Last Updated on March 20, 2024 by Nasir Hanif
While it has never been doubted that employee burnout and absenteeism negate the progress a company or business makes, the safety and sanity of your employees have a great deal to do with you, the management’s appreciation of the same. In this regard, you can introduce several practical as well as fun strategies in your office to reduce workplace stress.
Some disheartening statistics first- In Australia, 67% of staff departures have happened in the last 3 years with the issue cited as workplace burnout. Further, 63% of CEO”s say that they are concerned about lack of trust in business, a pertinent point. Finally, about $6.1 billion is the bill for “presentism”- a phenomenon where the worker shows up for work but does not work to optimal or full capacity.
In the light of the above, here are some great ways to use corporate team building activities to foster a bond in your team and inspire them to put in their best performance at work. Some of these workplace team-building exercises have been around for some time while other team bonding activities are relatively new and novel.
Here are some fun and practical group activities in Melbourne for your workplace team that can be achieved with an average amount of money, without straining your company’s budget.
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Reduce “Tough Love”:
As a business owner, you will have your own style of management, especially if it’s a small or family-owned business. In this case, your employees will be around 20-30 or more, depending on the business scale. Instead of giving them a straitjacketed experience where you are constantly showing tough love towards them will lead to stress, burnout and lower rates of turnover. If you care about your team in a humane manner, try and show empathy as a leader. Doing so will have your employees, and resultantly your customers in a better mood, and ready to transact.
Mindfulness Workshops:
Scientists have proven the veracity of mindfulness meditation, it can reduce anxiety and also change your brain in fundamental ways. There is a stress hormone called ACTH which gets lessened with meditation, and literally “adds to the brain”. If your budget permits, ask an established meditation practitioner for dates where he can bestow his knowledge of stress-busting meditation with your employees.
Healthy Snacks:
This is one of the commonest perks in an office, along with being a fundamental way of showing your employees appreciation. However, you risk a downswing in productivity as chips and candy snacks will lead to sugar crashes. SO instead of killing this idea, replace the snacks with healthier alternatives like fruits and nuts.
Chocolate Anyone?:
Science has shown that chocolate tends to make people happier by releasing stress combating hormones in the body. However, this is true for only dark chocolate. Treat your team to this, and ensure that everyone gets one chocolate bar, which is the optimum quantity of 1.4 ounces. It will definitely reduce anxiety and stress, while your team learns to relax in the midst of hard work.
Plank Breaks:
Although sounding counterintuitive, it is a truth that taking breaks would lead to higher productivity of employees, including a fast rate of work. You have to allow your employees the time to step away from their work and to focus on another activity for a few minutes so that they are reinvigorated and raring to go. For this, 5 minutes is enough. One way of making use of this is by challenging the members of your team to a 30-second long plank. Not only will it be fun, but by the end of the week, your team members will be fitter.
Organising Things:
When you assign a workstation to an employee, no matter the quality of the employee, the workplace gets filled with a lot of things, making it seem full of clutter, and where an organised mind will have trouble navigating through. While you should not have anything against personalisation, please set a day or hour aside for your worker to rearrange their stuff with what they have or with additions they have bought. If there are any artistic people in your workforce, this dopamine boosting challenge will get their creative juices flowing, making your office space hum with life.
Fitness Challenge:
We all know that a healthy diet, good exercise and enough amount of sleep will keep you in good health. Unfortunately, today this is a hard thing to achieve, given the trappings of the material world. In order to spur on your employees in a meaningful way, put them on a one-month fitness challenge where they can use free apps to calculate how much they exercised. The winner should get a prize of sorts as a mark of recognition and appreciation.
Pet Day:
Set aside a day in the month when employees can bring their pets to the office. Sure, it will largely be a non-productive day as your workers will be too excited. However, in the long run, this is a brilliant idea to boost long term productivity.
Half An Hour Of Jokes:
Before the office day starts, have the team gather and make themselves comfortable. Show them the funny videos and jokes that you spent all last night in finding. Chances are high that this will set the mood for the day, prompting the workers to put in their best because they are cheerful.
6 For 1 Rule:
This is a new thing. For every 6 positive things you attribute to a worker during feedback, hold one negative against them too. This is because negatives will tend to stand out much more than positives. Researchers have discovered that skillsets and expertise is not the correct indication of a team’s success, it happens to be the ratio of negative to positive comments that take place within the team. So go ahead with constructive feedback keeping this rule in mind.
Use these tips to deal with stress at work and you’ll see that within a matter of months, your team’s efficiency, and productivity will hit the ceiling, bringing in profits and enhanced business opportunities that only a highly motivated team can take on.
