Team building in Finance is essential to help keep team performance of your agency at its peak, in both the short and long term. We all know the often bandied about term ‘There’s no ‘I’ in team’ and nowhere is this more important than in a finance setting. Team building in Finance is a group effort but the Finance leader has to lead the way.
Finance Team Motivation
Before you begin the task of improving your outreach team building in a financial setting, take a moment to look around you, view your team and see where any potential problems might lie. If you’ve noticed any of the following, you need to act as soon as possible:
- Higher levels of absenteeism
- Low productivity
- No creative thinking
- Gossip is rife
- Lack of commitment
- Missed deadlines
Finance Team Building Tips
Put team values at the heart of your workplace. Have a brainstorming session and talk to everyone about what is important to them in terms of work. Find common core values and work together on those. Make sure everyone is working from the same page and towards a common goal. Work together to do this and constantly evaluate and appraise the situation. Create a trusting environment.
If you’re a manager you’re the one responsible for setting the tone of the team. As the leader, you play a crucial role in setting the tone on your finance team. Try to discourage negativity wherever possible and if there are negative points, pull your team together to work out how they can be dealt with as a group.
Encourage communication
Your team need to know they’re being listen to and heard. Have real time conversations with people, regular appraisal meetings and hear them when they speak to you. Encourage conversations away from distractions such as computers and mobile phones.
Set out and define office roles
Employees need to know their roles and what is expected of them. They also need to know the roles of their peers too. This will encourage a collaborative environment and meant hat employees ‘own’ each piece of their workplace jigsaw.
Teambuild away from the office
Hold social and team building events in spaces other than the workplace. Different dynamics can encourage relationships to strengthen and allow for people who work together to see each other out of a regular 9-5 setting which can sometimes create tensions.
British Car Finance Company Unite for Team Building Charity Fundraiser
A perfect example of a great way to team build comes with this story from Northampton, England, where a team of fifty employees from a car finance company based there are coming together to team build and raise money for charity at the same time.
Staff at Billing Finance are about to fly to Iceland to take part in the Iceland Midnight Sun Run to raise funds for three charities based in their locale.
The trip forms part of the companies thirty five year anniversary celebrations. The team flying out are headed up by the founder of the business, James Mackaness.
Now aged seventy three, Mr Mackaness won’t be running but will be there to support his workers as they take on the 5km, 10km or half marathons.
One team member flying out will be leaving the country for the first time and has just applied for her first ever passport. Janice O’Dell, a credit controller with the business said: “I’ve brought up a family and spent my whole life looking after other people and pets. I’ve never been further than Glasgow so thought it was about time I did something for myself.”
Managing director of the company, Oliver Mackaness commented that: “Team building, well being and personal development, as well as helping local charities, is very important to us. Two years ago, a group of 36 went to the Geneva running festival, and I’m delighted we will have even more runners who this time are raising money for Cynthia Spencer Hospice, The Hope Centre and Children Are Butterflies. I am really proud of the staff at Billing for taking on these challenges, and grateful to our wonderful trainer and mentor Ali Cooper, who will be coming with us.” Oliver added: “Taking part in these events isn’t compulsory but getting fit and taking on the challenge of a charity run can be life changing.”