Incentives for Teamwork

Looking for some suggestions of incentives that will help build teamwork? Here are a few that you can customize to fit with your business needs.

Team building is taking a group of people and showing them the benefits of cooperating. Many minds are better than one acting alone. This philosophy is the cornerstone for business performance and goal attainment.

So how do you heard a bunch of personalities together and get them to cooperate? Find an incentive. Incentives can be elaborate or simple. Whatever you choose, be sure it represents how important you feel teamwork is to business success. Some examples of incentives would be:

• taking the team out for lunch or bringing in catering at the completion of the task
• naming a process or invention after the group of people involved in it's development
• giving the group a gift they'd all benefit from (e.g. cappuccino machine)
• financial bonus divided by the number of people involved (not individual bonuses)
• recognize excellence in teamwork at an awards ceremony
• measure results of team innovation or problem solving by it's effect on the bottomline. Offer a financial bonus to the team that saves the company the most money or increases revenue by the greatest amount
• create a think tank - a room designed for brainstorming and idea generation where employees can work without interruption to solve a business problem.
• give team members time off in lieu (each member gets a Friday afternoon off with pay).

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