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Team spirit: definition, drivers and main challenges

Employee engagement
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Staying competitive while creating a healthy and stimulating work environment is a major challenge!

Team spirit is a concept that can be defined as the bond that unites the employees of the same department or work group. It is a largely underestimated factor in the performance of a company.

Not only does it increase employee motivation, but it also contributes to group dynamics and to the overall performance of the organization.

Discover the stakes of having a good team spirit and the best practices to know and apply!

Why is it important to have a good team spirit?

A united and committed team is essential in order to work together and achieve the common set objectives. According to a LinkedIn study, 97% of employees and managers believe that a lack of cohesion within a team affects the results of a task or project.

Creating team spirit requires group synergy and the involvement of everyone in a common project. In other words, it is a real strategic stake for the company's performance. 💪

Strong team spirit is beneficial for creativity and innovation

Strong team spirit is beneficial for creativity and innovation because it encourages employees to share ideas and make them grow. Employees are implicated, and your customers will notice it. Feeling good in your team contributes to the feeling of belonging to the company. 

As a result: employees stay longer and don't want to go see if the grass is greener elsewhere!

definition of team spirit

How to create a good team spirit in your company?

1. Choose an adaptive management style

Having a good team means having a good manager! The manager's role is to mobilize and bring together the members of his team towards a common goal.

To achieve this, he/she uses various methods to ensure that everyone takes their place in the company and remains implicated and motivated.

Managers federate and seek to give meaning to individual and collaborative work. 🚀

2. Create strong ties between team members

Team spirit is based on communication and bonding

It is all the formal and informal interactions that help facilitate relationships and build unity. The idea is to create a strong and powerful team spirit with team building initiatives.

In teams that share good relations, and where respect, openness and listening prevail, team members have almost all the tools to succeed.

Discover examples of actions to implement to improve team spirit in a tangible way.

3. Use efficient collaborative digital tools

In the digital age, it is obvious that collaborative digital tools have a notable influence on group cohesion.

Both in the office and in remote offices, they facilitate communication, make information sharing more fluid and generate interactions between employees. In general, they contribute to good time management.

Messaging systems like Slack or Microsoft Teams bring spontaneity to remote exchanges thanks to simultaneous conversations.

Other collaborative tools, such as Miro, allow you to distribute information visually and interactively via drawings, sticky notes, images or even videos.

To find the best tools for your team, consider asking your employees for their input!

team spirit definition and how to

The 3 main factors of a good team spirit

1. A collective mission

A team works together to accomplish a common goal. This is its reason for being.

More generally, the team is part of the whole and carries its vision and values towards a common direction.

In times of difficulty, it is this strong, shared collective sense that will help overcome challenges and obstacles.

2. Feedback

Team spirit goes hand in hand with clear and seamless communication.

Be it individually or collectively, giving feedback is a way to foster collective intelligence and group work. 

The aim is to draw attention to areas of difficulty before they become problematic, but also to celebrate small and big successes.

When properly carried out, giving feedback increases employees' confidence in their peers and their manager.

3. Implication and empowerment

In order to bring a team together around common ambitions, it is not enough for the manager to position himself as a leader. He also needs to take on the role of guide, and use participative management and co-construction to create group synergy. This is what stimulates employee engagement

Empowering teams and taking into account everyone's opinions and contributions are undeniable factors for improving team spirit (even remotely).

How do you assess team spirit?

It is possible to measure team spirit through internal questionnaires and surveys. The goal is to determine what is working, what is not working, and what could be improved in the team's relationship and working methods.

In addition, the assessment serves as a reference base for tracking the team's progress over time and implementing actions for improvement.

Another possible option is to talk to each employee individually to gather their impressions about the relationship with their co-workers.

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