| |
Team Building Through Community Initiatives
Offices that serve together stay together
By Debra Faulk
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”
- Michael Jordan
Many types of employees and work groups exist in organizations, making it challenging to achieve effective teamwork. That is why team-building programs are essential to all companies, no matter how large or small.
Team-building events help improve communication, tap into creativity, maximize resources, teach how to deal with change, enhance leadership skills, and increase productivity. Team-building events break down normal office barriers, enabling staff to interact in a different way, completely divorced from the day-to-day work activities. It gives people an opportunity to extend themselves beyond their comfort zone in an environment where morale, individual fulfillment, and fun all occur at the same time.
Imagine introducing a team-building program into your organization that not only does all this, but also increases employee loyalty, makes you a more desirable employer, and delivers substantial community benefits!
Compassionate action
Today’s workplace programs need to appeal to the changed priorities of the available workforce, with younger employees preferring to work for a company whose values are aligned with their own. “Meaning” is making a comeback. Employees are no longer motivated by awards and trophies that gather dust in the work cubicles. They want non-material benefits from their work.
Companies can respond to the needs of the new workforce by integrating community service into their team-building strategy. Organizing and implementing a community service project is like a microcosm of the working world — people working together for a common goal, with deadlines and limited resources. Yet, unlike at the workplace, employees can see immediate results that deliver benefits outside the company. Community service team building projects help colleagues get to know each other better without the pressure of formal networking. There is a real sense of satisfaction when seeing the finished job at the end of the day and knowing that you have done something to help others. It is a team-building event with a difference.
There are so many opportunities to utilize community service as a team-building event, whether it is for an afternoon, a full day, or recurring days. Events can include building a home with Habitat for Humanity, creating a community playground with the support of KaBOOM!, or painting an after-school center for the Boys & Girls Clubs. Organize your employees to clean up a river through Keep America Beautiful, get a group walking for American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life or March of Dimes’ WalkAmerica, or ask your employees to plan and implement their own, unique service project.
Sometimes the best lesson isn’t a better communication strategy or a fresh way to improve productivity; it is this opportunity to see co-workers in a new and positive light. Maybe the head of the company paints poorly, but another employee is the star of the day. Or a managing director cannot complete a task like tearing down a damaged wall without the help of the entry-level assistant. When office hierarchies go out the window, new leaders can emerge and new friendships are formed. Laboring side by side on a volunteer project gives employees the opportunity to build relationships that enhance their communication and productivity when they return to the office.
Bond, boost and benefit
Involving staff with a charity on a more regular basis through a community service-oriented team-building program is excellent for motivation and solidarity. Likewise, charity focused team-building days can be amazingly creative and different. The charity gets the opportunity to interact with an audience it would never normally have access to, plus it receives vital financial support. The spin-offs from this mutually beneficial situation are considerable. Companies and charities can establish an ongoing relationship that might include volunteering, careers, legal, financial, and marketing advice, payroll giving, and sponsorship.
Participants walk away with an integrated set of skills, knowledge, and plans to renew team spirit, enhance performance, and improve team leadership. When these skills are applied, teams are stronger, more productive, and more aligned in purpose than ever before.
Team building: Any exercise or program that helps a group of interdependent people create long-term behavior change resulting in a more efficient or productive culture.
- Doug Staneart, The Leader’s Institute
To create a team-building community service project with one of the nonprofit organizations mentioned, please visit their web site to find an affiliate organization in your area.
About the Author
Debra Kent Faulk is principal of DKF Connects, a socially conscious marketing services firm specializing in public relations, social marketing, and strategic partnerships. For more information, call (813) 258-2599 or visit www.DKFconnects.com.
|
|
