Team Building in Tough Times

Everyday we read of another round of layoffs or downsizing in companies around the country. Many workers have seen friends and capable co-workers disappear from their office or warehouse. The scene is being repeated all over the place. "Hey, that guy that I worked next to for 5, 12, 27 years. Where is he today? Gone? Moved? Retired? Oh! Who's going to pick up his load?......Oh."

The loss of friends, increased workload, insecurity and combining of departments has created a great deal of stress and trepidation in businesses everywhere. No one likes those feelings. Most employers don't want that for their people. Yet, in these times, it seems to be the norm for employees to be worried regarding any move being made by their company. The moves don't even have to be real, simply expected or perceived. So what can help? Now is not a time to sit back while everyone starts cannibalizing in the office as they jockey for position or maybe as employees start looking for greener pastures. Now is the time to assure your team that you value them as people and employees. Show them that through hard times, you should still take care of one another and that staying on through the storm will help the team to be stronger. That starts at the top.

If you are a decision maker in your company, you have tough choices to make when it comes to surviving cuts now and still investing in your people for the near and long-term future. Everyone knows you must keep your people happy and motivated to retain them and to be a strong team. Here are three simple suggestions to help. The three will be detailed in separate articles, but listed here you get the general idea.

1. Draw your people closer together - Don't give up on team-building. Merged groups, departments or transferred individuals need to build rapport and trust with their new co-workers. Downsized offices need positive experiences together. Your people need help understanding and 'unpacking' the new dynamics in their workplace. The temptation is to cut team building at the time when your people need it the most. A team-building event might mean a whole lot more coming from an outsider as employees might be cynical when it comes to the encouragement from management. You, as management, probably need the relief and positive lift too. 2. Develop the individuals - Strengthen your office/department by making your people better. Send them to training. Give opportunities to hone skills. Trust them and invest time with them on projects. They will feel more secure, valued and motivated. You will have a more productive, valuable and stable employee. You will attract valuable potential employees. 3. Be nice - When the going gets tough, people get mean! Defensiveness. Self-preservation. Frustration. Pressure. Departure of friends. Insecurity. Pay cuts. These are enough to put most anyone on edge. Stress is a great excuse to justify bad behavior. Don't fall into that. Put your people at ease by treating them well. That whole Golden Rule thing (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) is most needed in tough times. It is easy to be 'nice' and get along when things are all rosy. It's extraordinary to stay steady and personally put people at ease by being nice when you are being squeezed. By setting the tone as one who cares about them as more than simply an employee, you will help your people not to panic or live in constant tension in the workplace. These are tough times in business. The strong will survive. Make your people strong and your strength will shine. Circle the wagons drawing your people together. Sharpen your people as you develop the individuals. Set the positive tone as you have shown that you can be nice in tough times. Lead through this recession and you will be the one people will follow for a long time.

Steve Sweeney Senior Instructor Magnovo LLC http://www.magnovo.com

About the Author

Steve Sweeney has spent nearly twenty years working with high school and middle school students and their families. His extensive experience in conflict resolution, character development and motivating individuals to live extraordinary lives is unmatched. Steve has prepared and presented thousands of keynote speeches for diverse audiences. He is engaging, funny and personal in every environment. Leadership Training

Team Building: Win Championships, not Games

There was a fable which most of us would have heard in our raw ages- how a sparrow was caught in a net by a chaser, tried hard to do break free, when other sparrow friends came to her rescue. They all got together and flew away to the forest along with the net. In the forest, a rat friend bit away the net with his teeth, and saved the sparrow. Moral: Together, a team can cross all hurdles. Such Team Building Aesop’s fables are commonly used today.

Team Building isn’t marked by the concepts of age, time or space. It’s something that is taught to us since nursery, is on the top-most-agendas list in management schools, and is given due importance in companies and corporate firms. The importance of Team Building is emphasized so much that there are special Team Building training institutes that conduct team workshops.

And if we talk about business firms, Team Building is an effort that is highly emphasized, and there is a correct need to do so. Today, a company’s manpower is so large, hundreds and thousands of people working together, sometimes even geographically apart, that Team Building becomes as much important as difficult to achieve.

To help learn Team Building lessons, companies conduct Team Building activities periodically. The highlighted aim of such activities is to let all the employees participate equally, share the responsibilities and understand the essence of Team Building. To create a positive impact on organizational growth, there are various institutions that conduct Team Building workshops. These workshops emphasize the team’s effectiveness in achieving the goals, and hone the team’s armament.

Great teams make great organizations, and this is precisely the reason of the mounting popularity of Team Building corporate learning institutes. There are many success stories of such institutes who have converted ‘a group of people’ into ‘a team’, and reaped huge benefits. Remember, alone you can win a game, but together you win championships!

About Author

Corporate Learning Institute offersTeam Building , Team Building Workshops, excellent training and team building services in Illinois and Chicago. For more information Visit http://www.corplearning.com.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-shelly-cruz-7519.html

How Crucial is Effective Team Building Training?

In a day and age where many companies are looking to for their employees to cooperate instead of working independently, team building is essential. In many cases, effective team building can be achieved through many different team building events.

A successful team building event can dramatically affect your company’s productivity for years to come. But, if these team building events are not properly facilitated due to poor team building training, the result could be worse than not performing a team building event at all. That is why it is so important to have a professional company that specializes in team building help organize and run your team building events.

A professional organization can help for many reasons. First, some of the most important qualities that a company is looking to improve upon, such as cohesiveness among group members, enhanced problem-solving, generation of ideas, and improved morale are best accomplished by those who have team building training. These organizations have been performing these activities for many years and know what does, or does not, work. Second, the knowledge that these companies have can be used to design a team building event that is not only unique to your company, but unique to the certain aspects your company is trying to improve. Many of the people who run these companies specialized in team building, and know the ins and outs of how they work. This knowledge allows them to understand a company’s specific problem and find the best way to solve it. And finally, a professional organization can take care of all the details that would bog down a member of your company. Many of these organizations already have locations, restaurants, and possible lodging already lined up if a company needs it. This ends up saving the company valuable time, and money, for other things.

How do these all affect effective team building training? All of these components are necessary in order for an event to work properly and successfully. And with these components, effective team building can be achieved, along with all the benefits that come along with it. That is why effective team building training is so crucial.

About Author

Corporate Learning Institute offers Team Building Training programs and excellent team building activities in Illinois and Chicago. For more information about team development training and Leadership Development Training Visit www.corplearning.com

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-shelly-cruz-7519.html

Employee Grief Affects the Bottom Line!!!

Employers grossly underestimate the impact of grief in the workplace. Even this is an understatement. You rarely hear the word grief used when describing loss of productivity or being a cost to a company. The type of words you do hear to describe loss of productivity could be depression, stress, injuries or some kind of substance abuse.

The fact that grief remains a hidden issue only compounds the problem and prevents possible solutions. Solutions could help employees, foster increased employee loyalty and reduce the potential loss of productivity for employers. Sounds like a win-win situation to me!!

As with the rest of our culture, we expect people to “get on with life”, get “closure”, “buck up” and many more clichés we regularly hear. The lack of understanding in our culture, which includes the workplace makes this a serious issue to employers.

The Grief Recovery Institute in 2003 estimated the lost productivity in the USA due to the death of a loved one would be $37.5 billion dollars. The other losses such as divorce, family crisis, pet loss, financial loss to name a few totaled a yearly total of $75 billion dollars. Employers – wake up!!!

Companies do not have to spend a lot of money to increase awareness and understanding of grief in their workplaces. Just doing this would start the process of improving a corporate culture for those returning to the workplace after a death of a loved one.

There are many ways that can cost businesses money. These include absenteeism, mistakes being made, lack of concentration, employees leaving employment, workplace injuries, missed deadlines and irritability – to name a few. These are not surprising as the effects of grief are felt physically, emotionally, spiritually and cognitively.

What is obvious about the different ways productivity is affected is that it affects everyone – no one is immune to these reactions. The effects of grief can equally affect a CEO making decisions concerning thousands of dollars to a construction worker on a site. Both situations can have a negative effect to the bottom line of a business.

Organizations need to start to address this issue. It should start with Human Resources Managers. Many in this position also find addressing grief a difficult thing to do. The need for information on grief is required for all levels of staff from the front line to the CEO. There is a need for a formal process to disseminate information to other staff when an employee experiences a death in their family. This would ensure all staff receives the same information at the same time.

There are many types of activities that will provide comfort to those grieving. Allowing some staff to attend the funeral is one gesture that will mean a lot to the bereaved. If there is an Employee Assistance Program available to staff, the use of this should be encouraged. Supervisors need to have regular contact with staff for many weeks and months after the death. The inclusion of staff the bereaved staff member works with is essential to allow a productive and positive re-entry into the workplace after a death.

People who are grieving need to talk and hopefully some extra “chatting” will be overlooked when they come back to the workplace. It is positive when people return to work for many reasons. There is a much more positive affect achieved when people return to a workplace that understands this difficult time.

A mistake both supervisors and staff make is to think that these accommodations may have to continue for quite some time at some level. The death of a significant person in your life affects you for a long time. An employee not performing well six months after the death could absolutely still be feeling the effects of the death. Supervisors often do not connect these dots and assume there has been a change in work performance. A sad employee can often be interpreted as a bad employee.

For many reasons stated in this article and the millions of Baby Boomers that will soon (if not already) feel the effect of their parents’ death, companies need to make changes to their corporate culture that will help their employees and minimize the loss of productivity they most definitely will feel.

Jane Galbraith, BScN, R.N., is the author of “Baby Boomers Face Grief – Survival andRecovery”. Her book is available through the author directly at jane.galbraith@sympatico.ca or Amazon, or Trafford Publishing. More information about the book can be found at www.trafford.com/05-2319. Jane conducts information presentations and workshops to organizations on grief and it’s affects on the workplace.

© 2009 Jane Galbraith

About Author

Jane Galbraith, BScN, R.N., is the author of “Baby Boomers Face Grief – Survival andRecovery”. Her book is available through the author directly at jane.galbraith@sympatico.ca or Amazon, or Trafford Publishing. More information about the book can be found at www.trafford.com/05-2319. Jane conducts information presentations and workshops to organizations on grief and it’s affects on the workplace.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com

The Sweet Success Of Team Building

Successful team building is a delicate balancing act between organizational psychology and fun, and if it's done correctly, those that are taking part will only be aware of the fun. The purpose of these group development days out is to identify and overcome areas within team work that are not conducive to achieving a shared goal. In the workplace, even if it appears that we are working independently, we are in fact interacting with many people. It is essential that everyone within the same working environment has an ability to understand and respect fellow workers, and cooperate for a common good; but how exactly can tasks in team building events be transferred back into the workplace.

It seems implausible to anyone other than a psychologist that a day spent playing The Generation Game or a city-sized version of Monopoly can improve the everyday working environment for a group of employees. Running around and having fun, talking to people you usually barely blink at whilst passing the photocopier and having conversations that don't involve the topic of who had the stapler last can be a liberating process, and it can certainly help bring co-workers together on a more social level. The magic is not in social networking though, although obviously being able to speak to Brenda about something other than printer cartridges is a plus point.

The magic that is hidden within team building exercises is the ability of the event organiser to disguise personal development as a day of fun. By constructing games and activities to force colleagues to cooperate on a new level, weaknesses can be identified and overcome in a way that is so subtle that the participants barely notice. This not only benefits and enlightens the people involved in the team building event, it gives the people running the company a chance to see the way that the staff really interact with each other. This process can open up a whole new perspective on the dynamics at play within the working environment.

After the event, there is inevitably a shift in perspective and a change in the working environment. The purpose of the team development day was to identify weaknesses and strengths that are inherent within a working group or individuals and make adjustments accordingly. This can lead to changes in the working environment to reflect strong working groups, often incorporating the hidden skills of certain individuals whose talents and strengths were being overlooked in the daily routine. The tasks in team building focus on communication, organisation, self and team management as well as problem solving.

Although these skill sets seem obvious, the way they are presented to those involved makes them seem like a normal part of everyday activity, which to all intents and purposes it is, but in a development task, they are refined to bring about certain outcomes. If negative consequences arise, ones not conducive to a collective working environment, then the event organisers have the skills to change certain behaviours and ways of thinking through task development, or suggest counter measures to mitigate the undesirable behaviour or action. The results are always positive and constructive, producing a team that is strengthened and cohesive. Team building can be compared to a sugar coated pill; it does its job without leaving a bitter taste in the mouth.

Article Source:
http://www.bestmanagementarticles.com
http://human-resources-mgt.bestmanagementarticles.com

About the Author:
Dom Donaldson is an expert in the events industry. Find out more about Team Building and the packages on offer today from Accolade Corporate Events.