What’s better: running a business without ever trying to nurture positive bonds between employees, or helping them cultivate strong relationships that facilitate better cooperation? When you pose the question that way, the answer is clear. Still, many business owners neglect team building despite it being one of the crucial aspects of leadership. With no effort or minimal effort put into team building, businesses eventually begin to experience consequences.
Naturally, no business owner wants this to happen. Fortunately for them, there are many different ways to address this issue. They include using social media and organizing team building activities and events. Here are four engaging ways to use social media for team building:
1. Encourage Employees to Communicate
Many people nowadays find it easier to communicate through social media. Despite being instantaneous, online communication still allows for time to think about your responses, check your facts or look up what something means. Employees who are shy in person might be very outspoken and open in the online environment.
When starting with the team building on social media, the first step is to encourage your employees to connect. Some social media networks make that more natural than others: for example, LinkedIn is fashioned for it. From there, your employees could connect on other social media too, and start learning more about each other. It is the most organic way to facilitate stronger relationships between employees, and it provides you with a good base for other activities.
2. Organize Events and Schedule Them on Social Media
Even if your team building efforts aren’t limited to the online environment, that doesn’t mean offline activities shouldn’t show up on social media. For every team building event you organize, create a corresponding event on Facebook. That will help spread the word about it faster, boost excitement around it and ensure the employees are as engaged with the event as possible. Let them shoot their pictures, tag themselves at the venue, and share that part of their experience with other employees.
3. Create a Supportive Structure for the Employees
If you want your employees to use the capabilities of social media for team building, you need to ensure that there are an open atmosphere, acceptance and support. They should be able to state their opinion freely, give feedback and act on it, and understand that any critique comes from good intentions. You can create this supportive structure with social media by encouraging employees to form a group where they can talk openly.
4. Give Employees a Way to Be Creative
Finally, you can ensure your employees are building strong relationships by using social media as a way to express their creativity. Organize an Instagram or Facebook takeover, have them showcase what they’re enjoying, let them express their personal and professional goals. Give them creative freedom, and those of them who enjoy having that kind of an outlet will do amazing things with it, creating a stronger sense of community in the workplace as a result.
Whatever you do as a leader, don’t leave team building to chance! If you wish to facilitate stronger relationships between your employees to help them collaborate better, organizing a team building event might be what you need.
Here at Bright Ideas Events, we can help you plan your event down to the smallest detail and organize it so that it goes smoothly. Put yourself in our capable hands, and you’ll be wondering how you used to live without us!
