Training :: Team Building Module

Program Rationale

Training typically focuses on imparting new information and effecting changes in individual skills and attitudes.  Team building focuses on training that not only solves problems or makes improvements, but also helps to improve the overall organization.  The development of effective, permanent work teams is an ongoing, complex learning experience requiring continuous teaching, coaching, and experience.  In other words, the organization must allow teams to understand their role and establish mechanisms to monitor the teams functioning.  Training programs seeking to impart team building skills must attend to the attitudinal factors of team members and their organization which influence individual performance, skill development, growth and participation in the organization or they will likely be unsuccessful.

This course focuses on team members’ relationships to each other and the team; team members’ relationship to the organization; team members’ skill in quality, process and productivity improvement.  Although specific skills such as communication techniques and problem solving strategies are included in the curriculum, the course is primarily devoted to raising awareness levels of how team work, attitudes and behaviors that affect the teams’ performance, and work relationships.  This workshop provides participants an opportunity to increase basic skills, think in terms of team empowerment, and begin a process of the team managing itself.  This should become part of their daily routine -- to think about their actions and attitudes regarding their organizational responsibilities and to assess ways in which they can improve their effectiveness.

This course asks participants to:

• Examine their values and attitudes regarding their role as a team player involved in your business and the impact of these values and attitudes on their interactions with others;
• Identify their relationships to each other and the team to gain a better understanding of their relationships to the overall parking management philosophy of the department;
• Explore the importance of quality, process, and productivity improvement;
• Discuss strategies for effective communication, listening and feedback resolving problems and minimizing negative interactions with the team and the public;
• Determine essential team practices, assess their performance against these performance elements, and identify opportunities for performance improvement; and
• Make a personal commitment to strive to engage in a team approach to support the department’s parking management philosophy.

Deliverables

At the conclusion of this training program, employees, and the parking organization will receive the following tangibles:

1. An employee-generated definition of "the Team Approach" targeted at their job and reflective of the department’s philosophy.  This statement can then be used in several applications, including new employee orientation, job descriptions and performance standards, and as a tool for monitoring employee performance on a regular basis.
2. A compilation of employee perceptions--both "assets" and "liabilities"--regarding present and future strengths and weaknesses of the organizational characteristics which encourage the desired Team behaviors and those which appear to mitigate against those desired behaviors.  This information--and management’s response to it--can be used to reduce impediments to employee performance and build the trust essential to sound management/staff relationships.
3. An employee-defined business plan including goals and objectives.  This document can be incorporated into existing materials in new employee orientation, performance expectations for supervisory roles, as well as performance standards, to mention a few applications.
4. A list of tools for improved communications within the Team and the organization articulated by employees.  This information can be used by the authority to identify future training initiatives and related interventions designed to foster improved communication.
5. A more "focused" and capable workforce, and armed with a greater sense of purpose as a Team, and equipped with useful tools to better deal with each and members of the community.  If supported by sound supervisory and management practices, this training should result in enhanced morale, self-esteem, and empowerment for front-line employees in their daily duties.