Here a some teambuilding ideas for you and your employess to help your small business. Teambuilding can be an important way of developing your businesses most valuable assets, its employees. Especially when hiring new employees or starting a new business, building a relationship within your team is of prime importance.
There are many companies that offer teambuilding courses, both residential and in house. Teambuilding courses can be expensive, so let us explore the options so that you are sure to choose the right teambuilding exercise or teambuilding course for your staff and company.
In-house teambuilding, done on the site of your company, is the cheapest option as you have no accommodation fees to pay. If you need to keep the cost really low there are many teambuilding guides available on the internet that will allow your human resources department to create their own teambuilding course suited to your companies needs - all without employing an external teambuilding consultant.
Having a teambuilding consultant visit your company for a day or a week (the length of course is something we will discuss in a later article) can be cost effective however if you have no spare resource in your HR or personnel department. This can also be more convenient for employees who may not prefer to stay overnight away from home.
Teambuilding exercises usually begin with an icebreaker, which is a term used to describe a 'getting to know each other' session. Each person will usually be asked to stand up and describe themselves in some detail. This is often surprising even when you have worked with a person for many years as there may be many things that you did not know about them.
Other exercises throughout your teambuilding course will focus on interaction between members of the team. Common exercises include building bridges or crossing rivers. Tasks undertaken on teambuilding courses should be ones that would be impossible to complete as an individual, but easily manageable as a team working together.
Often members of a team will be struck by how simple exercises draw on the different strengths of team members. One person in the team may be a natural leader, another has good analytical or engineering skills, and another may have great communication or personal skills. All different skills come into play and will be brought out of your team members as they work through the exercises.
Many times after teambuilding sessions members find they have new found skills to apply to work situations, and are ready for new challenges, which is great for business! When that happens it is a win-win situation for everyone on your team.
Gift Ideas For Employees
Most of us know one: an audio addicted iPod owner. When thinking about gifts, the obvious choice for these people is something that will further enhance their listening pleasure. But where to start? There is such an abundance of accessories and products that broaden the iPod experience that it's hard to summarize the many gift options but a highlight of some of the more common products should be a useful guide.
Under $30
In the stocking stuffer category, lanyards and clips come in as possibilities to help attach an iPod to the body and keep it there. Cases, socks, skins, and jackets are also in this group and act to protect the iPod from dust, scratches, and other environmental hazards. They come in a wide variety of styles from see-through to fine Italian leather cases. Of course the higher quality leather cases can run up to $99. Car holders, adapters, chargers and even battery backups also fall in the under $30 category. Another popular option in this category is the iPod Sport Kit for the runners and walkers in ones family or circle of friends which enables an iPod to provide feedback during a workout and the ability to track performance over time: an excellent choice for those with fitness or weight loss goals.
From $30 to $50
If you move up in price to the $30 to $50 range there are remotes that allow users to operate the iPod when it is not attached to their body and even an Apple iPod Radio Remote which also enables the user to listen to FM radio via their iPod. Camera connectors are also available allowing the user to transfer images from their digital camera to an iPod with color display.
$50 and Up
Popular options that are over $50 include a variety of products that provide stereo speaker systems which an iPod can connect to allowing listening at home without the earphones. Several of these products offer excellent sound quality and are said to be reasonable replacements for home stereo systems. At the lower end of the spectrum is the iLuv which comes in around $89, the iHome clock radio which is priced around $99, the Banshee iPod surround sound speaker system and the Altec Lansing inMotion which are just over $100. Moving up in price there is also the iPod Hi-Fi which offers a compact multi-speaker set up that is quite portable and is priced around $349. The iPod HomeDock Entertainment Center is also available and allows the user to connect their iPod to a home stereo or TV to listen to music or watch video/slide shows on these devices.
Enjoying the music on an iPod in the car is also made easier with a number of car receiver products which have iPod adapters. Pioneer is one of the companies providing receivers with this feature.
Flexible Giving
Although not an "accessory" another great gift for an iPod owner would be the purchase of movies, games, or music for use on the device. There are many sites online offering such things but obviously the Apple iPod and iTunes site would be most notable; by purchasing a gift card the giver can select the price and the receiving party can select the music of their choice.
With such an enormous array of products on the market, it should be possible to find the perfect gift for any iPod owner after checking to be sure that the accessory selected is compatible with the specific iPod model in question.
Both Jeff Schuman & Christine Peppler are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Jeff Schuman has sinced written about articles on various topics from Home Internet Business, Network Marketing and SEO Articles. Jeff Schuman invites you to visit his >small business website for everything you need to start and run your own small business.. Jeff Schuman's top article generates over 49500 views. to your Favourites.
Christine Peppler has sinced written about articles on various topics from Digital Camera, Entertainment Guide and Computers and The Internet. Christine Peppler is the webmaster of homemedias.info, a website where they can get more information on selecting a. Christine Peppler's top article generates over 246000 views. to your Favourites.
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