The pandemic has re-emphasized the importance of team-building activities. Find out how you can do it online!
The shift from a standard 9-5—to either entirely working from home or to a hybrid work environment—has brought about a unique set of challenges. One of these challenges is keeping your team morale up and ensuring that everyone is on the same page.
To combat this challenge, it is important to prioritize virtual team building. According to a study, nearly 63% of leaders believe that team communication improves as a result of virtual team-building exercises. While some might cringe at the thought of team building activities, they are crucial to effective teamwork. Want your team to connect in meaningful ways? Here are some “not lame” activities that can help you achieve that!
Real-time remote office
One of the problems workers have been running into as they work from home is the feeling of isolation. Unlike how things were back in the office, they can’t simply vent to their co-workers any time they’d like. The solution? Real-time remote offices.
Every day, all team members can get on a video call and work together, just like they did in person before. This doesn’t mean actively talking all the while, but it means that you can just unmute and ask questions at any point in the day and have the human connection that working from home has deprived you of. This can also help develop a feeling of camaraderie.
My user manual
Another fun activity that the team can do any time a new person joins the office is “my user manual”. This activity requires members of the team to list down their work styles. This essentially entails answers to questions like, do they like to communicate over mail or chat? Are they up for impromptu meetings?
We all know that feeling of stepping into a new workplace and overthinking our co-workers’ reactions to things. The user manual activity can tell a new hire exactly what to expect from their co-workers and can avoid misunderstandings further down the line. This can be done through an email to make it easier for the newbie to remember everything you share.
Virtual happy hour
Who doesn’t love to take time out to just relax and unwind? Virtual happy hours are the best place to do so with your co-workers and get to know them a little better. An evening of drinks and games can give co-workers a space to celebrate a productive work week. A virtual happy hour can help the team connect and thus help them work together more effectively.
According to a study, nearly 73% of all employees wish their company would invest more in team building. Engaging in team-building activities regularly can help strengthen teamwork and improve morale. It can help all team members see each other as people instead of just work machines, which the virtual workspace has reduced us all to.
Header image courtesy of Freepik
