8 Tips To Recreate Team Spirit As You Return To Work

Re-cultivating team spirit at your organisation may be pivotal to improving business-wide performance – as companies that promote collaborative working are 5 times as likely to be high performing¹

So, how can you re-build and foster greater collaboration as you transition back into your workplace?

Well, the key is to ensure your teamwork activities are meaningful and not inconsequential² by relating them back to the following:

Common purpose

Do all the members on your team understand and share the same goal?
Connection

Do your activities allow your team to relate to one another in order to create productive, engaging cultures on their own?
Communication

Do your team communicate effectively with each other?
Collaboration

Do your team know and appreciate each other’s strengths and talents?
Celebration

Do you publicise and celebrate your team’s successes?³

So, how can you begin nurturing these attitudes and activities at your business? Well, we’ve put together our top tips to help you…

Reconnecting After Time Apart

There are plenty of team building exercises that don’t require physical contact. For example, you could organise socially distanced meetings, with time allocated for catching up and connecting with colleagues socially, and then time to discuss each person’s goals for the day.

Focus On Supporting Mental Health

The past few months have been challenging, and your team may need some additional support. To ensure everyone at your business has access to your employee assistance programme, you could ask for a volunteer to be trained as the mental health champion in the business, or set up a questionnaire that can show areas for improvement and allow your team to provide recommendations on how to make little changes for longer term growth.

Set New Team Goals

Unifying your team against a target (no matter how small) is a great way to facilitate business-wide collaboration. Given the current climate, your business’ strategy may be more reactive right now, but it’s still a good idea to set short-term measurable goals on a weekly or monthly basis.

Create a Culture of Respect

A survey in 2016 for the Society for HR Management found that “respectful treatment of all employees” was the number-one contributor to job satisfaction.⁴ To make sure your communications with colleagues are respectful, try to remember these four things when working in a team:

Listen to all of your colleagues carefully – give them your full attention.
Be fair and avoid favouritism – ensure everyone has a chance to give their input.
Agree realistic and achievable deadlines – allocate workloads fairly.
Give each individual on your team credit for their contribution to the project.⁵

Recognise Individual Needs

Researchers have found that extroverts are energised by spending time with others, whilst introverts find socialising quite draining, and need time to recuperate.⁶

With this in mind, confirm with each individual in your team how they prefer to complete their work. If possible, offer members of your team the opportunity to benefit from collaborative as well as independent working by completing tasks and tackling projects both independently and in pairs or groups, whilst still following social distancing guidelines, to help them to stay energised throughout their workday.

Refocus on Your Business' Values

It’s likely that your business has a set of values – but are they incorporated into your day-to-day interactions? To build on your business’ team spirit, celebrate colleagues who embody one of your business’ principles, and share their successes via email, or with a # on your social channels.

Find New Ways to Recognise Teamwork

If you want to foster collaboration you should celebrate it! Budgets might be a bit tight right now, but you can still recognise hardworking teams at your business with direct, thoughtful and impactful praise.

When commending teamwork, make sure that you highlight each individual’s contribution, noting how their unique skills within their field helped you to achieve your goals. You should also talk about how the team cooperated effectively as a group, highlighting how they used soft skills to maximise your results. These include:

Problem-solving
Communication
Creativity
Adaptability
Conscientiousness⁷

Get Creative At Break Time

Find fun ways to rebuild connections with your colleagues during your break times, whilst keeping to the latest guidelines. Use your lunch-time – it’s the perfect time to catch up with your colleagues in the sunshine. You could even enjoy a socially distanced picnic or a coffee break out in the sunshine.

CREATE, COLLABORATE AND CONNECT WITH NESPRESSO® PROFESSIONAL

At Nespresso® Professional, we believe connecting with your colleagues should be simple, easy and convenient, even while socially distancing.

That’s why we created a range of versatile offers, designed to enable greater flexibility and ease of use in your new way of working. You and your team can choose from 14 different coffee blends, carefully crafted from various Arabica and Robusta coffee bean blends, so you can make every coffee moment count.

New study finds that collaboration drives workplace performance, Forbes, June 2017
How to improve teamwork in the workplace, Gallup
The 5 Tactics of Teamwork: A Blueprint for Team Management, Gallup, January 2020
Chapter 7, HBR Guide to Performance Management, Harvard Business Review Guides, February 2019
Promoting a respectful culture, The University of Edinburgh, January 2019
Why Socializing Drains Introverts More Than Extroverts, Psychology Today, August 2017
Soft Skills: Definitions and Examples, Indeed, MARCH 2020