Our Top 3 Reasons why Team Building is an Investment
Kenya’s economy is currently undergoing a recession, and as a result companies are now forced to tighten their belts and find ways to make ends meet. Unfortunately Team Building in Kenya is generally not outcome based and as a result has no effect on a company’s bottom line. And often, is the first thing to be taken off the yearly budget among other staff development programs.
The reasoning behind this is that “if my staff aren’t performing well and meeting their targets then it doesn’t make sense to sink more money into them or to waste more money on fancy team building events.” However, this way of thinking is imperfect. One must view team building as an investment rather than an expense. That in order to ensure that sales are made and targets are being met one has to invest in their employees and teams.
1. Increased engagement and morale at the workplace
Team building events give employees and team members the chance to leave the office and experience a different environment. Research conducted in 2015 showed that companies that spent a day away from the office for team building observed a 5% increase in employee engagement. Engaged employees are fully invested and enthusiastic about their work and are ultimately willing to go the extra mile in order to further their organization.
This proves that team building events serve as a breath of fresh air for the team members. Employees return to work refreshed and energetic, ready to take on the projects ahead of them.
2. Improved interpersonal skills and collaboration
Few experiences bring about team cohesion like completing activities and challenges together in an out of work setting. Team building events bring about a sense of camaraderie within the team that endures even when the team is back in the office days later. Employee who share in these offsite excursions are more likely to collaborate and work well together for the benefit of the team and organization as a whole.
A recent study found that 86% of employees and management listed lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures. Team building events emphasize the importance of collaboration and teamwork in ways that just going out for drinks after work doesn’t.
3. Increase in productivity and output
Productivity in a team is largely dependent on the relationships that exist between the team members. Team members that have participated in team building activities where they have worked on their communication and collaboration skills they are able to work together at a higher frequency and achieve an increase in productivity and output.
This is comes from a level of interpersonal understanding that team building excels in bringing out. Once employees understand each other’s personalities and how different people operate it allows for increased efficiency. There is less time wasted and targets are met at a higher rate than before.
If you forget everything else, remember this – team building results in motivated and engaged employees who can work together efficiently to meet targets and increase profit margins. When you look at it from this perspective team building ceases to become an unnecessary expense but becomes an integral part of every company’s yearly budget.
In 2018 we joined Catalyst Global, the world’s largest team building network, and apart from increasing our service delivery have also introduced a new kind of outcome and result based experience for team building in Kenya. If you are interested in outcome based team building activities feel free to get in touch with us for a free consultation, or alternatively look through our world class programs here.
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