How well is your team bonding?

We all spend a lot of time at Work. We all spend a majority of our wakeful time at Work. As we spend more time at work than at home, it is very important to bond well with the team that we work with. If we don’t, then we are spending majority time of our lives fighting with people around us and we make it unpleasant for ourselves and for others. We work very competitively at work. All of us want to do very well and produce some wonderful results at work. In this push for ‘excellence’ at work, our human relations can easily become a casualty. 

Emotions

Many a times, it is thought that emotions have no relation to work environment. If you show emotions, it may even be considered as weakness. Many times, Senior Managers who are absolutely work driven and with minimal or no emotions are considered as highly Professional. This type of behavior is encouraged at work. 

But I have had the privilege to see and be part of some teams that bonded so very well. Emotions were very much part of these teams. Emotions were actually the glue that put these teams together. Manufacturing has lot of challenges and teams have to work hard to get over these challenges. Teamwork is needed for all the work in Manufacturing. When Companies are small, the Teamwork may be more easily possible. Once the Company starts growing, the ‘Professionalism’ takes over and Teamwork becomes a casualty. Good companies have the structure to encourage the Teamwork and to ensure the team members retain the personal touch.

Lack of Teamwork 

Lack of Teamwork can have disastrous consequences for the Company. If the Senior people at the top do not see eye to eye on important issues, then the Head of the Company will have very tough time playing judge in many inter functional matters. This becomes worse if the Head of the Company is not having a clear head. If he is too tentative with the senior team, then things get worse. When the Senior people have firm views about important issues, the same will trickle down into the Company. The R&D Head and Sales & Marketing head were not seeing eye to eye in a Midsized company. The differences were quite deep. R&D Head felt the Sales and Marketing teams do have the pulse of the market. He always felt the Voice of the Customer is not captured for New Products properly. The Sales and Marketing Head felt all the New Products are delayed and many of the products are having serious design defects. These two people were having serious issues between them that affected the teams. The divisions went right down to the last person in the teams. There are many examples of Senior people not getting along. Everywhere the effect is that the divisions run right thru the organization. 

How to help the teams to Bond?

Every Company should have the support structure to help the teams’ bond. It is not the responsibility of HR function to enable this. Every Leader in the company should own this responsibility. The Head of the Company needs to play a role in establishing this support structure. But the success of the Head of the Company would be to convince the teams to own this process. 

Let us discuss five Best practices that can be adapted by the Companies to ensure the teams have the support to Bond.

Align with the Phase of Life: Every Company / Factory should recognize the phase of employees’ lives that they are going thru and connect with them.  I was a part of a factory where all the employees were quite young. Every other month, there used to be visitors at the gate to enquire about a particular employee from the parents of a girl that wanted to marry their daughter to this employee. It was a village where this factory was located. This factory quickly allocated a good room to receive these visitors and gave responsibility to a team to talk to the Parents of the girls from the neighboring villages. The Employees appreciated this help. 

The same factory used to have marriages every other month. The Factory head was flexible to let the employees go to the marriages as a team in Company vehicle. As it was a village environment, the employees again appreciated this very much. They had a good transportation provided by the company. They were feeling very proud to go to the marriages in company vehicle. They showed their gratitude by coming back quickly and making up for the lost production. It was a win/ win. Many a times the teams did not have to apply for leave to go to marriage as they were making up the production. 

I know instances where the employees were given the help of Professional Career counsellors when their children were in High school and needed the help of Career counsellors. 

There are many things that companies can do to help employees to handle problems that come in a particular phase of their lives. 

By doing this, you can touch the emotions of the employees. Be a good part of their lives other than just giving Salary. You have many chances to touch their lives. Do not pass these chances! 

Team building: It would be very useful to put some Team building activities into the Company’s way of working. 

There can be a program running loosely with the help of an outside Trainer. The Team building activities that are very effective include ‘Personal sharing’ by the team members. Team members are encouraged to share Successes, Failures, Sad moments, Happy moments in their lives. Just this simple act can create a bond among the team members as they see each other as another Husband, Wife, Brother, Sister, Son who is going through his/her own struggles in their lives.

Without exposing the personal side of employees to each other, the employees continue to see each other with only official designations! These designations may not always trigger pleasant memories. 

Teams can be encouraged to go on a trek with some discussions on important issues thrown in. 

Having Food together can be one factor in creating bond. You can conduct Food preparation competitions at the office, create situations when the teams can come together with families at work. 

Like this, create Work Rituals that promote the Teamwork and collaboration. 

Leadership program for the team: Running a Leadership program for the team together and helping them to develop together that will help the team in a big way. The team would be exposed to several developmental initiatives on site and off site. This again helps the team to meet off the work agenda. 

Part of the Leadership program can address the inter-departmental issues and help to bring them into open for discussion in a less threatening environment. 

The Leadership Programs should go on for two / three years at a stretch. If the employees are learning and growing, then the company can hope to grow. Not otherwise. 

Health and Hygiene: Health is one area where the human beings can connect easily. Anything that the Company does to address and improve the health of the employees will be seen favorably by the employees. Let the employees take lead in creating an environment that encourages taking care of one’s health. 

It can be a Daily ‘Step count’ challenge. Using the several apps that are now available, encourage employees to walk 10,000 steps during the day and share it with colleagues. 

Creating and working on Health goals as teams can be another good way of promoting working together. If Teamwork is not happening in work area, create the Teamwork in another non-work area and then later extend it to the work area too.

Encouraging the employees to contribute to the Hygiene at work especially in this COVID situation can be very useful. They can learn to work as teams in this area. 

Encouraging the Talent of Employees: The Employees should not be looked at only from the work angle. Company should encourage the human angle. Many of the employees would have talents / skills that may not be related to work. Encourage them to use it to promote collaboration at work. 

Employees who are good at playing skits to use it for better communication at work. Employees who are good at sports can champion the Sports activities of the Company throughout the year. 

Employees who are good at singing and other cultural activities can be encouraged to play those roles and encourage other employees to show their talent in this area.

Once you give several avenues to employees to show their unique talent and Leadership skills in one area or the other, they would be able to work together much better with respect to each other. 

The Leadership skills and the higher performance of the employees has to come out at work. If a Company expects this to happen only through official work, then that company may not be able to ‘switch on’ several employees. 

How are you helping your teams to Bond?