How Team Building Can Accelerate Employee Engagement in Senior Care

One major trend the senior living and long-term care (LTC) profession will certainly see in 2017 is a greater emphasis on teams. More and more, organizations are structuring their staff to be team centered, and that means providers should focus on team building activities to solidify bonds among employees and quickly boost engagement in the process.

The perks of a team focus are numerous. For one, all members are working toward a common goal—the overall success of the organization. Despite individual job functions or working within a specific department, being part of a team denotes unity toward a bigger picture which is a hallmark of engaged employees. Plus, team morale in the senior care space is critically important in general, as it fights back against worker isolation and facilitates consistent, high-quality care for residents. And team building activities help employees feel valued—93% who reported feeling valued said they’re then motivated to do their best work, according to research from the American Psychological Association.

Solidifying this sense of togetherness requires some work, though, and senior living and long-term care operators must be committed to forging bonds among employees and breaking down barriers so that everyone feels comfortable with one another.

Consider these team building activities you can deploy today to energize your employees and take your business to the next level. Some are less serious, and others are directly work related, but all have the same goal in mind—creating a tight-knit group that works together and is engaged in providing excellent care for residents.

• Take an employee to work days: If you want all employees to operate as one cohesive unit, then it’s important that individuals are well versed on all aspects of your company’s operations. Schedule employees to visit other departments for a “take an employee to work day” for cross-department cooperation and connections.
• Use ice breakers at meetings: This might sound elementary, but ice breakers are particularly useful for employees getting to know each other. Little nuggets of information are a great way for workers to establish relationships and discover new things about their colleagues. For example, ask employees to share one thing about themselves that no one else knows or about a hobby or place they’ve visited.
• Provide group mentoring: One-on-one mentoring is obviously important for employee engagement, but group mentoring also serves a specific purpose for team building. It gives workers the opportunity to learn new skills and approaches to their jobs while enhancing their relationships with coworkers.
• Schedule lunch-and-learns: Invite an outside expert or internal employee with particular knowledge on a topic of interest for the company to share that information and their experiences with a group of employees. Have lunch catered in or urge workers to bring their own lunches to participate in this interactive activity.
• Promote participation in sports teams or challenges for charities: One surefire way to develop bonds among a group of workers is to encourage them to join sports leagues together, sponsored by the company, like softball, golf or soccer. Or, organizations can fund employee registrations for running and walking fundraising events, especially those that directly impact local charities or the senior care space such as the annual Alzheimer’s or heart walks. In either case, coworkers come together outside of work and share a common cause, which can then translate to their performance on the job.
• Encourage group volunteer events: Volunteering as a team is an excellent means of bringing your workers together. There’s a certain camaraderie that goes along with volunteering, and that is enhanced when you’re volunteering among those who work alongside you day in and day out.
• Plan an employee recognition event: When employees are publicly recognized for their hard work, they will feel like a valued part of the team. Formalize a recognition and reward program that can measure and track performance in a way that employees believe to be fair and impartial and then take it a step further by inviting employees to celebrate the success of their teammates. Receiving a reward helps reinforce and inspire the entire team to work together and perform their best. 

These are only a handful of examples, but there are plenty more out there. While planned activities will increase engagement and teamwork, it’s important to foster team building on a daily basis. The ability to quickly and openly communicate with managers and other employees is the cement that keeps teams together.

Team building amplifies the efforts you are making to engage your employees and it simply begs that you use your imagination to cultivate relationships in the workplace. It doesn’t have to cost much either, and it makes your company a much more desirable place to work.