Teamworking

A working group is a set of individuals who are aware of each other, interact with one another and have a sense that they are a group (Schein, 1988)
As part of my work experience with Field Fisher House, I completed various training courses ranging in subject areas from ways to work with employees and coaching them on how to improve, to creating my own individual development plan fostering my current and future growth. I took the initiative to plan and implement our big events. My internship with Field Fisher Houses made my experiences all inclusive as it gave me the opportunity to be one of the central components of such a large company and I was able to truly understand the impact of the political and legal systems on this industry's competitive environment.

Tuckman’s teamwork theory is one of the most well known out of all the theories regarding teamwork. It is known as a basis for effective team building and leadership.  Tuckman suggests that teams grow through clearly defined stages, from their creation as group of individuals, to consistent, task focused teams.  [www.the-happy-manager.com/teamwork-theory.html]

Tuckman's theory focuses on the way in which a team tackles a task from the initial formation of the team through to the completion of the project. Tuckman believes there are four stages in team development.

·         Forming

In this part of the stage of becoming a group, the team was assembled and each task was allocated. In the early stages the team members were behaving independently and although not all the team members knew each other well enough to unconditionally trust one another. In the beginning stage, most of our time was spent planning, collecting information and bonding.

·         Storming

As time went on the team started to address the task suggesting a range of different ideas. Some of the team members were competing for dominance with their ideas; fortunately this was managed well when it came to the team members putting their ideas across. If the team didn’t manage this properly this may have been destructive for the team. In some cases the relationships between the team members will be made or broken and may never recover. This happened in the group, when two members of the group had a disagreement about a minor problem. This led to these two individuals not communicating effectively which caused tension within the whole group. Tuckman said that some teams usually get stuck in the storming phase due to the team members not coming to any sort of agreement. This carries its own set of problems. It is essential that a team has strong facilitative leadership in this phase.

·         Norming

After the storming stage, the group entered the norming stage. In this stage, the team was harmonious and there were hardly any disagreements between the team members. The team members started to agree on the rules and values in which we operated.  The team as a whole started to trust each other and started to appreciate and accept each others contribution to the group. At this stage as I was the team leader I took a step back and allowed the other team members who wasn’t so confident to take more responsibility. The only problem we had at this stage is that the team became complacent and started to lose track of the initial aim of the assignment.

·         Performing

According to Tuckaman’s theory occasionally some teams are not able to reach this stage for the reason that all the other stages were not done effectively. At this stage despite all of the arguments the team was able to come together and hand in our piece of work.  All the ideas that were discussed were put into the work. In this stage the team had a certain amount of group maturity and started to get to get along with each other more.  [www.teambuilding.co.uk/Forming_Storming_Norming_Performing.html]

 According to the Times Top 100 companies to work for,Beaverbrooks scored well in all areas of employee engagement and particularly shined in their Giving Something Back and Fair Deal categories, ranking second overall in these two areas. Workers are happy with their pay and benefits (a 75% positive score), think the company is doing its bit for the local community (78%) and don't believe its support of worthy causes is driven by a desire for good publicity (75%, the highest score for this question).

The Lancashire-based firm's 782 staff is entitled on an annual basis to two days' charity work in office hours to do good deeds such as helping pensioners with their shopping and lending a hand at the local hospice. The company also donates 20% of pre-tax profits to charity and sponsors a 10-kilometre fun run in Blackpool as well as a bike ride which raised in excess of £100,000 every year for charitable organizations. The staff doesn’t just like working there; they love it and are proud of it, too, winning Beaverbrooks positive scores of 84% and 87% respectively.

Senior members of staff regularly visit the 66 stores and any employee can contact them by email or phone. There are celebration nights for top performing teams and last year the firm stumped up an average of £100 for each member of staff to have fun at party nights and meals out. Beaverbooks people say they have fun with their colleagues (86%) and feel a strong sense of family in their team (80%).

Benefits include a minimum of 25 days' holiday a year, a return to work bonus for new mums, dental insurance and life assurance.

Managing director Mark Adlestone gets a 90% score for staff having a great deal of faith in him and workers say there are plenty of opportunities to learn and grow, earning the firm a 72% positive result. Both are top scores

[http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/best_100_companies/article7030215.ece]

According to the Times Top 100 companies to work for, I have decided to review Nandos and Beaverbrooks the Jewelers where it has been evident that teamwork has been identified as a major contributory factor to their success. I decided to review Nandos for the reason that from the article it is evident that the employees that have worked for Nandos have ranked it a good company to work for.  According to the article, Nandos achieved the 2^nd ranking for good leadership in the business. They also became 3^rd place in fair deal. The managers and the employees at  the workplace believe in each other which are the key motivator in the company. The employees at Nandos say they love working for the company and gave a positive score of 80% and agreed that there is a strong sense of family in the teams.

[http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/best_100_companies/best_100_tables/]

The employees at Nandos say they love working for the company and gave a positive score of 80% and agreed that there is a strong sense of family in the team and believe that the managers care about all the employees well being.  The employees are able to communicate to their managers effectively and are able to put their views and opinions across.