Team Building Activities For Work

By: George Root

Break Studios Contributing Writer

Team building activities for work can help improve productivity and reduce employee turnover. You do not need elaborate planning for effective team building activities for work. You just need to know what kind of team building activities for work are the most effective and how to execute them properly.

  1. Non-business meetings. You probably gather your staff together on a regular basis to discuss departmental and company business. These kinds of meetings are essential, but they do not help with team building activities for work. Hold regular non-business meetings. Allow the staff to discuss whatever they want, and encourage people to ask co-workers for advice. Set guidelines that limits the extent of the personal information that is revealed, but allow this to be an open discussion.
  2. Celebrations. One of the effective team building activities for work is to hold group celebrations to acknowledge significant employee events. The departmental manager should get a cake to help celebrate employee birthdays, and there should be departmental gatherings once a month to acknowledge employee promotions or hiring date anniversaries. This helps make employees feel closer as a group.
  3. Interactive managing. The team leader is the departmental manager, and when the team leader is active with the rest of the team, then that helps the team feel closer. One of the best team building activities for work is for the manager to be among the staff helping with issues and answering questions at least an hour or two per day.
  4. Cross-training. Cross-training as one of the team building activities for work means having the staff train each other in the basics of all of the jobs in the department. Not only does this help team members respect the work that each other does, but it also helps maintain departmental productivity if an employee is absent.
  5. After hours. A manager should not discourage employees from gathering together after work hours. A good team building activity for work is to have the company set up three or four social gatherings for employees to help encourage social bonding with co-workers.
Posted on: Mar. 24, 2011