Can Team Building Increase Productivity in a Recession?

When the economy is slow, company managers and leaders have to be very cautious with every market price. As a execution, we will generally put off hiring new employees until more certainty in the marketplace develops. Although natural efficiencies will develop in a downward economy, can team building activities help increase productivity so that we can avoid the monetary worth of adding on new personnel? The answer to that query is… “ Well… It depends… ”

Don’ t Confuse “ Morale” with “ Productivity”

Team Building is halfway a generic term that is used for both “ vein building” activities and “ productivity building” activities interchangeable, but if you confuse the two activities, you can make some high-priced mistakes. Estimation building activities can consist of everything from going out to a movie together to an office holiday bender to entertainment style activities at register meetings ans conventions. These activities yield a retaliated - experience that builds interim camaraderie and provides a fun relief to the usual day - to - day stool - relay. Productivity building activities are training events or innovations that help teams do more with less. Although people will much call both of these types of activities “ Team Building”, the activities themselves get totally different results. Both are needed to create a team culture, but entirely much, managers and leaders will diary one type of bustle upbeat to get the needed payoff from the other type of exercise and be sorely disappointed.

Although productivity will often improve ( sometimes dramatically ) when disposition improves, an increase in emotions doesn’ t always cause a team to be more productive. For instance, if a supervisor came into the office and announced that the entire team would get the whole moment off and still get paid, mood would skyrocket, but productivity would drop to zero for the continuance. Mood building activities like team outings and company parties are severely important, but they can’ t entirely go after productivity building events and activities.

Since the team atmosphere created by cast building activities can be temporary, you’ ll want to programme activities like this recurrently so that the personal team members get to interact with each other in a more fun way to build camaraderie. Charity team building events at weekly meetings or conventions can be a great way to insert a emotions building liveliness. These team building functions are very economical, over the company can generate great public relations without increasing the cost of conducting a clambake or calendar rendezvous. For instance, most conventions are going to have some type of entertainment or at virgin a company sojourn of some amicable. Many companies are replacing these activities with a charity bike build or a team scavenger hunt post team members build legacy baskets for soldiers. The dare in each liveliness is fairly companion, but the results of the charity activities repeatedly grant impactful, lasting memories that build great camaraderie between team members.

Build Teams by Training Team Members Together

In addition to tone building activities, a team also needs to develop new skills in form to keep them productive. Many caducity ago, a mentor of mine told me that “ You can’ t build a team by training persons, but you can build a team by training people together. ” I didn’ t really read the power of this advice until I started my own business, but I learn it more and more as my company grows and grows. For instance, many big companies submission dope assistance for higher level degrees for their employees, but what ofttimes happens is that a company will compose a ton of money into the development of an employee only to have the person go-ahead the company and start working for a competitor.

This happens over the identical employees is growing, but the team as a whole is passive.

Oddly enough, any skill development activities will work to build the team culture in an running if the skills developed gives the team a competitive advantage in the marketplace. For instance, Cosmos decided to eliminate cash registers inside their Microcosm Stores and supervene them with the ability for any employee in the store to be able to use their smartphones to ring - up items for purchases on their smartphones. Owing to Heavenly body is doing something that no one major is doing, the employees who have been trained in this new technology feel like they are a part of an peak cartel that is different from other retail stores. Whether they are or not doesn’ t really matter, considering the team posit that they are ahead of the curve. Customers can find an Cosmos employee and within seconds create a purchase and have the taking sent to the customer via email and be on their way. A dramatic increase in productivity and decrease in cost while creating more of a team atmosphere among employees.

“ Pleasing - Skills” Team Building Training is Most Productive

The most effective team training to increase productivity comes from “ pacific - skills” training, though. While Hard - Skills are ones essential to doing reserved jobs within a interest — for exemplar hard - skills for an direct competence be calculus and physics — quiet - Skills are skills that improve productivity no object what inborn role that a person has within an disposal. Lenient - skills would inject communication skills, presentation skills, the ability to finish people, the ability to coach and mentor others, etc. If the train improves in any or all of these mellow - skills, then he or she will likely improve their especial success as well as the overall success of the team.

When teams train together in these soft - skill areas, they automatically develop that same type of team culture that Heavenly body developed with the technology change. Team members know that they are a part of a exclusive, first league that is different from most organizations ( due to most organizations don’ t train this way ).

For ideal, a few caducity ago, I was hired by a commercial construction company to help them deliver high - level sales presentations better. Companies that build skyscrapers or have groups of construction projects much bid out these huge projects in one big contract, so they will usually ask for huge proposals and have each competent contractor come in and do a presentation to mini down the field. The company that hired me was closing about one out of six of these presentations, but wanted to increase their numbers. So we conducted a series of presentation skills classes with the teams of presenters. As they trained together, they developed a team culture that showed up when they conducted their presentations. Totally much, at the terminal of their presentations, the board members who were in the audience would say, “ We chose this group for they just seemed to work very well together. ” The team culture showed, since the people within the association had been trained in soft - skills together, so they epigram themselves as having an advantage over other presenters ( and they had one. )

Presentation skills, people skills, coaching, mentoring, and other soft - skills training can really help teams become more productive as long as the teams are going through the training as a team. I brood over my college football coach telling us, “ You don’ t fight for records or bays, you fight for the guy who is next to you in the trenches. ” When teams train together, they build a rapport that lasts.