Team Building: What It Is And What Are Its Benefits
Teamwork is one of the most important skills of a worker in most jobs, and that is why many organizations value this ability positively. To be effective and pursue the common goals of a company in a joint and coordinated manner, individuals must work more than as a group, as a team.
An effective work team is achieved with good communication, coordination, complementarity (mixing individual strengths), trust and commitment, which is called the 5 “Cs”. Teamwork promotes creativity and learning, reduces stress, improves the performance of workers and, as a consequence, the performance of the company.
And… How can we achieve these advantages for our work team? A good option is Team Building
Team Building could be defined as a set of activities aimed at team building, a systematic process designed to improve relationships between participants, group cohesion, problem solving , decision making. conflict resolution and other aspects that influence a team’s performance.
That is, it is a training for a group of people, which aims to build highly effective teams, whether in the sports, student, business, military, among others.
Benefits of Team Building for companies
One of the fields in which this intervention is most applied is that of the company. But what benefits does team building provide exactly in this area? In the following lines we will see it for you.
Employee motivation is one of the key psychological variables when it comes to achieving business objectives. But It is not only important for the good performance of the company but also for the well-being of workers: employees with high motivation in their occupation are happier in their jobs.
Motivation initiates, guides and maintains behaviors aimed at achieving a goal and satisfying a need. It is a force that makes us act and keeps us moving, and is key to overcoming adverse or less favorable situations.
Team Building promotes the feeling of identity and belonging to the group , which in turn increases motivation to achieve common goals. This is what is commonly known as team spirit, and it has a great impact on the success of a company.
Related article: “Types of motivation: the 8 motivational sources”
2. Improve communication
Communication is key in the company environment and is essential for it to function and develop properly. Some of the effects of effective business communication are: keeping employees motivated, engaged, promote an inclusive work environment and, of course, improve the company’s competitiveness.
Team Building dynamics improve personal communication between workers and increase emotional interaction between them, because it achieves a connection that goes beyond work.
3. Improves relationships between workers
And the improvement in communication, of course, brings with it an improvement in the interpersonal relationships of workers, something that has a very positive effect on their occupational health and, in turn, favors the feeling of belonging, adherence and commitment. with the organization.
In fact, scientific studies show that the positive relationship between workers even reduces the number of sick leave that can occur in a company.
Research also suggests that positive relationships in the work environment and social support from colleagues help reduce and prevent stress. And, as Robert Karasev suggests in his “Demand-Control-Social Support Model”, this last variable acts as a mediating factor in the appearance of stress and can reduce its impact on workers.
Since Team Building is key for a team to feel united, its application positively affects the well-being of workers, which also affects the good performance of the company
5. Improves trust and cooperation among employees
For the relationship between employees to improve, it is essential that trust exists. This is key to teamwork. With Team Building, employees have experiences outside the work routine that promote trust and cooperation between them, which has an impact on the performance of the work team.
6. Increase team creativity
The synergy that occurs between employees, thanks to the intervention with Team Building, also has an impact on creativity and problem solving. Team Building not only causes growth for the team, but also for the workers , which maximize their individual potential. The team is more than the sum of its members.
7. Allows you to analyze areas for improvement and correct them
If these dynamics are well developed, it is possible to analyze the relationship between workers (for example, to know if there are communication problems), and it is possible to increase the group’s self-knowledge and its strengths and weaknesses.
Thanks to this analysis, it is possible to know what needs to be worked on to take action and thus correct those factors that affect the work environment and interfere with the proper functioning of the company. In this sense, Team Building activities can also be a good opportunity to develop new skills and competencies in workers, such as organizational skills, leadership or communication.
Although a toxic work environment interferes with employee well-being, when the work environment is positive, employees enjoy their work more and, as a result, their performance improves. In this regard, by promoting communication and interpersonal relationships, Team Building improves the work environment, which impacts the company’s productivity
Mensalus Institute: Team Building Experts
If your company is located in Barcelona and you are interested in benefiting from the previous points, the Mensalus Institute, a Psychology clinic located in Barcelona, has a team of experts in Team Building.
This center, which has more than 35 years of experience in the sector, carries out different recreational-training activities for companies with the aim of increasing and improving some variables that affect the performance of work teams, such as trust, communication, integration or leadership, among others.
