Blog post contribution by Tea Dejanovic, Associate Business Consultant
Perficient’s Minneapolis office has been named one of the Star Tribune’s Top Workplaces three times in recent years thanks, in large part, to our colleagues’ collaborative spirit.
Team building is a top priority, and events like the annual Office Olympics add a fun twist. This year’s competition gave colleagues the chance to get to know each other better and celebrate each other’s accomplishments. Failures were accompanied with lots of laughter and good spirit.
The Office Olympics (planned by Madonna Backstrom, senior business consultant, and Kara Gamelin, associate business consultant) consisted of four disciplines, ranging from paper-plate skating to rubber-band archery. The disciplines were carefully chosen so that no team would have an advantage in terms of their cumulative skill set.
Upon completion of all four disciplines, the winning team was announced, and colleagues gathered in the kitchen to enjoy snacks and refreshments and converse.
Many colleagues in our Minneapolis office spend their time working from client locations during the week, so Fridays are encouraged as “work from the home base” days. It is a great opportunity for colleagues that work on different projects to grab lunch together, do coffee runs, get to know recently hired colleagues, and catch up with others they worked on past projects with.
A key to success in the consulting world is effective communication and teamwork. It is difficult to achieve one without the other. Effective teamwork can be compared to a clockwork mechanism – all parts need to be in sync and moving in the same direction. Even though the clockwork uses energy of hands to turn it around, that energy does not disappear; instead, it is stored as potential energy before it gets used up to create a movement.
Likewise, team building develops a valuable skill set that is intangible and impossible to measure, but its results manifest itself in pivotal moments of a project.
The benefits of activities like our annual Office Olympics continue well beyond that day.
Does your job search include Minneapolis? Visit perficient.com/careers to learn more and browse current job openings.
OFFICE VISIT
Get an inside look at Perficient’s Minneapolis office and read more about what it’s like to work there.
Follow Perficient’s Life at Perficient blog on Twitter via @PerficientLife.
Follow Perficient on LinkedIn here.
