Team Building: 10 Ways to Foster Team Spirit

In a broad sense, a collective is considered a group of three or more people. However, even in a very small team, problems arise with mutual understanding and competition and conflicts emerge. That's why it's important to pay enough attention to developing interpersonal relationships and a friendly atmosphere within the work collective. In this article, "Adventures" team talks about ways to strengthen team spirit and how team-building events address this task.

Ways to Boost Team Spirit in the Workplace

• Collaborative learning. Participating in trainings and educational courses not only improves employees' qualifications but also promotes teamwork, especially when the programs focus on collective problem-solving.

• Volunteering. Involvement in charitable initiatives is usually aimed at improving the company's image. However, such activities can also unite the team by ensuring collaboration on socially significant projects.

• Mentorship system. A mentor assigned to each new employee helps them adapt faster and integrate into the team. It is important that the mentor not only explains how office life works but also engages the newcomer in communication with the team, for example, by inviting them to joint lunches.

• Open communication. Create a friendly atmosphere where every employee can express their ideas or comments without fear of not being heard. This will strengthen trust within the team.

• Regular news releases. Employees are sometimes so engrossed in the work process that they remain unaware of what is happening in other departments and branches. This is especially true for large corporations. Compile a small digest of company events so that everyone can feel informed.

• Group chat. Give the team the opportunity to communicate not only on work issues. Encourage activity in every way, suggest topics for discussion. Here you can also celebrate employee achievements, congratulate on birthdays and other events.

• Psychological trainings. Few people know how to manage emotions effectively or have communication skills. Trainings can help with this: there, psychologists explain non-obvious things in simple language and provide useful practices. This knowledge helps to treat various situations more calmly, avoid conflicts or resolve them in a healthy manner. 

• Company branding. Every employee will surely be happy with a small gift featuring the organization's logo. It should be something useful: an umbrella, a thermos, or a power bank. Another option is a T-shirt or baseball cap that can be worn during events. Items with branding create a sense of unity and belonging to the company. 

• Team traditions. Come up with something that will unite your team. Board games on Fridays or monthly trips to the cinema could become a tradition. To find an idea, you'll have to get to know each other better, since the activity should be interesting to everyone. 

• Regular team building. Organize team-building events or corporate trips on a regular basis. Joint activities outside of work improve communication within the team. 

How team building boosts team spirit

First of all, team building helps build and strengthen trust between employees. Through working together in an informal setting, participants get to know each other better, which helps reduce conflicts and improve mutual understanding. Moreover, regardless of the format or focus, team building requires teams to communicate actively and make joint decisions quickly.

When a team works toward a common goal, each employee develops a sense of unity and ownership of the result. Moreover, during team events from “Aventura”, participants learn not only to share responsibility with each other but also to support one another, which ultimately leads to higher overall productivity.

As mentioned at the very beginning, conflicts hinder the strengthening of team spirit. That is why many team-building programs are designed to reduce the number of disagreements in a company. Employees are trained in stress resilience and the ability to find unconventional solutions.

Possible formats for corporate team building

Sports

Events focused on physical activity directly related to sports. These can be tournaments, relay races, team games such as volleyball, basketball or hockey. Such events contribute not only to employees' physical development but also to building group work skills and strategic thinking. 

Intellectual

Events aimed at developing logical thinking, erudition and the ability to work with information. They also help strengthen interpersonal connections in the team through a joint search for answers. Intellectual team-building activities include quizzes, trivia, games based on TV shows and others. 

Engineering

At such events, participants need to build an art object or a vehicle, set a single mechanism in motion, etc. A clear example of engineering team building is the «Goldberg Machine». To achieve the goal, employees learn communication skills, logical thinking and resourcefulness. 

Extreme

These are team-building activities aimed at stepping out of the comfort zone and developing trust between participants. This format requires special attention to safety measures, but it allows you to reset and leaves the team with plenty of impressions. A striking example is rafting on mountain rivers and waterfalls. There are several levels of route difficulty, so each team can choose the one that suits them. Hot air balloon flights, ATV rallies, jeeping, etc. are also possible.  

Active

A tourist rally, a quest, a rope course — all of these belong to the active format. Such team-building events are organized outdoors, where participants can enjoy nature and spend time together. The benefits of active events do not end with communication: employees have to assign roles, including taking on leadership positions. 

Planning and Organizing Corporate Team Building

Preparing for team building consists of several stages, and the first is defining the goal. To begin, you need to identify problems within the team that can be solved through a team-building event. For example, the company may have high staff turnover or frequent conflicts. Once the problems are identified, you need to develop goals and break them down into tasks. 

Next, you can proceed to choosing the format of the team-building event. For example, to improve trust-based relationships, it is recommended to give preference to extreme team building, while for developing strategic thinking and role distribution skills, the "Ropes Course" is effective.

The next important issue in organizing any event is the budget. Large companies allocate funding for team building in advance because they see the need for it. However, this is not always the case, so the budget may affect the choice of location, the scale of the event, and the use of event agency services.

Usually team-building events are planned 2–3 months in advance, so companies have the opportunity to choose a specific date. Team building can be timed to coincide with an event: a professional or public holiday, the completion or launch of a project, or the company's birthday. As for the day of the week, we recommend surveying employees, since some will be happy to take part in team building on Saturday or Sunday, while others may have plans for the weekend.  

Then you should proceed to finding contractors, booking a venue, and developing the program. You can appoint a responsible employee who will organize the team building independently, monitor the event progress, and handle organizational matters. But then they will not be able to take part in the activities and enjoy it.