During the pandemic, new formats of working were introduced, which made it possible to complete the majority of daily work tasks via online platforms. Consequently, remote team building has become one of the main challenges for companies whose employees work from home. While it is quite easy to implement team-building exercises in a traditional offline setting, managers might come across a few obstacles trying to build relationships within their remote teams.
Virtual team-building activities for remote teams are the way to go if you want to promote team collaboration, increase employee engagement, and improve the overall environment within your entire team. Your online team should not be all about work, especially when informal interactions are proven to result in stronger teams.
One way to start remote team-building activities is to involve your workers in short virtual meetings during their breaks. Weljo provides a variety of entertaining options for virtual teams, from simple chats and online office games to collaborative meditation sessions and physical exercises via a virtual call. Read further to learn more about the importance and benefits of virtual team bonding.
Before starting to implement virtual team-building activities in your organization, you should learn what must be avoided in the first place. Many virtual event initiatives fail because of other factors that prevent the team from working successfully. To be sure that you will engage employees to the fullest, try to eliminate the following problems.
Remote work can sometimes become a burden when there are no clear boundaries between the responsibilities of each worker. This might result in overworking of some employees and the inefficiency of your virtual team.
Moreover, not only the scope of work for each team member should be defined clearly, but also it should be explained to all the other workers. This way, everyone will understand what their contribution to the company is and how others can help.
We are all human, and even when working within the virtual world, conflicts might arise. For those who work in person, these situations are easier to resolve. The team leader can choose to either separate the workers so their activities do not overlap with each other, find the solution to the common problems, or negotiate the communication options that would satisfy both sides.
With remote employees, the conflict might be hard to identify in the first place. A team building activity that would help to learn about all the workers' problems or their complaints to others can be introduced. If the conflict has already appeared within the team, suggest the possible ways of coming out of it or offer your team the solutions for overcoming any personal clashes.
Improving team morale is important for creating a comfortable environment for others to work in. Moreover, once any virtual team challenges are overcome, healthy communication will be restored as well.
Speaking of communications within the team that is working remotely, it is crucial to have information channels for everyone to use. Employees engaged in common information systems will work more effectively, as the time of searching for any necessary data will be reduced.
Productive remote teams engage in active information exchange, which allows them to share their achievements and contributions to the common goal. Whether it is a daily video call or a platform with posts from different workers, an effective communication system should be established.
When there is no trust between the team members, many aspects of the work become inefficient. For instance, an employee might become isolated in terms of contributing new ideas, expressing opinions, or sharing information that other team members can find useful. A virtual office adds another obstacle of feeling left out and not on the same wavelength as others.
This is another thing that makes virtual team building important. Practicing team building for remote teams can help with developing interpersonal connections and easy communication. Online team-building activities can also be a great opportunity for employees to show their sides that others might not know about.
Thus, remote teamwork can be quite challenging. However, it does not mean that building a comfortable and productive remote company culture is impossible. With the implementation of effective virtual team-building events and fun virtual games, like the ones offered by Weljo, you will be able to engage your team and achieve successful results.
To build strong remote teams, proper virtual activity should be implemented. When team leaders introduce team building online, a variety of working and interpersonal aspects improve, making it easier for the team to work towards common goals.
If you are still not sure whether your virtual team actually needs team building, take a look at the following improvements that follow such activities:
Virtual team-building activities are crucial for any modern company that wants to see its workers succeed. Implementation of team building activities and bonding techniques facilitates a healthy working environment and motivation among the employees. Any team leader should encourage their remote team members to actively participate not only in the working routine but in virtual team activities as well.
To engage remote teams in your virtual team-building ideas, try out different methods of making your virtual meetings fun and entertaining. If you are not sure how to turn a conference into a fun game or how to make your virtual team closer to each other, read further for some useful techniques.
Virtual team-building activities do not have to be major events with high levels of organization. In fact, daily virtual conference calls with colleagues to discuss out-of-work things and simply spend a good time together might work more effectively than a huge virtual team-building event held once a year.
Recent research shows that the components of a successful remote working team include the level of energy put into the communications, engagement between the workers, and interactions between teams of different specializations within the company. One virtual team-building activity that can improve all of these aspects is virtual breaks.
Weljo offers companies and teams of any size and sphere of work ways of incorporating healthy communication tools. Organizing breaks via a virtual conference call is easier when the workers have a choice of how to spend their free time during the workday. Adding Weljo to the video conferencing software of your choice is one of the most efficient ways of virtual team building.
With the tools provided by Weljo, workers can regulate the time of their breaks, from 5 to 30 minutes, and the number of participants in the virtual meeting. Now, your team members can play virtual team games or have virtual coffee breaks with the guidance of Weljo bot. Online games provide a good opportunity for workers to relax and chat informally while having fun and relaxing.
Taking care of your team's mental health is just as important. To practice mental health care habits, introduce your employees to video conference calls with guided meditations or even simple physical exercises that will help to relax after long hours of work. Performing team building virtually is not a difficult task when there is an opportunity for your workers to engage with each other after a Zoom call or a Microsoft Teams conference.
With such a virtual team-building tool as Weljo, the workers will feel less isolated even when they are working from home. Communication among team members will gradually build their trust in each other and, therefore, will make the work process more productive. What is more, the feeling of unity that arises from regular virtual meeting breaks can encourage the employees to stay with the team for a long time.
Many companies have already added Weljo breaks to their other virtual team events that facilitate team building. This tool is convenient to use, as it has many customizable features that allow workers to make their breaks as comfortable and beneficial as possible.
For example, the opportunity to change the break duration to anywhere between five and thirty minutes makes it easier not to get too carried away between important team meetings. The fun virtual team building breaks can be between two workers or a whole team, depending on the preferences and duration. Have a quick chat about a film you have recently seen, or take an active virtual dance party to move your body a bit.
Another cool thing about Weljo is that it helps to connect team members by their interests. Find another worker that has similar hobbies or likes to spend their free time the same way as you and enjoy your company for the break.
No matter what your virtual meeting fun consists of, your data will always be safe. All the connections are protected by secure algorithms that do not share any personal information of workers anywhere.
Weljo is supported by the majority of business online communication tools, like Slack, MS Teams, Zoom, MS Outlook, Gmail and Google Calendar. Thus, a nice break is just a couple of clicks away. Automated bot will give the participants hints on how to spend a good time with the team members and strengthen their bond.
In the modern age, when everyone is moving towards remote ways of working, it is quite a challenging task to keep the workers engaged and active within the team. If before, the common office chats and after-work gatherings could help to improve the trust and communication among employees. Now, with everyone being at home, it has become a lot harder. Lack of team building activities can lead to feelings of isolation, lack of interest in work, and problems with establishing healthy relationships with other workers.
Luckily, modern issues have brought modern solutions. With regular implementation of remote team building activities, leaders and managers can create the strongest teams, both in terms of working productivity and interpersonal connections.
Hosting a fun virtual team trivia, celebrating your successes with virtual happy hours, or even being environmentally conscious together by participating in a virtual trash challenge: there are plenty of opportunities to bond together.
Implementing such tools as Weljo will help any remote team to improve their communications skills and active listening, motivate them to work further after a relaxing break, and build trust, which is important for any successful business-making. Team building, especially for virtual working teams, is something that should not be avoided if you want your team to work efficiently towards the common goal.
Suggest the team members participate in fun breaks via Weljo, where they can share their interests, have a cup of coffee to bring them energy, or discuss the latest news. Informal chats are just as essential for the working process as the completion of formal tasks, so do not underestimate their power!
Invite your team to join Weljo now and watch them build strong relationships with each other. Just like that, you will see improved work results, as well as lower rates of turnover. Participate in fun games, take care of mental health, or talk about something that you are interested in by using simple Weljo tools. The motivation and productivity of the remote team start with smaller steps, and you can take them right now!
Team building is something all remote team leaders should pay special attention to. There are many activities to implement in your virtual working environment to make the team work better and enjoy the process. For instance, online games can be implemented. Another way is to organize common breaks where employees can chat and spend their free time how they like.
Remote team building includes the techniques used to increase trust among the workers, improve their communication, and engage them in the working process. With the right activities introduced to the team, the efficiency and the results of overall work improve majorly.
Modern technologies allow us to implement different team bonding techniques, even virtually. The team can use virtual meetings to discuss different off-work things and have informal chats to strengthen their trust in each other. Other fun activities, like doing physical exercises remotely or having a coffee break with other co-workers, can be introduced as well.
To avoid burnout and feeling of exclusion among remote employees, different team bonding methods should be implemented. They might vary depending on your team's.
