How a Team Building Program Impacts Employee Morale
Over many years of consulting for companies and organizations, I’ve frequently encountered people in leadership positions who appear to have no clue as to how much team building impacts employee morale. This lack of awareness creates lower-functioning, less productive and profitable workplaces where people don’t feel like they’re valued or included in the decision-making process.
The reason so many leaders, managers, and supervisors don’t understand the effect of team building on morale is because they’ve never been taught how to bring people together. The standard, outdated workplace model is for someone at the top to force people to work together, withhold decision-making ability, shout orders, never praise, make them compete against each other, offer no support, and then get upset when they don’t collaborate well.
Thankfully, things don’t have to be this way. When you implement an advanced team building program in your workplace, you’ll experience benefits like:
- Greater motivation.
- More engagement.
- Increased productivity.
- People feeling valued.
- Improved communication.
- More clarity.
- People being on the same page.
- Less competition and greater collaboration.
- Getting rid of power differentials.
- More creativity.
- Access to a larger pool of ideas and perspectives.
- Increased trust.
- Better interpersonal relationships.
- Positive interactions.
- A happier work environment.
Imagine what your workplace would be like if your employees enjoyed these things. You’d all get more work done in a far more harmonious climate.
I had a client tell me that he was surprised at how much morale improved at his company when they implemented an ongoing team building program. He shared that people grew to trust one another and were able to work with virtually no conflict. They went from getting work done but feeling miserable to being far more productive and happy. That’s how powerful team building is.
To implement a successful team building program in your company or organization, make sure you include vital elements like these:
- Teach everyone valuable team building techniques.
- Require leadership to attend and participate.
- Set aside uninterrupted time for team building activities.
- Reward positive team building behavior.
- Help people connect on a deeper level.
- Be open to new ideas and feedback.
- Listen to people.
- Encourage positive behaviors.
- Move away from competition to collaboration.
- Praise people.
- Look for commonalities.
- Promote open communication.
- Move from punishment to support.
- Emphasize kindness and empathy.
How many of these things do you and your staff do every day? If you’re like most workplaces, not very many.
The key to increasing morale in your company or organization is to commit to teaching everyone how to practice behaviors that help people get along and work well with each other. When people enjoy interacting and collaborating, they feel better about themselves and their workplace and accomplish more.
At this very moment you have access to one of the biggest morale boosters there is, and it’s called team building. When you give people the tools and support they need to come together, there’s no limit to what they can do. You can create an ongoing team building program any time you choose, all you have to do is decide to make it happen. Cheers, Guy.