It is fair to say that the last two years have been pretty trying for all workplaces. With lockdowns, quarantines, and absences in virtually every sphere of business, employees may never have felt more adrift from their teams and work as they do now.
Some employees might have been forced to find new things to do, such as Crosswords, Sudoku, Wordle, Globle, and if you are down to that, also learning about Florida betting when they have not been in the workplace. Others might have had more proactive bosses that kept team spirit as high as possible. But now that people are starting to return to their places of work, let’s highlight why team-building exercises are important right now.
Feeling Part of the Team
Even before the pandemic, there were probably plenty of people that didn’t feel like they were part of a team. Poor workplace environments encourage a “them and us” attitude, resulting in poor performance. If an employee doesn’t feel like they are part of the team, they are unlikely to do their best to improve the situation.
It sounds obvious that team-building exercises and activities help with a feeling of being part of a team – but that is the point here. By encouraging people to feel as though their colleagues are invested in their growth, everyone benefits in the long run.
Rewarding Loyalty and Hard Work
Even if your workplace has a positive team spirit running through it, there will be grumblings of discontent if some people feel as though they are not appreciated enough. Team building exercises can change that by highlighting when someone – or the entire team – succeeds.
These don’t have to be empty platitudes just for the team-building exercise, either. Lessons learned during an activity can be taken back into the day-to-day working environment. The loyalty shown during an event can continue in the workplace – and so can the rewards and praise.
A Feeling of Normality
This is one factor of team building that we may not have really thought about before the last few disrupted years. The novelty of working from home wore off for many people a long time ago – so just being back at the office could be something to look forward to.
But employers and team leaders should not be content with just having their colleagues happy to be at work. By introducing any of the team-building exercises profiled on Strayboots.com, that feeling will be magnified and boosted to result in a feeling of enjoyment to be back working as normal.
Breaking Down Hierarchies
For the last few years, people have dealt with zoom calls and emails to deal with their bosses. Even the most forward-thinking employer will have struggled with keeping the lines of communication open completely. That could mean some people feeling shut off from their team leaders or line managers.
But now we can plan activities and events again. There is the chance for the hierarchies to blur. There will always be a chain of command, but if everyone is equal during a team-building activity, everyone will see the advantage of working together in and out of the workplace. This will also help break the “them and us” culture that we mentioned before.
Welcome Back!
We understand that not everything has got back to normal quite yet. But we are hoping that we can help improve the work environment for when it does.
