Workers who feel valued and respected by their superiors and colleagues are more inclined to extend those values to their other interactions inside the company. This is especially important for those whose jobs include regular interaction with customers, such as waitstaff at establishments.
There is, however, a more personal motive for building rapport with your team members: it makes your office a nicer place to be. Additionally, managers often report a rise in their own job satisfaction after making efforts to forge stronger bonds with their team.
What Does Building Team Rapport Mean?
Rapport-building for managers entails establishing trusting relationships with and gaining the respect of one’s team members. It also refers to situations where leaders have shown themselves to be genuinely supportive and helpful to staff members.
Rapport is established when managers gain employees’ trust and respect while also fostering mutual understanding and a sense of belonging. Taking the effort to get to know your teammates is time well spent if you want to have a productive working relationship with them.
The importance of rapport in the workplace is made clear. It’s the basis of productive partnerships that boost productivity and morale in the workplace. Several benefits can come from this, such as:
- Enhanced cooperation and engagement
- Increased job satisfaction
- Reduced employee turnover
- Increased productivity
Building Rapport With Team Members
You can’t force rapport on someone because it requires mutual interest and effort on both sides. Nonetheless, by applying these suggestions, you’ll learn how to stimulate it.
1. Have Team Building Activities
Quick team-building activities are a great tool for fostering camaraderie in a group setting. These activities not only let everyone on the team understand how their efforts contribute, but they’re also a lot of fun.
Remote team-building activities, for example, are a creative and easy way to build mutual trust among members of a group.
These activities can help your team members learn about developing skills such as communication, problem-solving, collaboration, time management, and other skills that they’ll need to participate in the team.
So, what are you waiting for? Make it your goal to connect with your team in a fun way.
2. Listen Actively
Do you ever find yourself in the middle of a conversation only to be cut off? Or, perhaps one person in a conversation keeps interrupting another. It’s not a fun time at all. It can be off-putting to someone you’ve just met for the first time if they do anything like this.
Get in the habit of actively listening. Pay close attention and show that you respect them by actively listening. Effective participation in the conversation requires attentive listening skills.
3. Show Your Human Side
Many people share a common need to be acknowledged and respected. But it’s easy for some people to forget this at work. It’s possible that in the pursuit of success, both employees and supervisors will forget that they are part of a team with shared goals.
Managers should be friendly and approachable. Some employees may assume a ‘us versus them’ mentality and believe management is out to get them. This may make people uncomfortable and hinder teamwork.
A more relaxed atmosphere can be created by open communication amongst employees of all ranks, from rookies to executives. You may feel more at ease and ready to connect with people on a more personal level.
4. Encourage Knowledge Sharing
Groups that take the time to teach and be taught together grow. There’s a strong chance that everyone on your team is constantly expanding their knowledge.
Hold regular ‘knowledge sharing’ meetings where team members take turns educating others about something that matters to them, such as a personal passion, a new ability, or something they learned at a seminar or other professional development opportunity. These programs help employees bond as individuals, not simply coworkers.
5. Provide Feedback
The majority of companies have formal yearly review processes in which both employees and managers take part; nevertheless, providing feedback on performance should occur more frequently.
Maintaining that rapport and making it easier to start challenging talks amongst the pleasant ones is made possible through ongoing feedback provided between management and their workforce.
Keep in mind that giving feedback isn’t always about pointing out how an employee might improve. Certainly, it’s necessary to maintain a pleasant tone if discussing an employee’s performance on the job, but it’s just as crucial to highlight and reward good work habits and skill growth.
Keeping an employee’s trust and preventing the conversation from ending on a sour note can be accomplished by beginning with something the employee is doing well, providing constructive feedback on the problem area, and then wrapping up with something positive.
Conclusion
Using these methods won’t only help coworkers get along better with one another. It’ll also improve the likelihood that everyone on your team will enjoy themselves and will be invested in their work. This is beneficial for everyone involved, from individual employees to the organization as a whole.
