Team building can be difficult without the proper tactics and ability to decipher between priority and non-important. We’ve seen that clients find team building to be difficult. And without proper know-how on how to successfully reach results needed by the company and aligning the team building activities to the current culture to help create a newer, more refreshed team- team building is difficult. The tactics we are sharing will help you transform and elevate your team's performance for the better while also being completely accessible to the average company to include in their business process.     

These tactics are crucial to the team-building process because they create the team your company needs to be successful. These tips should be customized to your business goals so you can create the experience your team needs to be effective and performative.  

The best team-building tactics with the most success we’ve found include:   

1. Elevating Team Soft Skills

Strengthening soft skills is so crucial to your team members as well as your business’s success. People tend to overlook the importance of having good soft skills in the workplace. Soft skills are more than just communication and social skills. People skills, emotional and social intelligence, and attitude are all categorized as soft skills. What all these skillsets have in common is that they are all needed to have a thriving business. Excellent customer service, team collaboration, and effectiveness are commonly dictated by a surplus or lack of soft skills. With all that said, helping strengthen your team’s soft skills helps them become better workers and overall better people. Soft skills can be summed up from the most basic of skills to the most complex. Technical skills are important but soft skills help your technical skills flourish.  

Having training or coaching available to your team will promote performance, constant learning, and a growth mindset.  

2. Embracing Team Feedback 

Feedback is needed in every workplace. Leadership giving feedback to the team is the most common form of feedback at work but the team providing leadership with feedback is sometimes more important than we realize. When the team provides you feedback, you understand your company culture from the inside out. Your workplace will provide more transparency to your business process and you will be able to see the strength of your team’s capability to work together to your leadership's capability to lead your team. Both leadership and team feedback is needed to have a balanced workplace that meets the needs of every team member.  

3. Empowering Your Team  

Acknowledgment is powerful because it helps us keep going. Feeling seen and appreciated can help your team want to work harder. Being part of a team that makes you feel supported, needed, and respected will keep the momentum of the office moving and performative. Empowering your team is so important because of how much praise means to people and their workflow. We all like to know that we are doing well and that what we are doing is appreciated. It’s a natural human occurrence to want and need recognition. It’s a sign you’re doing something right and that always feels good. You want your workplace to be a positive space where people can thrive in. Show that your team has value to you and they won’t want to let you down.  

4. Focusing on Workplace Culture

The work environment has everything to do with performance. A thriving, performative workplace will have a culture that is focused on the team. This includes their mental health, assessing work-life balance, and providing flexibility. A happy team is effective, produces great quality work, and makes strides to always do and be better. When a company focuses on its culture, the team does the rest. You hired capable people who can do the job. Provide these people with a good place to work, one with morals, and respect for their employees, and the sky’s the limit to your team's capabilities.  

5. Having Fun With Your Team  

Having fun in the office means different things for different workplaces. For some, that’s providing fun opportunities for the team in unconventional ways like escape rooms, and scavenger hunts- Activities that promote teamwork and critical thinking. For others, having fun with the team is more creative, for example, a cooking class or a painting course. Whichever is more convenient for your workplace, always keep whatever you do exciting. Try to think outside of the box and make sure the activity promotes collaboration. By the end of the day, you’ll have a more refreshed team that’s eager to work better with each other and happy to be a part of a company that lets their team do these fun things. This boosts your workplace culture and company reputation exponentially.  

The best team-building tactics are the ones that hold the most value for your organization. Growing soft skills strengthens your team's ability to communicate, and collaborate and provides superior customer service for your clients. Embracing team feedback is needed to create a balanced workplace. Sometimes a team’s demise is the result of its leadership so understanding the ins and outs of your company from the actual team members' mouths is essential to the work environment. Empowering your team and focusing on workplace culture helps you retain talent and solidify your reputation. Creating an atmosphere that people want to work in will drive more success. Your work environment should be a space of open communication, strong team collaboration, and great work ethics. And don’t forget to incorporate some fun, unexpected team-building activities into the team’s work process and we’re sure your team will thrive.