happy employees
IN PHOTO:Enhancing teamwork in the office will benefit you in the long term as your staff become more productive and improve the way they communicate with colleagues. Employees jump to celebrate during the opening of a new Apple Store in Chongqing municipality in China on Saturday. Reuters/ File

Enhancing teamwork in the office will benefit you in the long term as your staff become more productive and improve the way they communicate with colleagues. Several successful companies have built their reputation for having helpful and reliable employees. You can achieve the same results by focusing on teamwork more. Here are five unique activities that will help improve teamwork in your workplace.

1. After-office leisure time. Chron.com suggests that you treat your staff to coffee after the day is done or invite them to a dinner at your place. Spending time together outside of the office will help improve relationships and communication among your staff. Taking them to an environment away from the office will help them relax more and encourage them to talk to colleagues about issues in and out of work.

2. Start an incentive program. Initiate a rewards program that is focused on teamwork. Provide incentives and rewards to the best-performing teams by assigning tasks and projects. This will encourage them to rely on one another instead of focusing on one person only.

3. Open forum. Mindtools recommends that you create a listening activity where your employees can voice out their concerns about work and colleagues. Encourage your staff to communicate the benefits and drawbacks and how they feel about the workplace and tell others to just listen. Listening will help improve communication as well as keep others aware about work circumstances.

4. Know their class and talents. According to Forbes, giant companies like Enron and BP have managers that master the talents and skills of their people. The knowledge they have over their employees allow them to assign the right tasks according to the specific skill set and interests of their staff, which boost teamwork and productivity as a result.

5. Divide into smaller groups. TIME reported that Microsoft, which commands thousands of employees, divide their people into smaller groups so that managers can better focus on the traits and skills of each member and encourage teamwork. Encouraging teamwork can be challenging for big groups so you need to divide them accordingly and spread the talents among groups.

These simple strategies will boost office teamwork and improve overall output.