts. When employees know that there is a system in place for proactive conflict resolution, they are more likely to return to their team without letting the conflict affect their productivity.
Schedule Team Building Activities
Team building activities can go a long way towards helping you achieve a more productive and collaborative environment. By bringing your employees together to participate in team building events, you can create positivity and creativity which can be highly advantageous to all involved.
Headquartered in Arlington, VA, Bond’s Escape Room offers exciting escape room adventures designed to do just that-enabling teams to work together to foster collaboration and bond as a team. For more information about how to improve team bonding or to schedule a team event for your workplace, contact Bond’s Escape Room today!