Posts for tag: Team Work

Gold Medallist TV Presenter Also Hosts Conferences

In this blog we’d like to introduce you to our good friend, Gold Medallist and Paralympic TV presenter Giles Long.

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Feedback for the Facebook Generation

Team performance depends on a number of factors but ultimately people do their best work when they are getting regular feedback

Facebook Story from Rypple on Vimeo.

Ideally a weekly one to one with a line manager should ensure that goals are being met. The challenge in this is organising the conversation so that the right issues are discussed and that recent successes are acknowledged.

As you’d expect from the leaders in social networking, Facebook have found an online solution, see how they do it, click play on the video above.

It’s national Play Day on 3rd August and yes this affects your workplace!

Wednesday 3rd August is National Play Day, inspired in part by the fact that over 80% of adults feel that children should be encouraged to play more outdoors because it builds community spirit. Yet we live in a society where just 20% of children play outside their homes, whereas 30 years ago that figure was 70%.

Play isn’t just diminishing in the lives of children. As workplaces become busier and leaner there is less time for informal conversations and light hearted activity. This drive for efficiency might not be quite as good for business as you’d think. Comedian, psychologist and successful businessman in his own right John Cleese said “If you want your people to be more creative, give them more time to play.”…

Five Practices That Help Motivate Individuals and Teams

Have you ever thought that some of the same best practices that support individual employee motivation and performance could also apply to teams?

Here are 5 management practices we normally associate with driving individual performance and motivation that I think should be applied to teams:…

What can we learn from sports teams?

Regardless of the team’s level – youth, high school, college, or the pros – players need to be consistently motivated to be successful, even winning teams.

Teams that are not motivated are flat and, unless they can totally overpower their opponent, unlikely to succeed. Motivation is giving players a reason to perform to the best of their ability to achieve team goals. This responsibility falls on the coach and the players. It takes a team effort to be mentally and physically prepared to play and to maintain a level of interest that puts your team in a position to win.

Try these four ways to motivate your players:…

Teams that play together work together

What would you put at the top of a list of characteristics that make a good team? Perhaps; trust, flexibility, empathy, communication, shared responsibility or effectiveness?

Trust and communication are very important in team work

What becomes clear if you look at these characteristics is that most of them are not the hard skills of industry or management expertise: most are attitudes rather than skills. Successful team players are defined by the way they relate to their colleagues, and the way in which they interact across a broad range of skills bases. In fact 80% of what makes a good team member is determined by these positive attitudes, and only 20% by the specific job skills they possess.

So why does industry spend around 80% of its training budget on developing often short-lived skills which need updating on a regular basis? …

Does strike action undermine employers trust in staff?

As the industrial dispute spreads over the use of foreign labour at the Lindsey Oil Refinery we should reflect on how this action might affect our own workforce.

The absence of strikes in recent years has given employers an opportunity to regain their employees trust.  Most employees don’t believe their employer is simply out to exploit them with no regard for them as a person.  Initiatives such as employee engagement surveys, team building days and employee incentives have all helped to strengthen the relationship between the worker and the company.

Action like wildcat strikes can begin to erode the Psychological Contract that is so important.  Especially in an era when many roles rely largely on the individual to choose to serve the businesses best interests, without close supervision.  And of course it can work both ways, the millitant soundbites from striking workers do little to support the diligent work ethic that most of us take to the office every day.

Let’s not forget that just because one employer is in a dispute with its workforce, its not to say that all staff are work shy and all employers are exploitative.