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How about holding a brainstorming session so staff can raise issues and come up with their solutions?
A proper piss up, not a barbie and a few boring beers, get them all ****ted.
Think you probably just need to be the leader that stops saying yes to management and relays what is realistically possible in this new normal.
Donuts are nice, but more staff/resource and less targets/deadlines makes the job easier.
After a reshuffle at work we are now missing the leader role that deflects management's rubbish ideas and avoids management getting all uppity when we give our honest thoughts on them.
As said above somewhere, people join companies and leave managers. If we don't get a lead soon, the manager will have no one to manage.
Plenty of evidence, going right back to the 1930’s and Elton Mayos Hawthorne research up to more recent on prevention of PTSD in trauma at work eg TRiM, that a manager who is genuinely engaged, present, listens, supportive, reasonable and interested in staff welfare will improve their wellbeing and ability to cope under stress and improve productivity. Pretty basic but effective human stuff really and not about the manager being a doormat but being clear what the task is, managing performance whilst supporting staff to achieve it.
Well thought out team days can accelerate the familiarity with each other as people who have lives, families, experiences outside of work rather than just being productive units which helps with the supportive team ethos but really should also be used to discuss and clarify the teams objectives and performance - the bit that’s usually missed. Too often team building days are an unfocused day off organised by a manager who then reverts to being an unpleasant dysfunctional bullying dick, lacking clarity about the task, who manages performance chaotically rather than consistently and wonders why everyone remains miserable. This was my last boss forte and we just didn’t engage in the ‘team building’ and was a waste of busy peoples time.
The mere fact you have recognised the problem and are thinking about how to improve your teams morale is great news for them.
OP - Just watch Ted Lasso on Apple TV. You will learn 10x more about team engagement from a comedy tv show than most books or forum posts.
If you really want a day out your first challenge is to fight with your management to get the funding / time off you need.
Covid doesn’t help but cheap things you can do if you really want the day:
* Climbing wall
* Go karting
* Outdoor swimming
* Blow-up assault course over water
* Trail centre with bike / ebike rental
Split into session about how you will help them solve problems and make the outdoorsy bit optional after. Maybe even let them invite family for second half of day with no forced bonding. If it happens bonus, if people want to bail for day off or pub that’s up to them. Depending on team size you can do things like outdoor swimming or climbing walls super cheap.
Anyone have any decent ideas or great experiences to have some fun/boost morale as a team?
Trying to force people to have fun is the quickest way to destroy morale and motivation. IME, having managers who are competent and set clear objectives is essential. People go to work to do work, so helping them do their work is essential. It's nice to work with colleagues who are competent and professional, so building professional respect for each other is important. I've worked with some very professional people that I would not want to hang out with socially, but they are pleasant to work with because they behave in a professional manner. I've also worked with some people that are great to go drinking with, but are nightmares as work colleagues because they think the workplace should be a party zone. Having some occasional voluntary social stuff on the weekend is fine - BBQ, karting, whatever, as long as nobody feels under any pressure to take part. I like a beer to unwind, but a lot of people don't and having boozy parties is extremely unpleasant for anyone who's not into that sort of thing.
Anyone have any decent ideas or great experiences to have some fun/boost morale as a team?
Yep, there ain't no fun like compulsory fun.
If you do organise an event make it non competitive.
We had a manager who was a keen go-carter. He organised an event and somehow even got people to pay their own way and do it on a Saturday. He then won the go-carting.
I suppose you could claim there was some bonding. Everyone shared the same opinion of him after that day.
You need to know why the team is not working in the first place. What are they not doing that a well functioning team would do.
You also need yo know the different personalities of the team before you try any team building stuff as many people (like me) are totally put off by anything deliberately team building, social etc,. but talk to me and I will tall you why the team is not working from my point of view so fix whatever that is.
I’m looking for something a bit more personal and innovative than the usual guff.
This is the inception of all the the most excruciatingly cringe team building days. It sounds like your problems are a bit deeper, and taking away a precious lunch break will probably piss people off more.
I find it ironic when a quality department has issues within itself, try a bit of fundamental quality management focusing on the issues and how to resolve them... Just a thought.
As people get older, they have more demands on their time eg families etc, so pub nights become less appealing. When my company was much younger (20 years ago) very few had families and lots of people lived in Cambridge and cycled in, so pub nights were really popular. As everyone aged, had families and moved further afield for larger houses, pub night attendance dropped and eventually we just stopped having them.
On a personal note, I just don't feel so connected to work anymore and would probably pass on a social as I'm just not that fussed anymore.
Sounds like the team aren't the problem.
Bet if you got them all together on Monday and said,
"Work diligently on the most important thing for your allotted hours and then go home. Any questions about priorities, resourcing, etc, come to me and I will make a decision and find you something you *can* make progress with.
I am aware that we have additional needs and am pulling together a proposal for senior management, so any low hanging fruit you think I might not know about, pop over this week and talk me through it".
AND THEN DO IT and let any management griping stop with you...
On Friday spend a short time summing up progress (sure, some will be "eliminated X as a possible cause of the problem" but still).
Longer term if you can fulfill genuine training needs that's always good - change of scene and perspective but clear business benefit. But clear up the worst of the shitshow before sending people on soft skills courses, as nobody likes being sent on an assertiveness course because they were doing overtime for two weeks and oddly enough shouted at someone on Day 10 eh.
If you do organise an event make it non competitive.
It's hard to be competitive at 4mph on a narrow boat 😉
Seriously, just a nice time to relax. And a pub stop. Take some food, get the group to prepare it when they aren't steering. Relax. If work don't pay, do it for yourself. The team will think even more of you and your concerns for them.
Excuse my cynicism, but the narrow boat thing is not something I would fancy. Will it be compulsory? If it's in working hours it's not fixing any problems, it's stealing time and making them worse. If it's outside hours, then f*** that, I've got my own busy leisure plans and if I wanted to sit on a boat I'd buy one-. And beer, really? You paying my hotel or 60 quid taxi home?
Stripeysocks is much closer to something that will help
This is why you need to talk to each member of the team to see what they think the problems are. You may have a team member like wbo who doesn't actually want to do anything as part of the team.
We can’t take time out of the business
If you cannot even wangle and Friday afternoon I think you will get poor response. Trying to get people to give up their free time for something that is work related, not really fair. Maybe different if you're in a big city and the team is primarily under 30-35.
Also I think it's commendable that you will stick your hand in your own pocket for this but I think it is unfair on you to be spending your taxed income on something that is for the benefit of the business. A round of drinks / ictrams / dountuts but anyother exercise like this quickly costs a fair amount of money and I for one would feel uneasy about this. Different if you're the company owner but for a employee. Not fair on you.
Problem with a lot of the above suggestions is that they don’t take into consideration people health or other physical issues. Wife used to be her office organiser/manger who had to do it due to Gov dept dictat. Trying to arrange an office of 22 to travel the 140ml round trip to attend really didn’t go well. Things like “pamper” days, many had skin conditions.Going for lunch meant dealing with all those with food allergies etc
I spent 40yrs on the tools in a factory and all the away days, trading days, SLT brainwash days were all a waste of time and money. Encouraged to share all the problems to then have the standard “we are listening” cliche trotted out saw the death of these events. The lack of money and reductions in staff over all those years didn’t help, just the same as the OP
As others have said, solving the issues and senior management truly wanting to do something is the real answer.
Happily retired👍
"You don't listen to me"
"I don't know what you want"
"You are never around when I need you"
"I'm not sure where we are going"
If your partner says that stuff to you would you suggest going ice climbing to sort it out, or doing some white water rafting, a canal boat trip or even expect it to be fixed by going to the pub? So why do you expect those suggestions to fix the same issues with people at work?
. If work don’t pay, do it for yourself. The team will think even more of you and your concerns for them.
Hmmm. I don't agree. I think they'll think of you as someone who can't interface properly with SMT and who lets themselves be treated as a bit of a doormat.
Stripeysocks absolutely nailed it here in theory:
“Work diligently on the most important thing for your allotted hours and then go home. Any questions about priorities, resourcing, etc, come to me and I will make a decision and find you something you *can* make progress with.
I am aware that we have additional needs and am pulling together a proposal for senior management, so any low hanging fruit you think I might not know about, pop over this week and talk me through it”.AND THEN DO IT and let any management griping stop with you…
But whether that actually works anywhere outside a few perfect employers is up for debate.
Implementation of a no-blame culture through an approach to actual tasks is the way forward for me.
I don't want to go to GoApe at the weekend, as I've been forced to do previously.
I do want to be able to sit down as a group to share, fix and learn from all the sticky things with the job. This would lower stress, give a sense of achievement and job satisfaction. Doing these things as a team is "team building".
Doing this is, as I like to call it....
"Management"
We had a coffee and cake zoom staff gathering during the working day but at a time that would be considered a break. I did not attend because I had plenty to do, internet is flaky and 60folk on zoom sounds hellish, also I was not in the best of fettles and reckoned I could take back a little of that time for a flyer.
Was later asked why I didn't show up for the voluntary event. Yeah, that right there, that's why not.
Ideas for team building at work
Lots of A4 photocopies of the mugshots of any managers who are of a higher level than is being invited on the day.
A few dartboards and darts, some cheap watermelons and some BB guns.
A barbecue.
A crate of beer and a free taxi home for everyone.
Not practical in the current climate, obviously, but might be worth waiting for.
Yeah forget team building/treat type stuff for now most people hate that sort of thing (not free donuts but having to spend time with work colleagues on your own time doing something you wouldn't choose to do...) and it's just papering over the cracks.
You need to find out the causes of the team being over-worked, stressed and disengaged and, as others have said, start dealing with them. Problem is unless the department has a high staff turnover rate or is impacting the bottom line then senior managers might not care enough to help solve some of the issues.
Also gratitude and recognition go a hell of a long way and there's not much else that gives as good a bang for the buck in terms of motivation. Sure it won't fix people having to work to impossible deadlines or being expected to get 50 hours of work done in a 40 hour week but realising that their efforts are noticed and appreciated helps (at least short term until you can start addressing the actual underlying issues...)
All team building must be in work time. This may come as a surprise to learn, but most discussions about the real issues at work are not in work time. Nor are they normally done in the presence of management. If you want honest discussions, change the scenery, don't sit in a room.