8 effective ways to warm up the corporate spirit in the team
His Work / / January 07, 2021
Things to keep in mind if you care about corporate spirit
1. Loyalty cannot be forced
You can drop the entire budget and break into a cake to arrange the coolest, funniest and most correct team-building event. Only all efforts will go to waste if your company has problems at the level of basic processes. An opaque system of work and management, salary delays, tyranny of bosses, payment of bonuses not according to merit, and as an acquaintance, illegal dismissals in one day - the impression of this will not be corrected by any team building.
All the ways to warm up the team spirit can only increase loyalty, and not create it from scratch. It is made up of many bricks. But the most important thing is the foundation, how comfortable it is for the employee to work in the company, and not to have fun.
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2. Caring for people must be genuine
It happens that a team building employee is visited by a "great idea" and then the whole team works to implement it. Time, effort, money is wasted. The event is taking place and nobody likes it. But the organizers only think about what kind of ungrateful colleagues they have. Although they should have guessed: in the matter of loyalty, it is not the “great idea” that is more important, but the interests of the employees.
Don't throw a party at a nightclub if you have amateurs on your team. board games. This is not a way out of their comfort zone that should stimulate people to become more efficient and more productive.
Naturally, it will not work to please absolutely everyone. But you can at least try to catch the right mood. For example, create a survey and offer a choice of several different activities. Let employees vote what they want. At the same time, you will show that their opinion is also worth something.
3. Fun is always bad
When listing horrors corporate culture usually called the duty to go on different holidays. Like, if you don't come, then you won't be paid a bonus. And they may even be fired, because you do not show proper loyalty to the company. It's easy to guess that with love for an organization that is forced to participate in non-work activities, everything is very bad.
An employee should have the right, without any excuses, to refuse activities that have nothing to do with work. This does not say anything about his loyalty. Maybe his kitty is sick and he is embarrassed to tell how worried.
4. Religious holidays are a bad idea for team building
Yes, and the relevance of the secular is worth considering in advance. Some reasons, at best, will cause bewilderment among some part of the team, at worst - everything will end in disputes and resentments.
For example, arranging a general diving into an ice-hole for Epiphany is a dubious undertaking from all sides. First, there may be people of different faiths and atheists among you. For them, the January swim looks absurd. Secondly, swimming in ice-cold water is a hobbyist's activity, and quite healthy.
So it is better to choose more neutral reasons for team building.
5. Regular small activities are better than rare but lush activities
Arranging large corporate events several times a year is right and good, especially if you have thought everything through properly. Ideally, they should be a kind of pleasant meeting of old acquaintances, which everyone is really looking forward to. If employees do not communicate in any way during the year, then there will be no such effect. That is why it is important to regularly pay attention to team interaction.
How to build a team
1. Make the processes in the company more transparent
Loyalty is not necessarily inhuman patience, readiness to bend, blind faith in the authorities and thoughtless loyalty to the company, which really cannot be implanted without repression. It happens that a person works in an organization because he really believes in what it does, he likes his duties and the team. He does not quit, not because his act will be perceived as a betrayal and destroy his professional reputation, but because he does not want to. And in a difficult situation, he will even be ready to endure several months without a bonus and work more, just to help his beloved company swim out.
And most often this happens in organizations where there is no repression. This does not change the system of rewards and punishments, but it is transparent. In general, it is clear what to do in order to receive an award or raisinghow much work needs to be done so that you have no complaints. It is clear what prospects the company and the employee have with it. Even if the situation gets out of control due to a crisis or a pandemic, it is good to be honest about it.
Svetlana Popova, Head of Accountancy & Finance at Hays recruiting companyBe sure to keep the team informed about what is happening in the company. It is imperative to keep people informed and to speak openly with them. Then it is calmer and more comfortable for them to work. Employees feel they are being honest and open with them, and they start to trust you even more. Otherwise, there is a risk of losing the loyalty of colleagues once and for all.
You can have periodic meetings with employees, where the management tells you how things are. It is important to celebrate deficiencies, but even more important is to celebrate common victories together. People should be able to ask questions and talk about problems - suddenly they can be painlessly solved.
In general, as long as an employee feels like a human, and not a cog in a soulless corporate machine, the chance of getting his loyalty is quite high.
2. Make acquaintance with new employees
In tiny offline companies for three people, a new employee gets the opportunity to quickly join the team. If the company is larger, specialists from different departments risk not colliding for several months even in the corridors or in line at the cooler and not knowing about each other's existence. Concerning remote employees, for them there is a great chance and never at all intersect with anyone, except for their direct leadership.
Therefore, it is important not only to introduce newcomers to the team, but also to give them the opportunity to communicate in an informal setting. Ideally, this is a face-to-face meeting, although video conferencing is better than nothing.
Marina Malashenko, HR Director of OneTwoTrip travel planning serviceIf you have distributed teams in different cities or have remote employees, organize offline meetings of the whole team every 3-6 months. Without communicating with a person live, without recognizing his temperament and sense of humor, it is difficult to correctly perceive information from him. Only with personal communication are common jokes, tales, slang born - all this unites the team, helping everyone to feel part of a single organism.
If all employees work in the same office, and the team is not very large, you can arrange small welcome ‑ parties for each newcomer or group of employees - it depends on how often you increase your staff. For example, get together for pizza or rolls and chat.
3. Organize an informal communication channel
This point logically continues the previous one. It is more difficult for people to become closer if they only talk with their direct colleagues and only on work topics. Therefore, it is necessary that they have a platform for informal communication, for example, a general chat.
Marina MalashenkoIt is important to connect employees from different departments and cities for communication. Slack helps us with this. Here employees create interest groups, exchange thoughts, impressions, and interesting information. In thematic channels, people often communicate who would never interact while working on a task, or even would not even get to know each other at all. This brings together and gives the feeling that employees, wherever they are, are always there.
4. Organize non-working activities
Such events help employees to open up from different sides and get to know better. They bring people together who might not have met in other circumstances. It's good if these are activities of different topics that will help you find like-minded people. Here are some ideas.
Interest club
It can be bookish or film club, culinary community, corporate raid in multiplayer - whatever.
Anastasia Zhuravleva, PR-director of the QIWI groupUse your own talents. You can get ready-made running and poker coaches, band leaders, theater directors, eco-activists, sommeliers and even stargazers. We did this and got a community led by the employees themselves.
Internal employee training
If you have put together a strong team of professionals (why do you need other employees?), They probably have something to share with each other. For example, representatives of one department can tell others about their responsibilities and the basics of their skills. First, it will make the company's activities transparent: it will become clear who is doing what and why. Secondly, the rest of the employees will understand how their work relates to the activities of this department, which is fraught with delays, why it is important to transfer materials this way and not another. Finally, the new knowledge will help individual employees expand their responsibilities and grow horizontally and even vertically.
Another idea for internal learning is non-core skills that help with motivation, productivity, good spirits, communication. Probably someone has mastered the secret techniques and is ready to share with the team.
Ivan Yamshchikov, AI Evangelist, ABBYYWe have an internal ABBYY Academy project in our company. Within its framework, you can tell your colleagues something interesting, share your personal experience. Any employee can suggest a topic and make a report, which we broadcast in all offices.
Competition
Usually you are the whole team fighting to achieve KPI. But you can additionally fight in a sports or intellectual competition. It is better to compete not with each other, but with outside opponents. In this case, both victory and loss will unite. When you compete within a company, there is a risk that the relationship between winners and losers could deteriorate for a while.
5. Cover company news
You can periodically send out a newsletter by e-mail, publish a post in a corporate channel or chat. In the text, you summarize what happened over the past period, share indicators, problems, achievements, mark the heroes.
6. Arrange flash mobs and challenges
Of course, not every team will be enthusiastic about this idea. But if the employees are young, inclined to small adventures and active on social networks, then you can try. Give each challenge a hashtag to watch all participants at once. Award those who distinguished themselves with symbolic prizes.
This approach will not only bring team members together while they complete tasks, but will also work on the company's HR brand.
Ivan YamshchikovEvery week in the corporate social network Workplace, we run challenges on different topics. For example, last week was sports. Colleagues from different offices uploaded videos of workouts in their apartment or in the yard. One employee became the "star of the Workplace," filling a roll of toilet paper instead of a soccer ball. This week, colleagues are sharing homemade recipes. For example, an employee from Japan shared a video recipe borscht in Japanese style, a colleague from Hungary - a recipe for a traditional Hungarian Easter cake. Such activities not only allow you to open up from an unexpected side, but also tell others about your cultures and countries.
7. Build a communication system between employees
Even in the coolest and most transparent company, misunderstandings can arise between employees. And not only between the boss and the subordinate, but also between the line workers. It is important to set up the communication system so that the parties to the conflict have the opportunity to clarify and correct the situation. This requires everyone to know who to contact in this case, and full confidentiality is required.
8. Organize joint trips
Much depends on the budget. Someone takes employees to Milan or Antalya, someone - to the nearest tourist center. All options can be quite effective.
Marina Khomich, HR Director of Viber in MinskA team trip somewhere is primarily an adventure. If it lasts for several days, then it allows you to fall out of reality and plunge into the atmosphere of the pioneer camp, which many adored in childhood. At this time, you switch to a completely different context. Your daily affairs and problems recede into the background. And the people with whom you are going through this adventure become truly close and dear to you.
What corporate events do you find really useful? Share in the comments.
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