1. Invest in a Games Area
If you would like your team to stay motivated and refreshed, regular breaks should be highly encouraged. Obviously, you don’t want them to take their breaks at their desks. So, try providing a relaxing and fun ‘breakout area’ where team members can go for several minutes to clear their minds.
You don’t even have to do much. You can have a pool table, bean bags, a picnic bench, and even a small area with a sofa. Team members are all welcome to a game of pool or to take their laptops over to the bean bags whenever they want to take a break or a change of scenery.
You can bet that even a game of pool every few hours will be enough to put smiles on their faces. It will not only make them happy, but they will end up chatting about their projects over the pool table, giving them fresh new perspectives to take back to their desks.
2. Go Out as a Team
Have fun with your entire team by going out for regular days and/or night out. Going out as a team is an excellent way to get everybody to have fun and form relationships outside work that may inspire collaboration back at the office.
Besides being a lot of fun, days out make excellent team-building exercises, even if you don’t like the idea of traditional style team building activities. Socializing with colleagues has been identified as one of the catalysts to forming a collaborative culture.
If employees are unable to relate to their coworkers as human beings and establish positive relationships, their careers will definitely suffer. Socializing and getting to know fellow workers as people will help you communicate better, trust each other more and work better together. Tracktime24.com is a great way to encourage communication and visibility in the office.
3. Encourage Friendships
Socializing with coworkers can extend beyond the after-work drinks on Friday nights and the occasional team building day. It has been shown that people that have a ‘best friend’ at their place of work are up to 7 times more engaged than those that don’t.
Workplace friendships are also key to helping you develop a culture of ‘compassionate love’, which according to research, has the potential to lead to higher levels of satisfaction and teamwork along with a reduced number of sick days.
4. Decorate
You spend a significant proportion of your time at work, which is why it is so important that you don’t actually hate your office. If you would like your team to truly enjoy being at work, ensure that you provide an interesting and attractive workplace that’s also conducive to productivity.
Keep in mind that your office reflects your brand. Decorating according to your brand will help your team to stay in touch with it. For instance, if simplicity is what your business prides itself on, a messy, cluttered office will not help your team to feel in touch with your mission.
If you are short of ideas, you should consider getting everybody involved and decorate the office as a team. It is a fun and great way to get everybody to work together.
5. Get a Dog
According to recent research, having a canine companion in the office can actually reduce stress, increase productivity, and encourage communication between employees.
A different study revealed that participants that worked with a dog nearby ranked higher than their teammates on measures of team cohesion, trust, and intimacy than those that didn’t. Simply put, having a dog in the office can encourage your team to become better collaborators.
So, what are you waiting for, get a dog in your office and see the productivity and happiness levels soar.
6. Share Beers
Your team probably comprises people with different skills and experience. Every Friday afternoon, you may consider having “talks” where team members talk about problems that they have encountered during the week or a solution to a problem that they have discovered.
You will quickly realize that sitting down with your team with some beers at the end of the week and sharing knowledge is a fun and productive way to wind down.
