The motivational impact of sports and social clubs
We all know how important it is to work out the right balance of physical and mental health. Every dis-balance affects our work directly, and sometimes the work of the entire team.
We will address the following two pointers in this article:
- Sports and social activities help employees to increase their motivation and be more dedicated to their work;
- Teambuilding activities help employers and their employees to build a strong bond in their relationships and to achieve a greater level of understanding in- and outside the workplace.
Work-life balance
A big advantage of extra-curricular activities is the opportunity for employees to take part in events, courses and similar initiatives, which they have probably thought about organizing themselves, but haven’t had the time to do so.
Ben Wilmot, Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development shares that:
„One of the biggest challenges that most employees face, especially if they work long hours, is achieving the balance between work and personal life. They often don’t seem to use their free time for something more than eating and sleeping. When practicing different sports and participating in events, people find time to be active even during their lunch break – together with some of their colleagues, with whom they have things in common outside the workplace.”
Join in and motivate yourself!
People who don’t feel confident or are skeptical of social activities’ positive effect, can look at things from another perspective – those activities make the interteam bonds stronger and more stable.
A good example are the clubs which are frequently organized in some companies. Most of them are employee-initiated – e.g. Finance club, IT club, etc. Companies like Google give a good example with their HR practices and even share those in the public space, so that they can help companies all around the world improve staff motivation. Thanks to those meetings, an opportunity is given to every employee to socialise in a broader sense with his or her colleagues. The stress levels are a great deal lower after the participation in extracurricular activities, and employees assess their own performance more positively. In practice, employees self-motivate and self-engage themselves in the company’s corporate culture with the help of sports activities and social clubs.
The feeling of concern
Employers need to feel accountable about the company’s social culture development. What it is meant by accountability, is entirely in the hands of the managers. They have to be ready to meet their employees’ needs and demands, and to seek ways to maintain their motivation.
One of many researches on the topic shows that 53% of the HR specialists manage to increase their teams’ productivity, by allowing them to work out on their lunch breaks or provide them with excellent sporting opportunities outside working hours.
Choose the most suitable instrument for motivating your staff and implement it in your company! You will not regret it, and this will affect positively not only the overall team performance, but also the performance of every single employee, who managed to achieve the sought balance and to derive satisfaction from his own tasks.
