The Benefits of Team Building | Scentrifugal Events
September 27, 2022
As companies get back to IRL work, now more than ever it is important to reconnect with employees and get your staff on the same page. Helping employees perform at their best is often challenging; different people often require different approaches. Nonetheless, getting a workforce to function at peak level can result in some major benefits for your company: A psychologically healthy staff is often a productive staff. And one of the most effective ways to achieve that is through team-building exercises.
Choosing a team-building activity can be difficult, as everyone has different likes and dislikes. Some people may prefer physical experiences, while others enjoy more relaxed, or intellectual experiences. There are many important benefits for both individuals and organizations when regular team-building activities are implemented: Trust building; better communication; creating positive images of an employees’ work life and management; improving time management; motivating disengaged employees and overall enjoyment of the work experience are just some of the advantages gained with ongoing team-building opportunities.
At Scentrifugal Events, all these elements are incorporated into our create-your-own fragrance, team- building experiences with our Making Scents Live! activities.
The event
Our team-building event begins with a discussion of company goals, and continues with a brief discourse on sensory memories, and how the sense of smell triggers them. “It probably comes as no surprise that the sense of smell is closely linked with memory. People often do say that the sense of smell conjures up memories so well that they feel as if they were experiencing the event again,” says Theresa L. White, PhD, professor and department of psychology chair at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York (per www.verywellmind.com).
“Smelling Gramma’s pasta sauce makes them feel as if they were back in her home, enjoying a good meal.”
To show the importance of sensory memories, we start off with an “icebreaker” exercise in which participants are provided with paper strips scented with fragrances that one would not expect to come in bottled form (which they are). They are then asked to identify the aroma. As a team, they need to come to a consensus, and by doing so they learn to trust each other’s opinions when determining the correct answers.
Teams are then directed to open the provided kits (one for each group), each of which contains six fragrances, and are given specific instructions on creating a unique scent by blending two or more of the fragrances. They are also instructed to create the type of fragrance that will best represent their team or company, or the task at hand.
Each groups’ members work together to determine which fragrances to use, and why. As we get into the actual scent-creation phase of the session, teams need to utilize communication skills in order to discuss their choices of fragrances, and reasons for selecting them. They also need to have strong communication skills to determine how they can improve upon the created scent to make the final product as good as it can possibly be.
All of the fragrance-creation steps--determining which scents should be utilized; testing them in various combinations; blending them using the provided tools—must be performed within a specific timeframe. This aspect of the event is designed to help improve employees’ time-management skills.
Upon agreeing on the ingredients and their ratios, the collaborative effort concludes with the creation of a name for the newly conjured fragrance.
Bringing the element of fun to the workplace
When it comes to creating and building a team that enjoys its work, incorporating the element of fun is one of the most important things that an employer can do. It is often said that life is too short. We at Scentrifugal Events believe it is certainly too short to not enjoy the work you do. And we can unequivocally state we enjoy bringing our team-building events to corporations and others’ entities.
Our Making Scents Live! experience is designed for creativity and fun. We have found there is a “mad-scientist” element to it, as well as a creative aspect as team members attempt to concoct the perfect scent. In addition, this is an entertaining social event as participants will proffer their wrists to fellow team members in order to share their individual blending ideas. Thus, all team members are engaged with the activity and with each other, which makes for a perfect team-building session.
As previously discussed, sensory memories stay with people forever, so in the future, when team members smell and/or wear the team-blended fragrance, they will have positive images of the activity itself, and of the company for which they work. Or, as Theresa L. White PhD put it: “Episodic memories, or memories of specific events from a first-person point of view, are where the sense of smell is best connected to memories.”
Furthermore, providing something unique outside of the normal work day is always welcomed by employees. Let’s face it, we all like a distraction every now and then. Most people find that by taking on a task completely different from the day-to-day work one normally does, the mind is unblocked, especially if there is creativity involved.
Think of your school days, and having recess or attending an assembly program. They provided a pause and a refresh, so when you returned to the classroom, you were able to think more clearly. The same holds true for a break from the repetitiveness and regimentation of work.
Team building is not only an excellent way to get employees together to meet and perform as a unit, but also is an opportunity for them to socialize. The past few years have been difficult, with reduced opportunities for human connections. So many of us were working in geographically different environments and only connecting by video or phone calls. Now that we have entered the “new normal” and we’re returning to classrooms and work spaces, team members have the chance to do such things as share ideas, develop trust in each other, build new relationships, enhance communication, discover strengths and weaknesses, learn how to speak up, practice leadership—all of which are contained within a Making Scents Live! fragrance-creation experience that is a fabulous way to achieve team-building goals.
So let Making Scents Live! bring to your company a “smell of a good time!”
