10 Tips to Improve Team Building for Remote Workers
In today's climate, more and more companies are offering their employees the opportunity to work remotely, enabling higher productivity rates and access to a larger pool of talent. How do you create trust and a solid foundation for collaboration when none of your team members work in the same office? Read on to find out!
According to recent studies conducted by Gallup, Harvard University, Stanford University and Global Workforce Analytics, working remotely benefits not only employees, but also the company. The data shows that remote workers are more productive and deliver higher quality work, while companies experience less absenteeism, lower employee turnover and higher profitability after implementing homeworking programs.
There are some potential disadvantages of working remotely. A decrease in cooperation and communication or an increase in the feeling of isolation due to the lack of face-to-face meetings. Fortunately, there are simple ways to remedy this, namely through online team building exercises. Team building is critical to the success of your organization, because when a team feels connected and trusted, morale and satisfaction increase, and employees feel more comfortable contributing ideas, which in turn increases their productivity.
Plan breaks for water coolers
Your team does not have access to a physical water cooler where they can take a break and chat with their colleagues, so create one for them! Use a video chat platform and ask your employees to join a team meeting 10 minutes earlier or schedule a break during the day to encourage them to talk about something other than work.
Set up icebreaker activities
Sometimes people are uncomfortable making small talk with strangers. Encourage your team to participate in structured icebreaker activities where they can learn more about each other, e.g:
- Sharing favorite food/leisure places/books
- Compare the fact with the colleague
- Would you rather
- Two truths and one lie
- Share videos from their home offices
- Assign the baby photo to the colleague
You can find as many ideas as these on the Internet through a simple search. Even so many that you could include a little icebreaker at every meeting.
Live stream of the field office
In the morning, when all the members of your team log in, encourage them to participate in a team video chat or virtual meeting. This "live remote office" essentially mimics you being in an office environment, drinking your coffee while chatting face-to-face with a colleague. It will encourage your team to focus on urgent tasks and remind them that working productively is their top priority.
Virtual happy hour
Do you want to reward your team for working hard and achieving their weekly goals? Plan a virtual happy hour where team members are encouraged to participate in video chat, enjoy a drink or treat of their choice, and play a game together online. Great team building games for remote workers include Catchphrase, Pictionary, Charades, Trivia, Family Feud, Jeopardy - really any game that's all about communication.
Virtual scavenger hunt
Scavenger hunts are a fun way to take a break after long working hours. And who says you can't organize them virtually? You can try some of the existing online scavenger hunts like "The Hike", which were developed by remote workers for remote workers, or get creative and create your own game.
Here is an idea for a game that requires nothing more than normal household items. Have each member of your team make a list of 5-10 things they want a colleague to do (e.g. find a sheet of paper, draw a self-portrait, make a cup of tea), share their lists, and encourage each team member to complete these tasks and take a picture of their finished product. Then plan a virtual meeting where everyone shares the list they were entrusted with and their results.
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Personality assessments for the workplace
Personality assessments like DISC or MBTI are great tools for your team to learn more about themselves and their teammates. Offer your employees the opportunity to do these tests and then schedule a video call to the team to review everyone's results and discuss interesting trends, findings and souvenirs. By completing these assessments, your team will learn how to collaborate and communicate more effectively.
Challenge remote workers
Who does not like a little challenge? Let everyone in your team share a goal (professional or personal) that they want to achieve that day, or challenge another colleague. Log in at the end of the day to see if they have achieved their goals. Through shared goals, your employees will learn more about each other and their drives.
Another option is to organize a small weekly team competition. Divide your team and assign them weekly goals. You can focus on work productivity tasks or something else (steps taken during the day, number of squats performed, or even used water glasses). he direction you want to take and the results you want to achieve are entirely up to you. But in any case a positive team spirit is guaranteed. By discovering each other's strengths and weaknesses, they learn to work together better and to hold each other responsible for the success of the team.
Lunch and learning sessions
If someone on your team is passionate about a particular topic, ask them to talk about it during a team meeting or invite an external expert to give a presentation. It could be at a breakfast or lunch meeting, it's up to your organization, but the important factor is the interaction between the team. You can add a short quiz at the end and, depending on your budget, give out small prizes to the winners.
Practice, meditate or dance together via video
If you work from home, it is incredibly important to exercise regularly (not only for your physical, but also for your mental health). Find and stream an exercise video online, let one of your team members lead a group training session or play a happy song via a video chat platform to which all members of your team can dance. Many people see exercise as a social activity, so encourage your team to socialize and fool around with teammates during group training to make contacts.
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Virtual film night
If you encourage your team to spend time together outside of work, they can easily connect and open up. How can you do this while everyone is working from a distance? Quite simply! Stream a movie via a video conferencing platform and invite all members of your team to participate.
From a broader perspective, the main reason for conducting team-building activities for your virtual team is to create a solid foundation for teamwork. Effective teamwork can be characterized by the following characteristics: open communication, respect for all team members, cooperation, problem solving, conflict management and a common mission/common goals. When conducting and creating new remote team-building activities, make sure that your planned activities focus on building and improving these skills.
Even if remote teams do not have access to regular face-to-face communication, this does not mean that they need to feel disconnected from each other. Virtual team building helps employees in remote locations feel more valued and connected, which ultimately increases collaboration, efficiency and productivity.