There are a lot of people who cringe when you talk about scheduling corporate events. It gets even worse when you tell them that it is team building events that are planned for company employees. They do not cringe because they hate their co-workers; they just very firmly believe that all they have to do is their job. The best use of their time is talking to clients, completing reports and handling their day to day activities. They do not believe that taking time out of their busy day to attend team building activities is worth the time. The interesting part is that generally, people that have that kind of an attitude are usually the ones that get the most benefit from these activities. The purpose of team building activities is to motivate your people to work together, to develop their strengths, and to address any weaknesses.
One of the biggest reasons that people schedule these activities is that it reminds each person that everyone else is a person too. When your only contact with your co-workers is at the office where it can sometimes be tense, you tend to start forming attitudes about them. However, you may find that your opinion of them completely changes when you get them out of the office in a different kind of environment.
Being in an environment that is a little more relaxed also lets the employees begin to develop a relationship. If someone sits at his desk every day and does not interact with his co-workers, he may not know that someone can help him when he runs across a problem. However, if they have to go to a team building event of some kind, they will get to know more of their co-workers. That makes it a lot more likely that when they run across a problem during their work hours, they will turn to someone to see if they have any help they can offer.
Another benefit of these exercises is that it gets your mind off of work. This may seem counter- productive but it is actually not. If your business has been through a period of high stress, they are getting too focused on their jobs. When generally happens is that people forget that there are other parts of the business that could be influenced by what they are doing. Another description is that they lose the ability to see the forest because all they see are trees.
If you give them the permission to relax and have fun, even for a short time, most people will come back in a much better frame of mind. They will be much more focused and they will be much more productive. One of the things that you have to do in order to ensure the success of your team building activities is to make people want to do them. This can be challenging for those who do not like them, but convincing them that it will be beneficial is half the battle of making it a success. Forcing them to take part would not have the desired effect, but if you can make them want to take part, your business will see huge benefits.