Boost Team Morale with Team Building Training

A strong team in the workplace can help things get done quicker, boost morale, and motivate employees. On the other side of this, a poorly built team can not only slow things down, it can also lower productivity, damage internal relationships, and negatively impact bottom-line results. Teamwork training can reap many benefits for your staff. Working in a team at one point or another is unavoidable in a corporate setting, so teamwork training will always be a worthy investment. Whether it is a designated task force with a specific project or goal in mind, or simply keeping open communication so everyone in your staff is on the same page.

So how can you ensure your teams are performing well? Below is our guide to building high-performance teams in the workplace.

Building Chemistry by Nurturing a Team to High Performance

Teams with good chemistry aren’t built overnight, and they are not just a group of talented employees. Effective teams require time and effort to build trust and security. A team with diverse members in it will encourage creativity and provide a good balance to work towards a clear, shared vision. The vision for your team should be exciting and challenging enough to increase motivation. A team with good chemistry will make everyone feel welcome and ensure everyone can use their unique skills to contribute to the team’s success. Psychologist Bruce Tuckman’s Model for Nurturing a Team to High Performance looks deeper into how team chemistry builds overtime:

• Forming - In this stage, the team members have just met and trust hasn’t been fully built yet. Most communication occurs with the team leader at this stage.
• Norming - The system and strategy for the team are in place. The individual team members understand their roles and responsibilities, and they are working towards a common goal.
• Storming - During storming, conflict develops. Individual team members compete for dominance and question their roles and responsibilities. Storming and norming can happen before or after each other and multiple times.
• Performing - Reaching the performing stage is a sign of a highly effective team. Everyone feels secure in their roles and relationships with other team members, making them more likely to take risks to achieve goals.

Developing a team with good chemistry will allow them to balance each other’s strengths and avoid unnecessary pitfalls. Learn more about developing strong team chemistry with our Team Building Through Chemistry Workshop.

Building Loyalty and Trust Through Intrinsic Motivation

Did you know that there are two different types of motivation? Extrinsic motivation is where an employee is motivated to complete a task by an external factor such as a paycheck, promotion, or job security. Intrinsic motivation comes from an employee who likes and wants to accomplish a goal or task. When a team is working towards a common goal, there is an increase in intrinsic motivation.

In a Stanford University study, when people viewed themselves as partners in a team environment their motivation increased. When people perceived they were working together, their persistence increased 48-65% on challenging tasks, and their interest and engagement increased. Having intrinsically motivated employees builds loyalty towards the organization and reduces turnover. When qualified employees have a genuine interest in the success of the business, everyone benefits.

Team Building to Boost Productivity

Assigning a task that is well suited to a strong team is bound to boost productivity. By combining unique talents and efforts from multiple individuals, there can be more accomplished in a less time. Furthermore, working in a team allows for tasks to be strategically distributed to those who are best suited for them. When team members are given tasks that best suit their skills and professional background, they will complete them efficiently.

A strong team needs visibility to maintain productivity. This means clear communication regarding the actions being taken by each member of the team to everyone involved. In a team with visibility, everyone should know:

• Who is assigned each task?
• How tasks are progressing
• Expected date of completion
• People who need assistance
• Relevant questions

When there is visibility, team members are held accountable and can work better together. It also leaves room for everyone to contribute feedback or praise to each other. Creating and maintaining visibility within your team will also increase accountability, helping everyone take collective responsibility for outcomes. This gives the team a sense of accomplishment that can motivate them going forward into pursuing new goals or projects.

Considering Remote Teamwork

We would be remiss to not point out the importance of considering team building in a remote context. Working remotely has become more common than ever. It makes sense, not only is it out of necessity due to living in a global pandemic, but it also has various benefits such as saving expenses and attracting talent.

Many aspects that need to be considered for in-person teamwork can also be relevant to remote teamwork, they simply require a different type of effort to implement them. For example, communication is always a vital part of a strong team. While communicating in an office may be a bit more natural, simply popping into someone’s office or even looking across your desk, remote working requires a different action. Having set lines of communication in place, whether it’s email, a company intranet, video calls, etc., will increase visibility and keep everyone informed.

Having regularly scheduled team meetings can be particularly helpful for remote teams as well. This gives everyone a guaranteed opportunity to voice concerns or new ideas. Try to make these meetings face to face by having your team meetings conducted over video call platforms such as Zoom. This can feel less isolating for employees and increase engagement. These meetings can discuss upcoming deadlines, current projects, and can also incorporate some informal chatting, mimicking the “water cooler conversations” that take place in a traditional office setting. These conversations can build employee relationships and allow everyone to have a break and mentally reset.

For quick, day-to-day interactions outside of a formally scheduled meeting, Email communication is one of the most common ways to connect with your team. Effective email communication is important because it an efficient, user-friendly way to relay pertinent information to your team. When using email as your source of communication, it is important to make sure your communication is clear and concise. You want to also make sure you are using the right tone. To better detect tone and ensure your emails are clear, it is helpful to read your emails out loud to yourself to make sure you are conveying your intended tone.

Looking to learn more about team building in a remote workplace with our Virtual Team Building and Management Workshop or our High Performance Teams Remote Workforce Workshop.

Conclusion

Our training materials cover a variety of soft skills topics to boost team morale in your workplace. This includes several team-building-specific training materials, such as our Teamwork and Team Building Workshop. Check out our team-building courses below, or get ahead on your corporate training with a free course today!

Posted by Katelyn Roy on March 11, 2021