As a manager, you know that as businesses and workplaces become more competitive productivity, performance and results become increasingly important.

To keep up with this demand for better performance more attention needs to be placed on the workings of the team as a whole. Rarely is the success of a project solely due to one individual, it is typically down to the collective effort of a team of people.

It is essential to make sure that your team is working cohesively, if there isn’t much unity then there isn't much collaborative effort going towards achieving and completing goals.

Team building is a great tool for when your team needs to be pulled together, either when there is a new member of the team, when morale amongst the team is low or when the team isn’t communicating very effectively and isn’t working collaboratively. There are so many benefits that can be gained from team building, here are a few:

• It can break the barrier between leadership and other employees, too often in a corporate setting do employees feel that there is a large gap between the team and the managers which creates a disconnect between them. Getting everyone to take part in a team building exercise allows them to all work at the same level and employees have a chance to view the leadership as another one of them, boosting their morale.
• Team building activities that involve discussion or are based on communication allows open communication between employees and management. Relationships within the team are made, improved and strengthened, stronger relationships mean better communication, more collaboration and better quality work.
• Certain activities can allow you to identify strengths and weaknesses within a team, once strengths are identified you can use them to your advantage and advise on how to improve on the weaknesses to further improve the team.
• Taking part in a team building exercise that requires employees to work together to identify and solve problems will help to develop and improve their strategic and rational thinking, improving these skills will make sure that the team is then well prepared and capable if a problem may arise.

Team building is most effective when you plan an activity or an exercise that has clearly defined goals and takes place with a purpose to educate and improve the team. So, selecting the right team building activity for your purpose is crucial, you don’t want to choose an exercise that aims to improve problem-solving if the issue within the team involves a breakdown in communication amongst the team and poor relationships.

You might find the perfect away day or activity for your team building retreat or day but it might not suit your employees. You need to be aware of all of your employee’s physical capabilities, whether it be that a member may not be able to take part because of a disability or they cannot commit to a full day or weekend because they have other responsibilities such as taking care of their children. Employee’s comfort zones should also be considered, if a certain activity is going to make the majority or even just some of the members of the team very uncomfortable then it probably won’t be worth it because they won’t give it their best shot.

There are so many different team building activities you can choose from, anything from simple ice breaker games for a few hours in the office to getting your hands dirty by being creative as a group, grabbing some spray paint and creating a graffiti mural for the office to corporate weekends away that might include skydiving, race car driving or just a night out. It’s all up to you, your needs and your budget.