7 Virtual Team-Building Ideas to Keep Your Staff Connected and Motivated

Though working from home has become very popular over a couple of years in a large number of industries, nobody would’ve visualized the big leap taken by the world into practice as the coronavirus pandemic came up in the initial months of 2020. Within few weeks, several non-essential companies quickly resolved methods to make working from home possible for employees.

Team building has been identified as a very essential investment which you must make as a business owner. If you possess a team of workers, you possibly spend a good deal of time considering methods to boost high-quality work and productivity.

However, it is essential to spend time even in discovering the apt work-life stability among your team and building company culture.

Given below is a list of a few activities that help in keeping remote staffs connected:

1. Virtual Coffees

As a business that works with your employees sitting at their homes, you do not have the freedom to meet up physically with them for coffee. The internet’s beauty is that you can easily have virtual coffee gatherings. Just take a cup of coffee and fix a time to chat! 

You can consider having a virtual coffee meet-up every Monday morning before everyone starts their work. The plan here is to make it less about work and business and more about team-building. 

2. Book club and Powerful Podcasts

One of the methods through which you can build a team effectively with your workers is to grow cooperatively. Reading good books that each one is fascinated about and occupied in together and then talking over about what you grasp can help you in growing as a company. Although finance-and business-related books might be the easiest theme, you can even have fun and involve fiction books too.

Now, does your team maintain a list of most-liked podcasts that could be advantageous for the team to listen to and later talk over it together? You can take an extra step by considering how the team can produce and develop your podcast which will help in educating the audience and permit you to be industry thought-leaders.

3. Game Night

There are several different games that you can play together both physically and virtually. In case you are in the same city, you can gather for board games and drinks. However, if you are at home (remote), you can play games together online. In case games are not the specific fancy of your workers, you can go for online watch parties for TV shows or movies. 

If you are not very sure about how to play games online, consider what you would do normally while camping out where there are no cards, board games, or similar stuff handy. While using Skype, Zoom, or an online video meeting, you can still play games such as charades very easily. 

4. Monthly Competitions

Monthly competitions are a great way of engaging with the employees and building up an enjoyable atmosphere where workers sportingly compete with each other. These competitions can be planned to increase employee loyalty, boost productivity, and so on. 

You also need to make sure that the contest is not of a sort where the reward is so trifled that people do not care about it. Try to give away gift cards, special rewards, or something that will motivate everyone to compete.

5. Huddles or Water Cooler Conversations

To keep each one focused, consider organizing weekly (or daily) water cooler chats or team huddles. Through scheduled and dedicated intervals of time, these virtual chats can be advantageous for productivity and communication while also providing room for each one for sharing some personal experiences and celebrations.

Every business quarter, ponder over having an in-person conversation with the employees. It’s necessary to have some face time with the workers and one of the best methods of doing this is company retreats.

During this duration, it must be a good balance of play and work. Try and focus on linking with every individual you have, who has been helping you out in your business. Show them some gratitude and that they are acknowledged and ensure to have a full roster for fun activities, cross-training employees, team-building, and certainly, some downtime for each one to relax. 

6. Happy Hour  

One of the usual relaxing activities that people all around the world enjoy is having a drink to de-stress after a long day. Similarly, you can go out for lunch in person, and when this is not possible reunite the team virtually for a lunch.

As the employer of remote employees, it is good to show your fun side and that you do not simply want to absorb in only business-related activities with the staff. If you cannot meet locally, then fix a time for virtual happy hour. Everyone will share what they are having, along with their favorite beverages and foods in an informal, relaxed setting. 

7. Virtual Quiz Night

Everyone enjoys the game of trivia. For better results, make the content of trivia night linked to something everyone in your company experiences. If your organization operates internet marketing, quiz them on words related to online marketing such as a/b testing, SEO, drip campaigns, etc. If you wish to make stuff even more interesting, you can think of giving out prizes to the winners. 

All Set for a Virtual High-five?

Ultimately, the primary aim of virtual team-building is to maintain each one’s engagement, productivity, and happiness in their work. Work from home can become isolating when there is not any deliberate effort to get connected with the teammates on a personal level.

One thing that is crucial with any of the above-mentioned activities is to keep all of them to a set start and end time —since let’s be honest, the moment we start having fun, we forget the time, right?

Once you realize that your employees are human beings prepared to be your employee and friend, you will comfortably build a positive company culture and a loyal team of employees prepared to help and support you for years to come. On the whole, try new things, set some solid parameters, and have a blast learning and growing together.

Mamta Sharma

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