How Team Building Can Improve the Atmosphere at your Workplace?

What is synergy? Simply put, synergy is when a combination of efforts gets you a result that individual efforts could not bring about. Not only is this something that is applied in business, but is something that is used in physics, chemistry and so on. ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts’, I’m sure you’ve heard of this before; in business terms, it means the same thing as synergy. As I’m sure you’ve already figured out, the word synergy could be used for a hard-working team with good chemistry. Of course, it is not only limited to teams, any unit, or group of people would also come in that class.

Everyone knows that working together will help you get the best results, but there are only a few companies that put in a conscious effort in building good teams. Just throwing people into one group and calling it a team isn’t enough.  If you want to build a good team, you want to start off with a good, strong leader. The sign of a good team is when people are working together to achieve their team goals, and are pushing each other to the limit. To succeed as a team, each member has to be selfless and put individual glories aside.

One of the easiest ways to build team chemistry is by team building activities. While team building should never be forgotten about, you HAVE TO implement it whenever you make a new team. You should focus on team work, rather than individuals. This is where synergy comes in. If you emphasize on building good team chemistry, every time there is problem, one of the other members will step up and plug the hole. In a good team, a team member will step up and cover up his teammate’s weaknesses. If you do not focus on getting the team to work together, and making them understand the rise in productivity when they work together, everyone will work on fulfilling personal goals at the expense of the team’s targets.

There are a lot of reasons why team building leads to better work ethic. First off, team building can have the same effect as an ice breaker. It takes the atmosphere one notch down from full-on professional, which means people are more comfortable sharing their opinion and saying what’s on their mind. It’s important that employees have a close, but professional, relationship with each other because then, they can just be themselves. When you’re comfortable with someone you be yourself, and that honesty is important for the growth of the team. Also, as an employee when you contribute to a company’s overall success, your self-value goes up. Same way, when you’re in a team your contribution can definitely give your self-esteem a boost.

So, what kinds of activities help towards team building? In most cases, with a new team its best to focus on activities that make the team members comfortable with each and just get to know each other and how they work. Once they’re past that stage, you want to focus on smaller, more pressing points like improving efficiency, and how to get the best out of each other. Team building activities are usually a lot of fun, but it’s important to explain to your employees what the activity is about and how they can use it during work. Team bowling events, annual company events and retreats all count as team building activities; of course, it is best to decide to do something that most the employees would enjoy.

All in all, team building is a vital part of any organization’s success. Team building activities can work as stress-relievers at times, and in this fast-paced business world, there’s no putting a price on something like that. Building a good team, and getting them to work in synergy can be very rewarding for any business. Assembling strong teams helps companies build solid foundations, and raises the overall productivity, and should be an emphasis for anyone interested in company advancement in every area.

Why do employees get demotivated?

So…what could be the possible reasons for your employee not fulfilling their responsibilities? Is there a lack of effort while working? Obviously, it’s important to understand the ‘why’, before you can make any big decisions. Unfortunately, a lot of managers believe that the only thing employees care about is more money, or other monetary benefits. Of course, this could not be more far from the truth. 

While it’s true that everyone wants more money than they have, there are a lot of rich people who are not at all motivated, and are actually depressed with their lives. Employers need to connect with their staff, and their emotional needs, if they want to get the best out of them. Let’s look at a few of the most common reasons employees tend to get unmotivated while working:

• Is your staff regularly working over-time? If they are, firstly, it means you are under-staffed, or that you are not using your resources i.e. your staff, effectively. It is very important that your employees get regular breaks, and are not working over-time. According to recent reports, most employees work standards drop if they work more than 40 hours a week. Not only is their performance affected, but this categorically builds up mental fatigue and stress, as well as physical fatigue. While you might not see any of these effects immediately, they add up, and have a snowball effect. Eventually, this can really have a toll on your employee’s health. Sometimes, you will find employees who are more than happy to work over-time. Regardless, my opinion in this situation is still that it is not a good idea to make them work over-time. It is more likely that they really need the money, rather than them actually wanting to work more hours. So, resist the temptation to make your employees work more hours than they should. Remember, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Just to clarify, working over-time once in a way is perfectly acceptable; sometimes it is a necessity because an emergency could pop up, or because an employee is on sick leave. The problem is working over-time week after week. No one is happy about that,
• Do you involve your employees when you make business decisions? Especially those decisions that affect their jobs? There is no reason not to at least take a second opinion from your employees. Everyone wants to be respected, and showing that you are interested in hearing their thoughts, is definitely a morale booster. In fact, in many cases, employees can give you a better idea of what decisions to make, because they are in direct contact with customers all the time, and they can tell you accurately what your customers are looking for,
• Do you threaten to fire your employees if they don’t fulfill their responsibilities every time? Stop doing it! It’s even worse when managers just say it because they feel it will make employees work harder. In my many years of experience, this doesn’t really work. It usually backfires as the employee gets bummed out about the situation. In today’s world, when a lot of countries are suffering from unemployment and financial meltdown, threatening to fire your employees is not the way forward, and it is certainly not a motivational tool. You should make sure that all your employees have the peace of mind to be focused on fulfilling their job responsibilities and not worry about nothing else. Particularly those employees who are providing food and shelter to their loved ones, or those who are have a serious amount of financial debt. I’m all for employing the most qualified individuals for your business, but if someone doesn’t meet your standards, you’re much better off providing them a platform to grow and prove what they can achieve, rather than threatening to firing them,
• One of the most obvious, yet most common reasons for employees being unhappy is because they’re not paid well enough. If your employee is always worried about how he’s going to cover rent, or from where’ll he find the money to put his children through school, and is unable to provide all the basic necessities to his family, sooner rather than later he’s going to want to find another job. Especially, someone who is talented and ambitious. There is no point in having an employee who is always thinking about leaving your company, is there? You want to have an employee who is interested in working for you, and who wants to give a 100%. Therefore, if you want to keep your employees, make sure to pay them well.
• If your employees aren’t happy with things at home, their work is very likely to be affected. I cannot explain to you how bad the effect of mental stress and mental fatigue can be on an individual’s performance.  Try to connect to your employee’s emotional needs, and help them however you can to overcome the reason for their stress,
• There is a possibility that employees might be disheartened if they have been working for you for a while, but have not learnt any new skills, and do not have any new responsibilities. This is especially the case with young employees, because at their age they have lots of hopes and dreams. If you don’t help them grow by giving them opportunities, and show them that you want them to grow along with your business, there is a good chance they will feel disheartened and decide that this isn’t the place for them to work if they want to fulfill their potential,
• Another very common but huge mistake that managers make, especially nowadays, with companies downsizing all the time, is making an employee fulfill a recently fired employee’s tasks. Worse yet, they’ll demote an employee, to cover for a staff shortage. How can you expect anyone to be happy with that? No one likes moving back, and this is definitely a huge setback for anyone,
• The culture within any business or organization plays a very vital part in the performance and potential growth of the employees, and ultimately the organization. Just like in most scenarios, being neutral works out for the best, and the same can be said about the culture in your office. If your office is too uptight, or too strict, people are always going to feel uneasy, and uncomfortable, and will feel like they can’t air their opinions. On the other hand, if everyone at your office is just too open; this means there will be racist remarks, inappropriate comments, foul language etc., I can’t think of many people who would want to work in such a place. That’s why, its best to stay away from both extremes, and closer to the middle. Start from the middle, none of your employees will have a problem with that. After things are working well, you can decide to stray slightly towards being more organized and professional, or having a more friendly attitude; this depends on your employees, and the kind of business you’re involved in,
• I’m sure you’ve worked under someone like this before. The kind of manager, or boss, who seems to feel that he or she cannot be wrong….EVER. They disrespect employees working under them, and speak to them condescendingly all the time. I think it’s fair to say, that there are fewer mangers like those now, then there have been in the past, so that is clearly the right step forward. Furthermore, a lot of times, managers mock an employee during staff meetings because of poor performances. It’s very important to point out mistakes, and give employees feedback. Not only positive feedback, but negative feedback, or constructive criticism. In fact, it is the negative feedback that will help them learn from their slip-ups, and help them develop. However, there’s a way of doing everything, and insulting an employee, or speaking to them in a patronizing tone is definitely not the way. A simple way of doing that is to start your sentences with ‘I’ instead of ‘You’. Try it now, and see how the tone of the sentence becomes a lot softer, regardless of what you’re saying.