Four Tips for Making Colleagues a Team

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When you're building your own business and find yourself needing to hire others to make it really take flight, you want to reach out and find the most qualified individuals that you can for each position. While resumes and interviews can pinpoint those with the best education or experience record, that doesn't mean that throwing them all together will automatically mean that productivity will soar. 

As the owner of the company, you want them all pulling in the same direction and want the business and each individual within it to be able to succeed, and that means making them a team. Sometimes it's the small things that bring people together.

 

1. Individual Celebration

Regardless of whatever holidays a person might choose to celebrate, there is always one day of the year that is their own individual day of recognition, their birthday. There are two simple things that can be done to help everyone connect on a more personal level.

A simple birthday card can help a person feel more like part of a machine running at peak performance rather than just an individual cog spinning away on its own, especially if everyone in the office takes a moment to put their personal signature on. Another way to put together a community rather than a task force is to start the day or after lunch hours with a birthday cake or cupcakes that can then be left in the break room for everyone to enjoy.

 

2. Outside Activities  — Stock Up on Ice Packs and Muscle Cream

Group activities outside the office can be great team-building endeavors. An intra-office golf league can be fun, but you need to be careful because not everyone knows how to play, and you don't want to make people feel excluded. That is the exact opposite of the point. Plus, it can be expensive for a person to have their own set of clubs, shoes, and a supply of golf balls — especially if they couldn't hit a fairway to save their lives and constantly lose their balls in the trees and ponds.

Putting a team together for a bowling league could be an alternative, even a complete novice can use alley shoes and balls, and a softball team can also use community equipment to keep costs down. The more physical the activity, the more important it's going to be to keep a supply of things like ibuprofen, muscle cream, and ice packs for the more… mature… athletes in the group.

 

3. Dinner Meetings

Instead of just gathering everyone around the conference table to brainstorm ideas and such, consider taking the whole crew out for an end-of-the-day meal. Studies have shown that breaking bread together can bring coworkers closer to one another and actually increase office productivity.

So, instead of the stuffy formal setting, get them out to a place they can relax, chitchat, and enjoy themselves. Another idea is to make sure that they take home a dessert for their significant others as a thank-you gesture for the extra time spent away from them. Or, as a bribe, whichever.

 

4. Potlucks/Cookoffs

This is another way to emphasize a sense of community amongst the workers through the shared experience of eating together. Who knows, you might find out that you have a budding Gordon Ramsay or Bobby Flay lurking in your midst.

A potluck allows everyone to show off their culinary skills and give their office mates a chance to see another side of themselves that may not come out on a day-to-day basis. Also, a little friendly rivalry can be fun, maybe even making the home chef feel like they're on a Food Network competition. Offer everybody the chance to bring in their best chili, soup, or pie, and let the group vote on which they think deserves a blue ribbon.

A new trend in the American workplace is a phenomenon called "quiet quitting," which is when a person decides to do the bare minimum possible during the hours they are at work. Making the effort to build up a unit as opposed to a group of individual office workers serves two interrelated goals. Productivity rises because employees don't feel like they are simply something akin to the blank drawing of a default social media avatar.