A sense of team and camaraderie is one of the most important determinants of employee engagement. For the employee, good team spirit work creates that crucial sense of belonging which provides the emotional bond to the organization, which is a precursor to engagement. In turn, good team spirit creates an environment of cooperation and collaboration which improves productivity and output.
How to Improve Engagement Through Better Teamwork (and It's Not Through "Team Building" Exercises)
1. HOW TO IMPROVE
ENGAGEMENT THROUGH
BETTER TEAMWORK – HINT:
IT’S NOT BY “TEAM-BUILDING”
Monthly Webinar Series
October 29, 2015
2. 2
Topic Agenda
Item Time
(min)
Introduction/Why the Topic? 5
Teamwork and Employee Engagement 10
Teambuilding: Why so popular? 5
Building Engagement through Better
Collaboration
10
Q&A 5
Norm Baillie-David
SVP Engagement - TalentMap
Monica Helgoth
VP Engagement - Western Region
Agenda
3. 3
15 years in business
7,000+ employee engagement surveys
since inception
1,000,000+ employees surveyed
500+ employee engagement surveys
annually
Only 1 Focus
TalentMap by the Numbers
4. 4
Sample Clients & Benchmark
Award Programs Technology & Engineering Not-for-Profit & Association
Financial Services
Health Sciences
Other
6. TEAMWORK AND ENGAGEMENT - A SYMPTOM OF
SOMETHING BIGGER
6
COMPENSATION
WORK ENVIRONMENT
PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK
PROFESSIONAL GROWTH
WORK/LIFE BALANCE
INTERNAL INFORMATION &
COMMUNICATION
TEAMWORK
INNOVATION
CUSTOMER FOCUS
IMMEDIATE
MANAGEMENT
SENIOR LEADERSHIP
ORGANIZATIONAL VISION
Strong
Engagement
Driver
Weak
Engagement
Driver
Worse Than
Benchmark
Better Than
Benchmark
7. 14
6
10
25
13
23
19
15
29
27
64
75
75
46
60
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Overall Teamwork
People work like they are part of a team.
Cooperation with different parts of this
organization is encouraged.
People share information willingly.
There is a strong feeling of team spirit
and cooperation in this organization.
% Frequency
Unfavourable Neutral Favourable
-7
0
-3
-23
-1
TEAMWORK – EXAMPLE CLIENT 7
Data is rounded to the nearest whole number
+/- TM Benchmark
10. What are some of your “worst” teambuilding
experiences?
10
11. A temporary euphoria – people feel good immediately after.
An easy “solution” to a complex and difficult problem.
It’s quick: 1 or 2 days.
Hinges on theory that collaboration in the workplace is built
by knowing the person behind the worker.
WHY SO POPULAR AND PERVASIVE?
11
12. “Workers would much prefer being able to communicate with
each other better at work rather than being forced to build
rapport with their coworkers by sharing adrenaline
experiences or performing 'trust' exercises”
Engagement through Teamwork = COLLABORATION@ Work
THE REASON TEAM-BUILDING DOESN’T WORK
12
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9063890/Teambuildingdoesntimprovework.html
13. So, how do we improve engagement
through better teamwork, i.e.
collaboration?
15. THE EPITOMY OF COLLABORATION AND
CAMARADERIE
15
THE SECRET SAUCE:
SHARED ACHIEVEMENT THROUGH SHARED
CHALLENGES
16. Create cross-functional teams to work on organization-wide
issues (hints: employee engagement!).
• Charitable initiative also works well.
• Project can be long (several months), or short (a day or even half-
day).
“Draft” team members like any successful team – each
individual needs to make a distinct contribution.
Nominate the leader (the team may do this). Leaderless
team = rudderless boat.
Keep it challenging – but ensure success.
IMPROVE TEAMWORK THROUGH SHARED
ACHIEVEMENT
16
17. Build or maintain Commitment and Trust
• Each member must be committed to reaching the team’s goals
• Most importantly: ensure workload is shared equally.
Put an “I” into Team: Recognize and reward the
individuals on the team. Not just the team.
Build camaraderie with fun, but only after the work is done.
17
18. Event Format Topic Date
Top Employer Summit,
Toronto
Conference Canada’s Top 100 Employers with keynote
speaker Bill Clinton
November 16-17
TalentMap Monthly
Webinar Series
Live Webinar Engaging your Employees through a
Compelling Organizational Vision
November 26
OMHRA (Ontario
Municipal Human
Resources Association)
King City, ON
Conference The Future Of Workplace Harassment And
Mental Distress Claims and How To Deal
With Them
November 27
TalentMap Monthly
Webinar Series
Live Webinar No DECEMBER Webinar – Happy Holidays
TalentMap Monthly
Webinar Series
Live Webinar Turning Performance Feedback into
Positive Employee Engagement
January 28, 2016
TalentMap Monthly
Webinar Series
Live Webinar Work-life Balance and its Impact on
Culture: Confessions of a Reformed
Workaholic
February 25, 2016
UPCOMING TALENTMAP LEARNING SESSIONS
1. Team Leader: Choosing a leader (manager) to head the team is crucial for
success. The role of the leader is to keep the team on task, inspire, and facilitate a
great working environment. She may also choose team size, according to task.
There are great managers – visionaries who aren’t glory hogs – and great team
workers. Choosing leaders and team workers is critical for success.
2. Collaboration and Diversity of Skills: Every individual is her own world of ideas,
experience, and education. Teamwork, essentially, begins with the individual.
Each person on a team has been hired to better the team, with specific skills to
complement the strengths and weaknesses other members have. Collaboration is
key in teamwork. For collaboration to work, though, team members must be able
to communicate and share ideas and then, in turn, leave room for contributions
made by individual members in a respectful way.
3. Commitment and trust: “Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what
makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” (Vince
Lombardi). In order for a team to work together, each member must be dedicated
to reaching the team’s goals, sharing the workload. Working toward completing a
project, putting together a proposal, designing a new building … all of these entail
time and incredible energy. The team members have to trust their colleagues are
putting forth the same amount of time and energy and that their skills and
experience will better the final product. The manager, in turn, must learn to
delegate responsibilities, trusting his team will complete the responsibilities they
were hired to do.
4. Show Team Members Their Value: All too often team members don not feel like
their contributions count. As a manager, it is important on an individual level as
well as team level that all members feel important. A large component of
employee engagement is making sure each individual knows her contributions
make a difference.