Three Great Ideas for Team Building

A healthy company has numerous positive characteristics, all which help contribute to its overall success. One important concept that is sometimes overlooked, however, is the power and importance of a close-knit team of employees. When co-workers share a genuine connection, they are happier in the office and more motivated to support colleagues both inside and outside of the workplace. That closeness manifests itself by boosting your bottom line, helping with employee retention and even improving your quality of customer service, as happier workers are generally more patient and helpful.

At InfoCision, we strive to create an atmosphere where people enjoy coming to work every day. Building that kind of camaraderie takes work, but it absolutely possible if you are committed. Here are three great ways to get started:

1. Do Something Charitable

Working together to give back to the community or raise money for a good cause is a terrific way to bring people together and help them get to know each other better. For instance, recently hundreds of InfoCision employees gathered outside our corporate offices to take part in the Ice Bucket Challenge and raise money for ALS research. InfoCision employees across Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania took part in the event, helping raise more than $10,000 for the ALS Association. Whether it is a clothing drive, helping out at a soup kitchen or running a 5k for a worthy cause, charity work is a wonderful bonding experience.

2. Engage in Friendly Competition

It is always fun to find out who is the table tennis, bowler or card player in the office. If you want to be truly ambitious, you could even take an afternoon off to go paintballing. Activities like these help employees spend time together outside the office in a natural setting. Of course, you never want to see anybody take these games too seriously, so just make sure everybody knows beforehand that you are playing just for fun.

3. Provide One-on-One Mentoring Opportunities

Every employee needs guidance from his or her boss and clear expectations from upper management to perform optimally. But within a department, one-on-one mentoring between colleagues can be valuable as well. This kind of relationship bonds these two workers and provides the new employee with someone he or she knows is reliable enough to be leaned on in the first few weeks, which can be stressful. Mentoring also gives the new hire a realistic look at what his or her day-to-day responsibilities will be (after all, no one is going to be able to explain the job better than somebody who has done it already).

The most successful organizations work hard to facilitate positive employee relationships that create an environment conducive to productivity and collaboration. But what team building activities your business chooses is not as important as making sure you do something. Planning these kinds of events also shows employees that upper management cares about its workers, which helps build trust and teamwork between those two groups.

Do you have any great ideas for team building? Please let us know in the comment section below!