Receiving a gift from your employer, in the form of holiday parties or a year-end bonus, makes you smile and feel good for a time. In contrast, the memories of giving and interacting as part of holiday team building can last a lifetime, much longer than that bonus lasted. Psychologists like Sonja Lyubomirsky, have found in study after study that giving makes us a feel a lot happier than receiving. “Being kind and generous leads you to perceive others more positively,” Lyubomirsky notes in The How of Happiness.
A shared experience like holiday team building can bring co-workers together faster than any steak or chicken dinner. Many corporations realize the power of giving and make social responsibility part of their mission statement. Gain even more positivity when as a group you give to others, especially if you connect with those receiving the gift.Some corporations make giving back part of their hiring decisions. According to Forbes magazine, “Gen Y employees especially say that having volunteer opportunities available to them at work makes them more likely to choose an employer in the first place – and more likely to stay there.” Research from the Center for Work-Life Policy shows that high-potential employees are seriously motivated by a desire to give back to the world and increasingly seek out employers that allow them to participate on company time.

Perhaps even more important to a company’s well-being is that psychologists like Lyubomirsky say when we give to others, we not only make them feel closer to us, we also feel closer to them.

Researchers have also found that giving to a specific cause rather than a world-wide organization increases the positive impact on the giver. It brings groups together and creates a bond with the community.

The advantages of holiday team building for any corporation are easy to see:
• A group giving back to those less fortunate fosters good-will among colleagues.
• Giving and happiness reinforce each other, creating a positive feedback loop for individuals.
• Giving to your community, seeing and feeling a tangible gift, connects you to your community and makes you feel
better about being part of it.

This season’s economic low makes giving more needed than ever, and combining that with holiday team building impacts every single person on both sides of the event. Whether it is a food bank in Jacksonville or first responders in Fort Lauderdale, coming together to benefit the local community and see your generosity at work with holiday team building is a gift for both the giver and the receiver.

Bring In The Experts

As a company specializing in charity team building events, we understand that you have a job to do, and you probably do it very well. This is our job, and we do it very well. Take a minute to talk to one of our experts, and see how we can help you turn ho-hum holiday parties into ho-ho-ho with a holiday event to remember!