Post-pandemic, the workforce has gone through a seismic shift in terms of working practices. Along with this, several things have affected the way teams collaborate with each other. One of the most unexpected results of the shift to remote work is the gap created between employees and the challenges of managing all your business communications.
Because of the importance of teamwork to the success of an organization, the shift to remote work has made things more difficult. Most companies today are increasing their capacity to initiate and direct virtual team-building activities in an effort to promote effective remote collaboration and participation.
Virtual Team Building
Bringing people together to work on a common goal, observe a shared experience, eat a meal together, or simply spend time socializing is an example of team building. The time spent together outside of the office helps coworkers bond, which is useful for completing projects and communicating effectively.
There are many types of virtual team building that allow members of a group to interact and bond without physically being in the same place at the same time.
Team-building exercises are frequently skipped over because of the time and money they require. Bringing everyone together to do nothing productive may seem insane. However, there are lasting gains to be made through team-building exercises.
Team members can save time by choosing a pre-planned virtual event, and everyone can take part in the activity with greater ease.
Do Team Building Exercises Work?
Your staff can adjust more quickly to their new remote working lifestyle if you hold regular virtual team-building activities. This lessens the severity of issues associated with virtual workplaces, such as isolation, burnout, and the stress of a worldwide health crisis.
Increases Optimism
Teams can become disengaged and burned out if they are constantly pressured to produce work and meet deadlines. Therefore, a good team leader should facilitate group discussions, online meetings, brainstorming sessions, casual get-togethers, and other forms of virtual team building to help colleagues work together effectively. Taking part in these activities together will strengthen the team’s bond and make each member feel appreciated.
It helps improve morale and productivity by fostering understanding and friendship among workers.
Encourages Teamwork
Most project tasks are dependent on multiple employees, and coordinating the use of resources requires teamwork. Any form of teamwork tends to become more challenging over time, and this can result in miscommunication and confusion. This is even more difficult now that everyone is working remotely
This is where virtual team exercises come into play. These encourage teamwork and keep workers in touch with one another. Furthermore, they allow colleagues to learn about each other’s areas of expertise and improvement, allowing them to better coordinate and accomplish tasks without duplicating efforts.
Manages Innovation
In order to succeed in today’s cutthroat market, companies must constantly innovate to stay ahead of the competition. The goal of virtual team building is to facilitate ideation, collaboration, and communication among all employees, regardless of their location. Any suggestion can become a game-changing innovation for a company when there are lots of people working together.
The innovation management plan will improve teamwork by facilitating communication, sharing, and the provision of useful feedback. By approaching problems and obstacles with a spirit of innovation, workers are more likely to invest in the company’s success.
Boosts Efficiency
Teams that are separated into silos often struggle to find common ground and end up producing less work as a result. However, leaders can be more transparent about organizational goals through online team-building exercises.
Having a clear goal in mind inspires workers to put forth their best effort. As a result, the performance index of the resource pool rises without causing any burnout.
Fosters an Adaptable Approach
As the business world continues to evolve at a rapid pace, many companies are looking for employees who can switch gears quickly and efficiently. Therefore, facilitating team-building exercises improves resources’ multidisciplinary competence. It’s a place where workers can experiment with new skills and make mistakes without worrying about being penalized.
Promotes a Constructive Workplace Environment
The tool is a diligent and intuitive method for ensuring that distributed teams have full visibility into all projects at all times. Each member of the team will be held responsible for ensuring that the highest possible standards are met.
The positive culture of an organization can be strengthened through regular office catch-ups and discussions about work. A company’s morale can get a boost from virtual team-building activities like games, lunch or coffee breaks, book or music clubs, contest nights, virtual happy hours, and virtual birthday celebrations.
Incorporates a Wide Range of People Into Your Network.
The most productive workplaces are those that make use of workers in different time zones, welcome and even celebrate cultural, gender, and racial differences among employees, and value diversity in all its forms. So, businesses can benefit from virtual team-building activities by fostering intergenerational bonds and strengthening relationships among members of geographically dispersed teams.
This enables remote groups to learn about and experiment with novel approaches to interdisciplinary collaboration across organizational boundaries, including but not limited to systems, processes, technology, and people.
Facilitating an Online Team-Building Session
Before you create that Zoom meeting for the team-building exercise, it’s important to understand a few things. Initiate your efforts by settling on your goals. Do you, for instance, wish to learn how to manage projects better or to become a better negotiator? Your team-building activity’s end result must help people develop both individually and collectively if it is to be successful.
It’s important to factor in how much time you have for each workout when creating a schedule. Instead of being quick “icebreakers,” collaborative problem-solving activities will take more time.
Do not forget to consider the cultural norms and unique traits of the people involved. As a result of these differences, introverts may struggle to participate fully in group conversations. If they are working from home, they might be overstimulated by their surroundings. The converse is also true; extroverts may try to run things.
Make sure to set aside some time for team members who may not yet know each other to be introduced. In social situations where people don’t know each other, it can be helpful to use quick and entertaining online icebreakers. Also, think about the many ways people can pitch in to ensure everyone’s opinion is heard. Now, let’s look at some examples of activities.
Show and Tell
We’re taking a page from our early education and recommending a round of “Show and Tell” as a fun way to build teamwork through learning and sharing. Have a different team member talk about something they’re passionate about, whether it’s a place they’ve visited, a hobby they enjoy, or a new project they’re looking forward to diving into.
Virtual “Show and Tell” sessions are excellent team-building exercises because they promote open communication and allow participants to reflect on their work and life.
Two Truths and a Lie
Team members take turns sharing three interesting facts about themselves, one of which is a lie, in this video-conferenced version of the classic party game. The group tries to sort out the truth from the lies. You can relieve tension and get to know your teammates better through this activity.
Alien Landing!
Employees work in smaller groups of three or four. Aliens have landed on Earth and want to learn more about your business, so make sure everyone knows about it. However, these extraterrestrials are not conversant in our language. Every group must produce five illustrations that perfectly characterize your business.
What they see in the pictures is whatever they think best encapsulates your business, be it a product, an employee, or the company’s culture. You will learn how your staff members feel about working for you. This can be an individual or a group activity.
Photo of Your Life
For this entertaining digital competition, each player is asked to share a selfie that best represents who they are and what they’ve accomplished so far. The thing you love most in the world could be anything from a place or landmark to a specific piece of furniture, a particular pastime, or even an animal.
The picture is then shown to the rest of the group while the leader explains its significance and backstory. This online team-building game is an entertaining way to put your own technology to use for a worthwhile business purpose while also providing a thoughtful opportunity to introduce a more personal side to team members who may not already know much about one another.
Board Game Nights!
Be it a one-shot dungeons and dragons game or a scavenger hunt, have your team members work together and solve logical problems to grow a stronger bond. This could be a weekly or monthly session. Start with a small scavenger hunt and create an overlying storyline to build your own world. Include company problems disguised as fantasy issues, and watch them solve the issues in no time!
Pitch Me
Here we have yet another innovative online activity for fostering teamwork. The leader of the event prepares a slide deck containing pictures of appealing products, and the workers, divided into smaller groups, go through the images while making persuasive sales pitches for each product. How might one promote the purchase of, say, a carrot peeler, a propeller hat, or a corkscrew? To help players put their best foot forward, have them work together to create PowerPoint presentations or short video ads using their online research tools and technology.
Trivia Nights
Are your team members fans of the Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter? Or national history, perhaps? Divide your team into smaller groups or include other teams to play against yours. Have quiz nights to keep them engaged and build team morale with interesting prizes.
Time Traveler
To stimulate creative and original thought among team members, try out this online team-building game. In a group video chat, everyone talks about a time in history or social movement that they wish they could visit if they could travel back in time. It doesn’t matter if the characters are from the Renaissance or the Stone Age, the Pirate Age, or the time of Shakespeare. Extra points for anyone who is willing to act out their preferred period or character from history.
Bucket List Challenge!
Hold a video meeting and tell your staff to each take ten minutes to write down a list of goals they’d like to achieve by the end of their careers. Ask everyone to share the top three or five items on their list.
Get to know each other and look for areas of agreement. If multiple workers’ lists look similar, you can put them to work toward a common objective, like competing in a marathon. If you and your coworkers live in different cities, you can still form running groups or keep each other accountable by training at the same time.
Can You Hear Me Now?
This online version of Pictionary is a fun way to build teamwork and communication skills. The team members are paired up. One person takes on the role of the Describer, while the other is the Artist. The describer’s job in a three-minute round is to show the Artist how to draw an item by using only basic shapes and geometry.
Team members take turns guessing what the finished image is when it is sent to them via video or email. Each correct guess by the artists is worth one point to the describer, and vice versa. Playing this online team-building art game will bring out everyone’s creative side.
Conclusion
Disconnection from coworkers and superiors is the biggest problem of remote work. It is crucial to occasionally plan online team-building exercises to keep this under control.
You can bridge the gap and bring your remote workers closer together by engaging in some of the above virtual team-building activities. Any one of these activities can be organized on their own, or you can combine them for a comprehensive online team-building event.
