Many companies try using various teambuilding techniques to create a strong team of employees who will trust and support each other, share their troubles and find solutions to the company’s problems together. The practice has shown that in fact teambuilding events do not work the way they are expected to. One of the reasons of this is that employees do not like the exercises they are told to do at those events and they simply wait till the event is over and they can go home. Another reason is that teambuilding events are usually conducted away from the workplace, usually during the weekends – thus, the employees do not associate them with the workplace and consider them as a short retreat from work (Gottlieb, 2005). In order to solve this issue, it is necessary to redesign teambuilding events in such a way that they are conducted at workplace on the weekdays; in order not to disturb the working process such teambuilding events should not be long in time – better to have several shorter events than one long that will take the whole day. Besides, the exercises that the employees have to do should be related to the working practices; that way the employees will able to transfer the experience they gain into their everyday routines. It is necessary to make sure that the atmosphere is friendly and pleasant.
The aim of the teambuilding event can to create an atmosphere of informal communication, to make a team, to create a team spirit and teach to work in a team, to reveal the leaders among the employees, to help employees trust each other, or to relax psychologically etc. It order to determine which part of the team needs building, it is necessary to observe the employees and to determine the strong and weak aspects of their working together. First of all it is necessary to create a team, and after that the team members have to learn how to work together and communicate with each other effectively.
References
Gottlieb, H. (2005). Why Team Building Doesn't Work & How You CAN Build Your Team. Retrieved 27 January 2016, from http://www.help4nonprofits.com/NP_PRSNL-TeamBuilding_Art.htm.
TeamBonding. (2013). Outcomes to expect from completing team building events - TeamBonding. Retrieved 27 January 2016, from https://www.teambonding.com/team-building-events-outcome/.
