No matter how much you prepare yourself for a remote workforce, there are still some challenges you need to face. These challenges are both for employers and employees, as remote work has disrupted the usual working styles, communication within and across teams, and collaboration.
It is increasingly difficult for leaders to connect with their teams and also to help team members connect with each other.
Team building usually takes place at the office, a hotel, a rented cottage outside the city, or somewhere in a park or reserve. However, in the current state of the world with traveling and physical distancing restrictions that are still in place, the old school way of organizing team building activities will not work.
Many leaders have found the solution: team building through online games with remote workers. Even though it may seem that virtual team building will not have the same effect as a live one, it comes with some benefits that otherwise were missing from the office environment.
By harnessing the technology readily available to you, your team members can get to know themselves and each other better and collaborate more effectively. So, what are some of the ways you can do team building through games with remote workers? Read on to discover.
Before the pandemic, there were many escape rooms that companies could hire for team-building exercises. These have been shifted to online, which seems to meet the expectations of leaders and teams for the moment. However, not being able to see your colleagues face-to-face for such a long time could erode the trust and cohesion of the team.
This is why many team leaders think about and appreciate the importance of having virtual team building events. These activities help employees connect, engage in relaxing activities together, and work towards achieving the same goal. Even though team building could be a simple game, the experience will strengthen the bonds between team members and will help them collaborate and communicate better in work-related settings.
So, virtual escape rooms are one of the three ways to do team building through games with remote workers. The themes are diverse and you can choose from various storylines such as escaping prison, solving an art heist, finding stolen money or gold, and so forth. Every team player will have the same digital dashboard where he or she can collect clues and share them with the entire team, to work on solving the mystery.
For example, an escape room activity can involve up to eight players. They have one hour to solve the mystery, and the limited time will help them bond and collaborate better as they work together toward the deadline. Virtual escape rooms will help employees get to know each other better and find out new things about each other’s expertise as much as live escape rooms would (or even more so).
Some game types can turn out to be pretty challenging while also supporting the bonding between players. One of these types of games is the guessing game that is based on personal facts about every team member.
Getting to know more about your team members will increase collaboration and the cohesion of the team.
The game should go like this:
This is an interesting game that could bring about some new insights about each other. Even though the interaction between team members is mostly done virtually, it’s a great way to do team building during these times of isolation.
Bucket lists seem to define our lives and interests, but they also show our personality and dreams for the future. Bucket lists have surely expanded during this year of restrictions and lockdown measures, and people love to share their dreams and wishes with others. People want to do a lot of things, to travel to exotic destinations, and discover the world. Why not encourage everyone to sharing these within the team?
People love to share their dreams and wishes with others.
Remote work has reduced the friendly interactions team members were previously having because nowadays they mostly talk about work-related topics on intranets and professional chat apps like Slack.
This game can be played with the whole team during a virtual meeting or as an ice-breaker. Your bucket list says a lot about yourself, your plans for the future and what motivates you.
As a team leader, you can choose teams and then ask each team member to share his or her bucket list. For example, one of the most popular topics for bucket lists is traveling destinations. Make sure to give everyone the opportunity to share why they chose their dream destinations and make room for casual and friendly chatting around these.
As remote work has become the new normal, the cohesion and trust within the team might easily get eroded. To combat all the negative effects remote work could have on teams, team leaders can easily do team building through games.
Three of these games are virtual escape rooms, bucket list sharing, and guessing games. Team members can find out more about themselves, their plans for the future, personality, or dreams during these games. They can also contribute to increased collaboration, communication, and cohesion within the team. This is exactly what every remote worker needs in order to strengthen their partnership with team members.
Rosa Hemming is a blogger and professional content writing expert from the United States, who currently works at ninjaessay. She is keen on movies and serials. Her blog consists of lists of the best films divided by genre and for different moods. Find her on Twitter.
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