Your Step-By-Step Guide to Building Effective Teams
Your team building efforts will fail if you don’t build effective teams. Follow these steps to ensure you’re recruiting the most trustworthy and loyal staff.
Disengaged employees cost businesses $550 billion every year.
And research has found that 70% of employees aren’t engaged in their jobs. So how do you engage employees and increase productivity in your business? It all starts with building an effective team.
Read on to learn how you can build effective teams in your business.
Understand What Makes a Great Team
Great teams don’t just spring up out of the blue. They require everyone to put in an effort, including team leaders into each individual in the team as well. A great team is only as strong as its leader which is why you need to make sure you have the leadership skills necessary to build that team.
This doesn’t mean asserting your authority. Instead, you can grow your trust through transparency and honesty. No one likes to be micromanaged, and if you trust your team members, they’ll reward you for that trust.
Know Why Team Building Is Important
It’s difficult to build an effective team if you or your team members are unable to see the point.
Teams that work well together have better problem-solving abilities and know how to utilize each team member’s unique background and skills. This allows them to achieve the best possible results.
Team building helps increase employee morale, encourages creativity, improves productivity, and more. If you want your team members to work well together, you’ll need to communicate exactly why team building and teamwork is so important.
Establish One-on-One Relationships
Take the time to learn about each of your team members. This should begin during the recruiting and onboarding process. Learn about their skill sets, their families, and their likes and dislikes. Ask about their goals, and ensure you understand how they like to work. Take the time to learn about what’s going on in their lives, and Let them know they can always come to you for advice.
Encourage Collaboration
Once you have a solid relationship between you and each of your team members, it’s time to help them collaborate effectively.
Pay attention to how employees are working together. Encourage them to share information on the status of each project and the progress of their tasks. Make this easy with regular meetings which will allow old team members to provide reports and feedback.
Invest in Events
Teambuilding events have a bad rap. Unfortunately, as soon as you mention teambuilding many employees naturally envision the awkward teambuilding episodes of the office.
Thankfully, teambuilding events have come a long way. Taking the time to invest in team building helps build trust, encourage communication scratch that encourages communication, and engages employees. Not only is this great for company culture, but it helps you boost the bottom line.
The most fun, successful team building events are the ones that don’t feel like just another day at work. When employees spend time together, share an interesting experience, will work together to achieve a common goal, they naturally bond.
When employees are a little out of the comfort zones or need to work together in teams for a non-work-related activity, they begin to see each other not just as co-workers, but as individual people.
Be a Listening Ear
Misunderstandings and conflicts will inevitably occur in any relationship. Your role as a team leader is to solve any issues in the fairest and most amicable way possible.
Your team members are adults, so should be encouraged to work it out themselves. In the event that a situation or conflict escalates, listen to both sides so you can find a solution that works for everyone.
Work Towards a Common Goal
Effective teams work best together when working towards a common goal. That’s why it’s important to make sure everyone is on the same page and understands what you’re trying to achieve.
Set up milestones along the way, so you can celebrate as a team when you meet them. This will help keep your team engaged and motivated. At the same time, ask your team members what their personal goals are. Let them share as much or as little as they would like with the rest of the team.
Don’t be surprised if you have team members who would like to travel the world, learn a new language, start their own business, or write a book. Check in frequently to see how everyone is working on their personal goals, and encourage team members to share their strategies and achievements with each other. This will help foster a collaborative environment and build a strong connection between employees.
Take Ownership
Part of building trust amongst your team members is letting them know that you have their backs. They need to trust that you’re prepared to speak up for all of your team members when needed and will support them whenever necessary.
It’s not just important that your employees trust each other- they need to be able to trust you as well.
Celebrate Diversity
Spend time talking about your team member’s backgrounds so you can celebrate different holidays and special cultural days.
Studies have shown that companies perform better when they have greater gender and ethnic diversity. Businesses that have the most gender diversity are 21% more likely to have above-average profitability. And those with the greatest ethnic diversity are 33% more likely to see greater profits.
Diverse teams work well together because each team member has a different understanding of the world. And they’re bringing their unique backgrounds and experiences to the table.
Encourage Time Off
No one works well when they’re burnt out. If your team members are eating lunch at their desks each day, they’re not getting a chance to relax and unwind.
Unfortunately, many companies have a culture where employees avoid taking their holidays, and this can contribute to a range of health issues. It’s also difficult for team members to work together and collaborate efficiently when they’re exhausted.
Encourage your employees to take breaks throughout the day and use their vacation days.
Are You Building Effective Teams?
As you can see, building effective teams takes work, but the benefits make it well worth it. If you’d like to encourage collaboration, improve teamwork, and have fun with your employees, a teambuilding event may be just what you need. Get in touch today to learn more.
