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It’s not business as usual.
The magnitude of the impact COVID-19 has had on all our lives, personally and professionally, is far-reaching and, in many cases, yet to be determined.
To fully harness the creativity of its employees, an agency’s team members must learn to trust and rely on one another. The usual check-in or touch-base sessions with your staff aren’t enough in times of major workplace and personal disturbance. Many employees are frightened or afraid, and some are experiencing isolation and a variety of other difficulties.
As a leader, it is your responsibility to offer people the essential connection they require, as well as to listen to how fundamental changes in your workplace and the world affect them.
To help employees understand and prosper in this new climate, you must engage in meaningful, and often unpleasant, talks. These conversations can include everything from how the pandemic has affected each employee’s employment to how it has affected their personal life and beyond. These discussions can be specifically fostered through team-building events. Companies that invest in team-building events have more cohesive employees who work better on group assignments, according to research.
Here are some of our suggestions:
Pro tip:
Before we begin, please make sure that your video is turned on for each of these activities. At first, video conferences may appear awkward and odd, but seeing people’s faces while they speak can make a significant difference in how connected everyone feels. Videos humanize the connection and allow for more dynamic interactions by putting a face to the voice on the other end of the line.
When scheduling meetings, include a video invite wherever possible (Zoom, Google Hangouts, and Microsoft Teams make this simple).
As a remote business, you can host virtual meetups once a month and invite your employees to attend. You get together on Fridays from time to time to have a beer, coffee, soda, or whatever! It’s a moment when everyone can talk about things other than work.
You can also have a weekly game night, which will be a lot of fun. Team building activities are a fantastic way for groups to come together and bond. This creates the impression that your team members know each other even if they haven’t met in person.
While virtual teams may need to get a little more creative in order to connect and break the ice, there are still plenty of options. You can then organize different team-building games with your remote crew like these:
Employee engagement will rise as a result of the correct activities, which will allow your team members to form meaningful bonds. Pick team-building activities that will resonate with your employees and build on the team culture you currently have by paying attention to their needs and personalities.
For happy and engaged teams, the connection is essential. Employees who had the opportunity to converse and socialize with coworkers for just 15 minutes improved their performance by 20%, according to one research.
To create your own team trivia, we recommend utilizing Kahoot. Play it with your team on Zoom, and go a step further and make it more entertaining by asking personal questions about team members and then seeing how much they know about each other.
Team quizzes are a terrific way to bring people together and keep them engaged. In large group call scenarios, some team members are frequently left out. A quiz allows everyone to have a good time, and you may even throw in a question or two on industry knowledge.
A virtual escape room is a fun team-building exercise you could conduct with your coworkers. You can go about doing this in a variety of ways, depending on whether you want to employ an outside service or not. However, it’s a terrific opportunity to pick each other’s brains and have fun while diverting attention away from work.
You can try a virtual escape room here on Confetti. With this, you can discover an underwater world, find forbidden treasure in an ancient temple, space escape: mission to mars, or even catch Meme if you can.
Participants will be given the quest instructions and backstory by the game organizer. Teams will be given a fixed amount of time to fulfill the objective they have chosen. Each adventure lasts roughly 60 minutes or less. Submit the proper answer for each problem to advance to the next clue and, eventually, to the solution of the mystery.
The objective is to finish the mission in the shortest time feasible. Teams can, however, continue to play after the timer has expired. Stay for the winner announcement at the end if there are numerous teams!
Music is a great way to bond with your team. Discuss your favorite music or tell a story about a memorable concert over Zoom. This allows people to show each other their interests and helps develop relationships. You can also take it a step further and have a virtual jam session. Chances are more than one team member plays an instrument, so rock a cover tune, do karaoke, or hold a virtual songwriting session.
On company time, you could attempt multiplayer gaming. Gaming may appear to be a waste of time, yet it does more than just forming ties amongst players. In these virtual social networks, decisions regarding whom to trust, whom to reject, and how to best lead a group must be made on the fly. It also promotes creative thinking and planning, and it could be exactly what your team needs to re-energize and relax enough to envision a fresh idea.
I’d recommend a cookie decorating class. One of our employees owns a cookie business on the side and she led our team in a virtual cookie decorating class. Everyone loved it and it was definitely a new way to break from our norm of virtual happy hours.
We start every virtual standup call with each person saying one thing they are grateful for. That starts the meeting on a positive note, everyone gets a chance to speak, and we get to know each other a little bit better with each call.
Slack is used by many offices for work communication. Slack can be used to create channels for teams, departments, management and leadership, and even project-specific channels.
It’s also a terrific location to have casual talks with your coworkers and team. Create a virtual space where you can discuss work updates, hang out, share interests, cooperate, and laugh together by using channels. Your channels could, for example, look like this:
One example of a Slack channel can be called “Let’s Celebrate” which may be used to organize birthday parties, online holiday gatherings, and other celebrations. It enables your staff to send well wishes to coworkers on important occasions. Additionally, you can occasionally customize the look and feel of your Zoom calls to coincide with specific occasions. People who worked from home were cheered by this.
The working environment has shifted dramatically in the last year, with many businesses opting for entirely remote employment. This new environment necessitates a fresh approach to employee management. When teams are physically divided, it’s even more critical for leaders to find ways to bring people together—and virtual team-building activities can help.
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