When working remotely, keeping your workers motivated as a team can be overwhelming. It is not an easy task. Communication and working aren’t the same when you and your team members aren’t together, so you have to implement certain practices to get the best results with remote working.
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In remote working, you tend to lose essential elements of healthy communication. You are not there to give each support, share goals, and, most importantly, have fun together. These things are necessary for a strong team. You need to make sure to keep them alive remotely. So we’re suggesting some activities to keep your team engaging and connected.
Start a Virtual Break Space
In-house teams lack daily communication, something they enjoyed while on-site. They miss the idle chats that take place on the office floor. These happen so naturally that you may not think of it in the office. Yet, they act as team-building components.
What you can do is set up a virtual office. This is where your team members will log in during the morning. This platform or virtual office will give your colleagues the opportunity to work normally just as they would over video. This will allow casual conversation between the team members, and your team members can motivate each other with their abilities and hard work.
Start Virtual Tours of Remote Work Stations
Sharing space is another important component of a team. Your members can lose this once they start working remotely. There are ways you can instil the feeling of working together in your team. One way is to start virtual tours of each teammate’s work station.
Ask your teammates to take turns and give a short tour of their home working space on video. You and your employees will be able to see how each of the members has set up their working space. This will be very exciting and will make communication more personal among the team.
It will be nice to see each team member’s personal working space. Everyone can point out their favourite items, be it their collection of favourite books and movies, or a beautiful painting or scenery.
These tours will help the employees get to know each other better. They get the chance to bond over any mutual interest.
Set Friendly Challenges
Healthy competition never hurt anyone. In fact, it brings people close together. To ease the pressure from daily work, you can set up friendly challenges among the members. An excellent idea for this can be a fitness challenge. Not only does it introduce fun rivalry, but it is also a win-win situation in the end.
Setting fitness challenge can help improve the team’s members well-being. These challenges can be as simple as seeing who can walk the most steps in the month. If your team is more physically active, they can aim for the longest-running distance in a month. Set goals in a way that your team member’s fitness tracker can easily keep count.
Allow Employees to Exchange their Skills
When working together, team members get to learn something from each other. Every member of your team has a unique skill or talent. Create time for members to take turns and teach their team something new. It can be something as fun as solving a Rubik’s cube or juggling. Or, they can exchange tips for writing emails effectively or answering tricky interview questions.
This will allow the team to take interest and appreciate each other’s skills and knowledge. This can also lead to better collaboration in the long run.
Send Daily Snapshots
A ‘daily snapshot’ idea is a simple and fun way to keep the team strong and connected. Encourage your employees to share a picture of something. It can be anything like something they had for lunch or their pair of favourite comfy pyjamas.
Teams can comment on the picture, and so it will form an ongoing conversation. It is a nice way to have related lighthearted chat every day. This will help the members bond through regular insights into each others’ lives.
When the team is working remotely, forming relationships and maintaining bonds needs constant work. While you have devised a communication system through Zoom or other platforms, it isn’t enough to maintain relationships. Doing a little extra like giving virtual tours of the home office or sending daily snapshots can help. These activities are crucial for your team to stay connected and motivated.
