While the workplace shouldn’t make you play a constant game of comparison in your mind, there are some benefits that can come from some friendly competition in the workplace. A healthy dose of competition can contribute greatly to your company’s culture and employee motivation. Read below to learn more.
What are the benefits of friendly competition in the workplace?
A little competition can go a long way, especially when there are no consequences involved. While leaders shouldn’t implement cutthroat rivalry in their workplace, they can embrace friendly competition from time to time. One of the main benefits of this endeavor is that of motivation. When your employees have something new to work towards, it will motivate them to pull their talents together and focus on the goal at hand. This can bleed into other areas of their work as well, increasing this newfound source of energy and enlarging their confidence. In order to motivate your employees in this competitive environment, there is usually a prize of some sort that can be given to the ultimate winners.
On top of increasing motivation, a bit of friendly competition in the workplace will also result in a surge in productivity. With this incentive pushing everyone to deliver their best work, employees will become more productive throughout the day, using their limited time and resources to bring about big results. While hosting a company-wide or department-wide competition might cost you planning time and require a budget allocated for the prizes, it will pay off quickly with your employees’ ability to yield results.
Depending on the type of friendly competition you implement, it might also contribute to greater teamwork. Individuals may still be able to compete against each other, but if you have a group incentive on top of these individual prizes, you’ll ultimately increase employee relationships and give your workers a common cause to work towards, giving everyone a reason to celebrate when it is finally achieved. For example, a bit of friendly competition in the workplace could look like a month of making calls to clients in an effort to sell them additional services. While there can be additional prizes for making these sales, you can have an overarching department goal that needs to be met in order to award each participant with a gift card or week off. Having combined goals will increase team camaraderie and make for a more united company.