Why workplace relationships are becoming a key issue for Cyprus businesses

Foreign firms help drive Cyprus’ growing team-building culture Cyprus companies are increasingly turning to team building and workplace culture initiatives, with foreign businesses helping drive a shift towards viewing stronger workplace relationships as a business priority, according to interFRONTIERS Managing Director and Senior Facilitator Kyriacos Iacovides. Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, Iacovides said the Nicosia-based training and development company had seen growing demand for programmes aimed at improving teamwork, leadership and employee relationships. Iacovides, who has 27 years of corporate experience in leadership, change, sales, negotiation and team coaching, joined interFRONTIERS in early 2014 after leaving the banking sector. He described the move as a major change in his professional life, taking him from banking into a business focused on improving people’s performance and developing workplace skills. InterFRONTIERS has developed over roughly 25 years and works with international partners to provide training and team-building solutions to companies in Cyprus. ‘’ We are truly privileged to be the Gold Partners of Catalyst Global, the leading world-class curator of team -building solutions for Cyprus’’ said Iacovides. “I love working with teams. I love coaching teams to become better,” he added. He argued that activities sometimes dismissed as soft or emotional issues could have a direct effect on business performance. “Research and, in fact, science proves that if you have teams that are not cohesive, are not effective and haven’t got positive relationships, then this has a direct impact on performance and productivity,” he explained. It also affects how employees feel about their workplace and therefore their engagement, he added. Iacovides said the impact could be particularly significant at senior management level because problems within leadership teams can carry a cost for the wider business, even when that cost is difficult to measure. “If the leadership team of an organisation doesn’t perform well, if it isn’t as cohesive and aligned as it should be, the business is being taxed. There is a cost to it. It’s just that they cannot measure it,” he said. He pointed to mutual understanding, empathy, recognising colleagues’ strengths and being comfortable with vulnerability as important foundations for effective leadership teams. According to Iacovides, attitudes in Cyprus have also changed in recent years, with companies now more willing to spend money on activities designed to strengthen workplace relationships. “Four or five years ago, such solutions wouldn’t have been able to be sold because people would have been sceptical of investing money in bonding activities, but things are changing, and I feel optimistic about it,” he stated. He attributed part of that change to the growing presence of foreign companies that have chosen Cyprus as a base and which, in his view, often bring a more forward-looking approach to workplace culture. Such companies have increasingly engaged interFRONTIERS for team-building activities and then publicised those initiatives internally and on social media. This, he suggested, creates a demonstration effect, as other businesses see companies publicly emphasising their commitment to teamwork and begin considering similar initiatives. Iacovides’ interest in workplace behaviour predates his move into training and development. During his banking career, he said he had closely observed how people’s behaviour could influence decision-making and business performance. “I could see how people’s behaviours could have an impact on the way things were going,” he said. He recalled seeing situations where internal politics and group dynamics during senior meetings could ultimately contribute to poor decisions. “Performance has to do with behaviour. “And culture is how people behave,” he added, explaining that employee surveys often reveal teamwork issues. “As Great Place to Work licensees—the global workplace-culture authority—in Cyprus and Jordan, we conduct, every year our Trust Index survey for many companies. One of the areas we explore is the level camaraderie and results sometimes demonstrate that workplace relationships are not always as smooth as senior leaders believe’’ However, Iacovides stressed that successful change requires commitment from senior management. “If the senior leadership, if number one, is not prepared to recognise that improving teamwork will impact business performance, if he or she is not willing to commit and endorse such initiatives, nothing will work,” he explained. The company’s programmes are entirely experiential, using games and activities designed to simulate aspects of business life. Participants are then encouraged to examine what happened, what the implications were and what they should do differently in the future. Iacovides described this as “inside-out learning”, because participants reach conclusions about their own behaviour rather than simply being told what they need to change. “If this is a mirror of my behaviour, and I do the same things at work, like shouting down a colleague because I do not agree with him, or because I took over the project and I wasn’t listening to anybody, which I sometimes do, it doesn’t help,” he said. The objective is not necessarily to produce immediate behavioural transformation, he explained, but to help participants recognise areas that need improvement and leave with practical ideas and commitments. “Behaviours don’t change easily. It takes effort,” he added. Iacovides also sees differences between multicultural companies and businesses made up predominantly of Cypriot employees, although he stressed that he could not substantiate this observation with data. He suggested that employees from different cultural backgrounds may be more accustomed to diversity and inclusion and therefore more prepared to work across differences. He also linked teamwork to two increasingly important business concepts, agility and resilience. Agile organisations often need to bring together people from different functions and with different perspectives to address complex and rapidly changing challenges. “If these people have not been coached, have not been prepared to work in a team, then your agility goes out of the window,” he stated. The same applies to resilience, he argued, because organisations facing difficult periods need employees who can support one another. One of interFRONTIERS’ largest recent projects took place on January 17, 2026, when it organised a team-building event for Alpha Bank following its acquisition of AstroBank. The event at Pavilion in Nicosia was designed to bring together employees as a single community, with about 600 people attending from an expected 700. The participants were divided into roughly 70 to 80 teams, often bringing together employees who had never previously worked with one another. While the event was partly symbolic, Iacovides said such interaction could create lasting connections. “If I’ve never worked with you, probably I know you. Sometimes we may have an interaction over the phone, and then I find myself working with you for two hours on something which is not business-related,” he said. “That changes things because there is bonding.” He linked this to social identity theory, which proposes that people naturally categorise themselves and others into groups and can develop a sense of belonging around those groups. Iacovides argued that this can also contribute to organisational silos, with departments tending to view their own successes favourably while attributing another group’s successes to luck. Breaking down those silos requires interaction, he said, because shared experiences can create familiarity and the foundations for mutual trust. “Interaction creates some safety, we share part of our comfort zone, and that is the prerequisite to start building mutual trust,” he said. Asked about his favourite team-building exercise, Iacovides said he did not have one particular favourite because activities need to be tailored to different groups. Instead, he said his favourite moments came when participants completed something they initially believed was beyond them. One example involves teams producing a short animated video about their company within roughly 60 to 90 minutes, with participants taking on roles including directors, producers and prompt engineers. “It might not be Walt Disney, but it is an animated video,” he said. For Iacovides, the most rewarding part is seeing participants celebrate a shared achievement. “When I say I do not have a favourite game, I have a favourite moment, which is the moment that people realise what teamwork and what a single united community can do. That is my favourite moment,” he added. Looking ahead, he expects artificial intelligence to change the tools used in team-building activities, while also warning that wider technological changes could make workplace relationships more important. Many processes have become automated and more work is being conducted remotely, potentially reducing opportunities for people to interact naturally. “Mankind has done well with communities. Mankind has messed up with communities,” he said. “When communities start breaking, I don’t know what’s going to happen because people are distant from each other.”