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By Erica Lamberg – Ladders

Try these onsite team building ideas, suggested by experts, with a goal to boost work connections and employee performance and morale.

Work connections can waver between being courteous and competent to resentful and unproductive. This spectrum can have a real effect on a company’s success.

Employee-bonding experiences don’t have to be competitive, they can be inspiring.

Try these onsite team building ideas, suggested by experts, with a goal to boost work connections and employee performance and morale.

Promote “small talk” between employees

Organizing meetings where employees can casually converse may open the lines of communication more effectively. Rob Fauver, CEO of Hoverstate, a healthcare IT company in Los Angeles says employees can be placed in pairs and given a set of questions that they have to ask each other.

“After pairs have completed their interviews, have them read the answers to the rest of the team,” he says. “Hold this meeting each week or every other week until everyone in the office or department has had an opportunity to work with everyone.”

Fauver recommends changing the interview questions at each meeting so team members are provided new answers each time. “This will give employees quality one-on-one time with each other and provide an opportunity for team members to learn more about each other,” he adds.

Honor an “Employee of the Month”

Rather than having management nominate an employee of the month, have employees nominate each other. Fauver says to employ a set of questions to accompany the nomination so that employees have to draft up sincere answers as to why they think their co-workers are qualified to be nominated.

“When an employee is nominated, share some of the best responses as to why employees thought that person was deserving of the employee of the month award,” he continues.

This is a good opportunity for employees to hear the positive sentiments that their co-workers feel towards them. “It is also an opportunity to recognize employees for a job well done,” says Fauver.

Encourage friendly competition

There’s no denying that competition is a great team-building experience. One way, says Fauver, is to make competitions fun and work-related and create teams among members of the office and have each individual on the team set three weekly goals.

“At the end of the week, the team who completed the most total goals wins,” he explains. “Each win is associated with a prize.”

This will create positive competition in the office, help employees create weekly goals and help the individual teams access team-building opportunities, says Fauver. Another tip, consider switching up the teams every once in a while to help members of the office get to know new people.

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