Fostering Strong Employee Bonds: Proven Team Building Strategies for Success
When implementing team building, a well-thought-out team building strategy is crucial for achieving your objectives effectively. While managers are becoming aware of the numerous benefits team building can bring to an organization, many are unsure how to create team building strategies that bring results.
To help, we’ve outlined 14 top team building strategy tips to ensure the activities and events you plan successfully improve morale, strengthen team bonds, and boost productivity.
What Is Team Building and Why Do You Need It?
Team building involves a range of activities and strategies designed to enhance team cohesiveness. It includes activities like team events with problem-solving and collaboration activities, in-office activities, such as icebreakers or team lunches, and sometimes longer team building events like multi-day company retreats.
But why is team building important? And what benefits can it bring to your company? Advantages of team building include:
Strengthened team bonds.
Increased employee morale, motivation, and engagement.
Improved innovation and collaboration.
Better team problem-solving.
Reduced employee conflict.
All of these benefits of team building come together to improve productivity and efficiency, bring better results, and ultimately lead to greater returns for the company.
Many of the advantages of team building also lead to a better company culture and high levels of job satisfaction. Therefore, if you’re looking for ways to reduce employee turnover, investing in team building is one of the most beneficial things a company can do.
Better team relationships and reduced employee conflict are some of the benefits of team building.
14 Team Building Strategy Tips
1. Assess Team Needs and Areas of Improvement
The first part of creating successful team building strategies is to assess team needs and discover areas relating to teamwork that can be improved. You’ll want to consider both team strengths and weaknesses and tailor your team building strategy and team-building activities accordingly.
For example, if your team communicates well but could benefit from improved problem-solving skills, set up some team building activities that focus on group problem-solving and spend less time on activities solely relating to communication skills.
2. Seek Employee Input
Having assessed the team yourself, get some input from employees. Asking employees what areas they feel the team needs to improve on is an excellent way to ensure your team building strategies are a success.
Involving employees in the planning of team-building activities is also a great idea. If you have a few suggestions for an activity, ask the team which they would prefer before making a final decision. Doing this promotes a sense of ownership and ensures that activities resonate with the team, making good results more likely.
3. Set Clear Objectives
Another of the most important elements of strong team building strategies is setting objectives relating to what you hope to achieve from team building activities.
Define the specific goals you want to accomplish through team building and keep track of if they are being reached. Always ensure that the team building goals are aligned with the company’s overall goals and the career goals of your team members.
4. Hold Regular Team Meetings
When people think of team building strategies, they often think of hands-on team building events and activities. However, there are many ways to incorporate team building into the everyday office routine, such as holding regular team meetings.
Team meetings in general foster communication, collaboration, and problem-solving. You can also schedule meetings connected to your team-building goals. Ask employees if they feel they are benefiting from the team building activities, what’s working well, and what could be improved. For the best team building results, you want to create an open forum where team members can share ideas and provide feedback.
You can also incorporate a team building activity into regular work meetings. For example, by incorporating quick problem-solving activities or icebreaker questions to encourage open communication.
Team meetings and ice breakers are a great way to incorporate team building into the office.
5. Incorporate More Teamwork in the Workplace
Along with team building in meetings, consider Introducing challenges or projects that require collaboration into your workplace, whether remote or in-person. This includes shared tasks and responsibilities and group projects that require teamwork and problem-solving skills.
6. Schedule Team Building Activities Frequently
When planning successful team building strategies, you need to ensure that team building activities are planned frequently. Holding one or two team building activities a year is unlikely to get good results and will make it difficult to reach your team building goals.
Along with team-building activities in meetings, schedule regular team building activities that get staff out of the office. Doing an activity together outside the workplace creates a more relaxed atmosphere that encourages teamwork and relationship building.
Some popular and successful team building activities to incorporate into your team building strategy include:
Teamwork games like paintball or scavenger hunts.
Creative activities, such as painting or DIY craft sessions.
Group volunteering.
Outdoor adventure activities like hiking.
Strategic activities, such as board games, puzzles, or escape rooms.
Laid-back activities like a pub quiz or team lunch.
Team-building and skill development workshops.
Team retreats that incorporate multiple kinds of activities.
7. Tailor Activities to Your Team
In addition to selecting team building activities that align with specific team-building objectives, it's essential to customize them according to your team's individual personalities and preferences. Choose activities that resonate with the team's dynamics and work environment. You also want to create an environment of inclusivity where everyone feels comfortable participating.
8. Host Training and Development Workshops
If you’re looking to build team building strategies that increase employee motivation and engagement, ensure that you incorporate training and development workshops into your strategy. Opt for workshops that focus on team dynamics, communication skills, and conflict resolution.
You can also host workshops that focus on job-specific skills that the team wants to learn. This will encourage team building and improve employee satisfaction due to the career development and skill growth gained in the sessions.
Out-of-office team building activities allow for team bonding in a laid-back environment.
9. Encourage Cross-Department Collaboration
When creating team building strategies, many managers focus on their own team or set up activities for the team by department. For example, one set of activities for the marketing team and another set of activities for the finance team.
While department-specific team building activities are important, and shouldn’t be left out of your team building strategy, planning activities that incorporate multiple departments is also a good idea for best results. Implementing cross-department collaboration also fosters an environment where team members from different areas can share their expertise.
The different departments can give each other advice on team buildingstrategies that have worked for them and share the communication, collaboration, and problem-solving strategies they use on a day-to-day basis.
In addition, when working on projects that include multiple departments, already having strong cross-department relationships will be a major benefit to the project’s success.
10. Recognize and Appreciate Team Efforts
Team building strategies should always be incorporating things outside of team building activities. One of the most important factors to keep in mind is recognizing and celebrating team achievements. Ensure you’re regularly showing gratitude for the team’s hard work and contributions and appreciating improvements in team culture, communication, and problem-solving.
11. Use Technology to Facilitate Virtual Teams
Remote team managers may be wondering how to build a team culture and how to build an effective team when all employees work from home. Luckily, this doesn’t need to be challenging and many of the team building strategies already discussed can apply to remote and hybrid teams.
Initiating remote team building can be as simple as hosting frequent team building meetings and planning fun online events, like team lunches or happy hours. You can also find an array of virtual team building activities that help grow communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills over video call.
If your team is in a similar geographic area, plan some in-person activities to help with team bonding and relationship building. For teams that are more spread out, consider yearly or bi-annual retreats or other in-person team meet-ups.
Virtual team building strategies can include online happy hours or virtual ice breaker games.
12. Plan Team Building Retreats
Once you’ve set up in-office (or video call) team building activities and scheduled more in-depth team building events, the next step in your team building strategy could be to plan a team building retreat. As discussed, team building retreats are an excellent idea for remote teams but can also be useful for hybrid or full-time in-office teams.
Offsite team building retreats provide a change of scenery and allow for relaxed interactions. You also have a good amount of time for your team to participate in multiple team building activities and discuss company goals and strategy for the upcoming period.
13. Follow Up and Assess Impact
Having implemented the team building strategy tips that work for your team, you’ll want to ensure that you’re doing follow-ups to team building activities and assessing each activity’s impact, making adjustments as needed.
You can evaluate the success of different team-building activities through employee feedback and observations of the team in the workplace. Use the insights collected to improve your team building strategy and make ongoing adjustments based on changes in your team’s needs.
14. Ensure That Team Building Is a Continuous Effort
Team building is an ongoing process and not a one-time event. Therefore, the last step in a successful team building strategy is to make and implement a plan for continuous team building efforts. This can include a schedule of organized team building activities and events throughout the year and a protocol for assessing success and making adjustments to the company’s team building strategy.
In Conclusion
Investing in a strong team building strategy not only improves team dynamics and relationships but also has a positive effect on employee engagement and company success. Companies that prioritize team building will see increased productivity, innovation, and employee satisfaction, ultimately contributing to the overall success of the company.
These team building strategies should have given you a good understanding of what you need to put in place to successfully strengthen team bonds and gain all the other benefits that come from team building. Now, all you have to do is put them into practice!