There was nothing better than a company that works like a well-oiled machine. Day-to-day operations ran smoother, productivity was at optimum level and moral was generally higher. Today though, with the millennials in full swing in the workforce, a “well-oiled machine” can sometimes be impossible to achieve.

Here at Epicdev, we know that you can’t just stick everybody in the forest and tell them that they have to work together to find their way back to civilization. This type of “team building” activity certainly wouldn’t work in the Epicdev family’s’ favour. This sort of ditch annual effort is an old-school way of thinking and definitely not suited to a millennials way of life and way of understanding things. We prefer to take a different approach to our team building methods.

There are a few things that we don’t agree with regarding the old-school method of team building:

• Although we agree that working as a team is the best way to get the most out of the company, we don’t agree that forcing activity is the way to achieving that!
• Yes, we need a high performing team, but we also need high performing individuals. If the individual members of a team are not happy or don’t feel heard, then this does not make a strong team.
• Keeping management and production completely separate does not work in this day and age. Opinions and ideas need to be heard, by everyone (you never know what treasures may lie in the minds of your co-workers). A heard worker is a valuable and hard worker.

Although it sounds contradictory to what has been said already, a clear company structure is never a bad thing. Everybody has their strengths, and if management is aware of them, and utilizes these strengths, then everybody wins.

At Epicdev, our approach to team building activities is simple yet effective:

• We don’t do annual mandatory activities. It’s forced and gets us nowhere.
• We like to do it casually. Takeaway Friday is our best team building activity. Everybody is together, we are eating, and talking. Discussion is a lot easier when we are comfortable.
• Our only annual activity is the Christmas party. It’s great! Last year we had a braai and all played a few rounds of Counter Strike. (Some are better at gaming than others but it’s still fun, and NOT mandatory).
• Our morning team meetings are probably the most important and effective team building activity. Everybody gets a chance to speak, and everybody gets the support they need from the other members.
• We keep the company structure, but no team member is ever limited. If you want to learn about something else in the company, there is no problem with that.

At the end of the day, our methods are not the answers to every company, but they sure do work well for us. Our day-to-day operations run smoothly, our productivity is optimal and moral is ALWAYS high. This works for us, what works for you?