Team building is an incredibly important aspect of running a project. You need to ensure that your staff gets along together. They don’t have to be best friends but they do need to be aware of other people’s professional dispositions, habits, and capabilities. Once this is achieved, you will be able to raise the internal unity of your staff and your overall staff cohesion to a whole new level. Still, how does one build a team when they’re working with telecommuters? This is one of the biggest questions and one of its burning issues. With that in mind and without further ado, here are the top seven remote team building activities worth your attention.
1. Video game multiplayer
The first great way to connect your staff is to make them play multiplayer video games. When you come to think about it, playing a mandatory multiplayer session is a perfect way to give your team some relief and make them rely on each-others. In some companies, this is already a tradition, especially in the video games industry. Take, for example, Paradox, which has regular dev clashes where employees stream and play in-development version of the game. While doing so, they’re also alpha testing the game but it is undeniable that they’re also team-building.
Some games like Among Us are designed to be cooperative, which means that your team will emulate a scenario where they have to A) save the ship and B) reveal a traitor among them. The reason why this is so great is that it will also help them learn how to rely on their teammates and recognize if someone’s not pulling their own weight. It will also teach them a valuable lesson on how a single person can undo the work done by a whole team if they’re left to do their bidding without any guidance or oversight. In other words, these are two incredibly important and valuable corporate lessons.
2. Bookclub
Running a book club is something that can be done in the digital environment even easier than in person. After all, everyone brings their own snack, their own drinks and you don’t have to tidy up the place before the meeting. All you have to do is pick the right book and schedule the event once per month. While this can be done quite effectively in a conference call, you can also look for a specialized book club app. This will take the immersion to a next level and make things a lot easier.
3. Build up the hype
The key thing to enjoying anything is the way you build up the hype. By entering into this team building event with a negative mindset, it will be impossible for your team to enjoy it. If, on the other hand, you manage to set up the stage properly, there should be no problem in enjoying this to the fullest. So, what do you start with? Even though we’re not talking about an event in a traditional sense, it might be a good idea to go directly to event marketing specialists and ask for their advice. A build-up to an event, even a digital one, is not a simple matter. You need to address this accordingly.
4. Movie night
Another amazing idea is for you to start a movie night tradition. The reason why this is such a great idea is that you can easily run a movie simultaneously, thus emulating the real cinema experience. The key thing you need to focus on is that every single one of the people in the group is watching the same version. This will help avoid the movie timeline discrepancy. You can even organize your group into a weekly tradition of watching a popular TV show together and commenting on it afterward.
5. Dungeons & dragons
A session of dungeon and dragons is also a great way for you to make your team rely more on each other. Moreover, you can put yourself in the position of a dungeon master. You can set them on quests that will push their resourcefulness to their limits. This way, you will help them exercise imagination and creativity, as well as hone their problem-solving abilities. Needless to say, there are so many fun adventures that you can take them on. Once they get lost in the narrative, bonding and team building will happen quite spontaneously.
6. Beer after work
There are a lot of offices where people have a tradition of going to a local bar with their coworkers after work on Fridays. People working from home are, sadly, robbed of this experience. There is, fortunately, a way to turn this around. The biggest challenge lies in the fact that some people might find this like an additional online obligation. But you could replace the last hour of your workweek with this fun social activity. Not much can be done in an hour but this casual tradition may help your staff unwind.
7. Meme channel on Slack
A lot of remote offices use platforms like Slack for communication. Sharing memes on this platform is a great way for people to share a laugh and unwind a bit. The thing is that you should probably make a channel just for memes in order to avoid confusing or alerting people. After all, seeing that there are 30 messages in the #general channel can seem quite alarming. So, make sure to avert this problem by simply creating a safe space for meme sharing.
In conclusion
At the end of the day, there are so many tools available and so many options to choose from. It all comes down to your disposition towards this fun activity and your willingness to make a change. You can start by providing your team with fun remote activities and test out what they’re the most interested in. Keep in mind that activity may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Spending quality time with their coworkers might bring them around. Fun time with your team and various team-building perks that come from this are what really matters.
Punit