Twenty years ago, the words ‘team building’ often incited looks of panic and eye rolls from staff as they readied themselves for a weekend of trust falls with their coworkers. These days, team building often involves fun tasks, food, and an opportunity to give back to the community through organizations like Habitat for Humanity.

Team Building is about increasing communication, collaboration, respect, and goodwill among all levels of staff and management. Group volunteering and team building events have become particularly important to startups as they strive to create the best possible work environment, attracting the best talent in their industry.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida produced a paper titled “Does Team Building Work?”, analyzing the data from more than 100 studies, and determined that team building likely has a positive impact on team performance. Ultimately, team building can impact all facets of your organization, resulting in increased productivity and an improvement to your bottom line.

1. Non-Work Communication Is Important

Team discussions that have little or no relevance to work can help to create a team that is cohesive and works well together. Constantly talking about work can cause stress and strain amongst co-workers, so providing your team with the space and time to chat about topics unrelated to work, including their personal lives, fun events, or activities that you’ve scheduled, allows them the opportunity to get to know one another better and let loose a bit!

Photo Credit: ContributedAllowing your team to interact outside of work, such as at a volunteering project, helps to develop relationships that can lead to increased productivity in the group.

Creating a team that cares for and looks out for one another is key in increasing productivity and intelligence. According to a study from MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory, “35% of the variation in a team’s performance can be accounted for simply by the number of face-to-face exchanges among team members.”

2. Break Bad Habits and Patterns

Humans truly are creatures of habit and people often fall into patterns with one another, playing the role that they have been assigned within the company. While these habits and patterns can help keep harmony, it often doesn’t leave the room needed to evolve and showcase new talents and ideas.

By taking your team outside of the workplace, you are giving them an opportunity to interact with their coworkers and management in a new and different way. You may find that your most introverted team member is exceptionally funny, or that the “head down, hard worker” has terrific management and communication skills. You will likely discover new strengths within your team that may be useful in the workplace.

3. Show Your Team They’re Valued

Team building exercises and corporate retreats are an investment. When you embark on this journey, you will be investing your capital, lost work hours, and your planning time to plan a team building event that will be embraced and return dividends. Make no mistake, your staff will notice when you take these steps, recognizing that you are showing that you value them. When people feel valued, they will work harder, happier, and more efficiently.

4. Generate New Ideas

Giving your team a fun, recreational space to communicate in is sure to lead to the generation of new, viable ideas. In team building exercises where you are volunteering for a good cause or having a good time laughing with your teammates, your happiness level will likely heighten your creative juices, allowing for your team to develop great, new ideas. Your entire team will feel proud to participate in a volunteer-driven team build exercise and research suggests that helping others can make you feel like you have more free time.

Photo Credit: ContributedTeam building provides the space for your team to develop new and exciting ideas together.

From a more corporate-facing perspective, volunteering increases your public perception and can lead to greater opportunities or accolades for your organization.

5. Resolve Conflicts, Issues, and Problems

A great team building exercise brings your entire group together and puts them on the same level. Outside of the workplace, for this small period of time, there is no hierarchy and everyone can collaborate and work together in a way that is more natural to them. This can lead to a greater appreciation and understanding of one another’s personality traits, struggles, and strengths.

Your team will also have the opportunity to iron out their issues on neutral ground. Outside the office walls, people are often freer to confront their colleagues, letting them know how they feel in some situations. In many cases, the other person isn’t aware that there is a problem and they are relieved once the tension is gone.

Team Building in the Okanagan

One fantastic way to host a successful team building event, and truly engage employees, is to volunteer the team towards a great cause. Habitat for Humanity, which relies heavily on volunteer labour to help build homes for deserving partner families, is a great initiative to get your team involved in.

Photo Credit: ContributedHabitat for Humanity builds allow team members to work together on a worthy project.

Habitat for Humanity builds encompass many aspects of a home build, including framing, painting, clean-up, plumbing, fitting, and more.

Enrolling your team in a Habitat for Humanity build, for a team building exercise, will not only allow them to improve their cross-functional teamwork and enhance team communication, but it will also give them a sense of purpose and let them know that the company that they work for cares about community.

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