Promoting health and wellbeing through team events

“Just being outside makes a massive difference…” were the words said to me recently by one of the business leaders on our current Remarkable Leadership Programme. She didn’t need to convince me – I already believe the outdoors is the best classroom. It provides a wealth of wisdom and alternative perspectives!

As part of this incredible Programme, I am lucky enough to walk regularly with groups of leaders in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park and it never fails to strike me how valuable time out of the office in a natural environment is, not only for personal and team development but also for general wellbeing.

Yesterday was World Health Day, a day that encourages people and organisations to focus awareness and take positive actions towards promoting health. Whilst team away days may not appear to be directly linked to World Health Day, they are a brilliant opportunity to promote health and well-being within a team as well as providing a myriad of other amazing team benefits.

Healthy people and a healthy team are interconnected on so many levels. It’s a continuous cycle – healthy people are more energised, motivated and engaged and will promote a healthy work environment and a healthy work environment promotes higher levels of wellbeing in the team. So what does a healthy team look like and how do team away days support this?

A healthy team is one that knows each other. Knows the different strengths and challenges in the team, knows how to support each other, when to challenge each other and knows how to communicate effectively across different styles. A Pro-Development facilitator will create a bespoke, memorable and fun day to support your team to connect with each other, develop understanding, empathy and communication skills in ways they are unable to in the everyday office environment.

Here are just some of the outcomes you can expect to achieve:

• Enhanced communication and conflict resolution skills – helps prevent prolonged stress and negative emotions as team members are more able to navigate relationships with each other instead of holding on to internal conflict
• Improved collaboration – teams share workload, ideas and accountability leading to less individual pressure
• Increased trust – the foundation of all teamwork. High levels of trust provides a sense of psychological safety contributing to employee satisfaction, wellbeing and productivity
• Encourages creativity, an absolute cornerstone of problem solving leading to more solution focussed teams that are less likely to get stuck in problems
• Energised and motivated – camaraderie and social connection are built through fun team activities. Social connection is a key factor in increasing wellbeing and team connection
• A supportive and inclusive environment – teams that know each other look out for each other. It’s as simple as that!
• Recognition and appreciation – knowing each other’s strengths and challenges across the organisation leads to an increased sense of feeling valued and appreciated. We know from our work in Employee Engagement that this is one of the top factors essential for engaged and motivated teams

So, I encourage you to reflect on what you can do to support your team’s growth and wellbeing and consider speaking to us about your current challenges and how we can support you in creating a healthy, collaborative and motivated team. You can read more about how we support you by clicking here.

All you need to think about before you call us, is what would you like to achieve together as a team.  What outcomes do you want.  Then together, we can build exactly what you need to support that.  We look forward to discussing this with you.