Building a Team Environment

Child care will always have its challenges, but you will have a much better chance of overcoming those challenges and achieving your loftiest goals if you make it a team effort. A collaborative team environment is essential for the team’s success. While it is impossible to create the perfect environment, it is possible to create a team that is willing and able to tackle the challenges that arise. This is done by instilling a sense of team spirit and shared responsibility.

Individual team members need to:

• Feel safe and secure.
• Know that their skills, ideas, and experiences are important and recognized.
• Understand their job expectations.
• Feel motivated to achieve personal and team-based goals.
• Feel empowered to solve problems and bring new ideas to the table.
• Have a feeling of belonging and a special position on the team.
• Give and get feedback on their job performance.
• Laugh and have fun.
• Be trusted to do their jobs.
• Hold themselves accountable.

All team members need to:

• Get to know each other.
• Work together as well as play together.
• Learn to trust each other.
• Complete and take credit for projects together.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management recommends the following practices to create a collaborative team environment:

• Have a common purpose and goal: A team is defined as a group of people working together toward a common goal, so without a goal, there is no team.
• Trust each other: Team members must trust each other if they are to work together successfully.
• Clarify roles: Knowing everyone’s role and being familiar with the responsibility of those roles create efficiency and flexibility.
• Communicate openly and effectively: Miscommunication can create hard feelings and undermine the success of the team.
• Appreciate diversity: Team members come from all walks of life with different backgrounds and perspectives.
• Balance the team’s focus: Sometimes team members get so involved in the process of becoming a team they forget the reason they were made the team in the first place or vice versa.

For the main article Employee Relations, CLICK HERE

For the article Encouraging Effective Communication, CLICK HERE

For the article Managing Conflict, CLICK HERE

For the article Boosting Motivation, CLICK HERE