5 Tips for Building Positive Team Spirit

They say that there’s no I in a team, however, each team is composed of individuals with their own goals, personalities and plans. Also, keep in mind that just because your team looks good on paper, this doesn’t have to mean that, when put together, things will work out as expected. For this, you need to actively invest your time, effort and resources into building a positive team spirit. Here are five things that you, as an employer, can do in order to make your employees work as a team.

           

Watch out for certain types of employees when hiring

Whether or not you’ll be able to build a positive team spirit is an issue that’s closely tied to the question of who you’ve hired. You see, there are some personality types that don’t work well with others. Keep in mind that these people don’t have to underperform when in a team but they might make others (people around them) underperform. For instance, an emotional vampire makes everyone around them feel bad, while a siren is interesting and fun to work with but they also distract people from their duties.

Reward team spirit

Another thing you need to hear is the fact that whether or not your employees act as a team depends completely on you. If you reward individual effort instead of team spirit, you shouldn’t be surprised when there’s backstabbing, sabotaging and snitching going on around the office. In fact, by handing out individual rewards, what you’ll be doing is promoting the every-man-for-himself mentality in the office. Instead, you need to encourage and reward teamwork.

Improve the organization

The next thing you have to do is improve the overall organization. This ranges from seemingly simple logistical issues like providing your staff with personalized name badges and uniforms, all the way to delegating tasks. If everyone knows what their responsibility is, then there’s no question about who’s not doing their part of the job. This is best portrayed through the story of somebody, everybody, anybody and nobody. When there’s a job that has to be done, everybody is convinced that somebody will do it. This usually results in a scenario where nobody does what anybody could have done.

Don’t induce anxiety

If the deadlines that you’re imposing on them are impossible, then your staff might end up feeling anxious and demoralized. As a result, they might feel more hostile and less likely to cooperate or even communicate with people around them. When a task isn’t going as it should, a lot of people start looking for someone to blame, which is quite bad for team spirit. This is why you should try to be more lenient with your deadlines. However, don’t be too lenient, seeing as how according to Parkinson’s law, the work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Actively work on teambuilding

The last thing you need to hear is that in order to build a positive team spirit, you need to start actively working on teambuilding. Improve channels of communication in the office. Set aside some time and resources for team building exercises and activities and make a business model so that your employees have to rely on each other in order to get things done. Finally, encourage them if they decide to hang out outside of work but, as an employer, try to avoid fraternizing with employees.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, keep in mind that even with all of these efforts, you can only wait and hope for the best. Still, a work environment that values team spirit has a particular way of attracting like-minded people. This kind of work environment encourages growth and productivity in more than one way.