virtual team building

COVID-19 crisis has crippled the usual world order and impacted businesses across all sectors. Today, most organizations are working remotely due to the national lockdown to contain the spread of the virus. While work from home gives employees enough freedom, it comes with several challenges. In a physical office, people frequently chat, stop by coworkers’ cubicles, and even hang out after work, but remote working space often doesn’t have that luxury. This can have a severe impact on employees’ productivity, and, eventually, companies’ profits. So, team managers must find new ways to keep up the team spirit. This is where virtual team building activities come into play.

In this article, we have provided complete insights on virtual team building and also highlighted some approaches to team building to enrich remote work.

Why Virtual Team Building Matters?

Efficient communication and teamwork are imperative for the success of any business. Virtual team exercises make it easier for team leaders to enhance coordination between the team members. This can subsequently lead to increased productivity and higher business outcomes. Here are some other benefits of efficient communication between the team members.

Increases Productivity:

Working from home makes it extremely difficult for employees to concentrate on work. Team building games enable team leaders to bring all the employees together virtually and remind them of their goals and objectives. Also, constant virtual meetings encourage team members to collaborate with others for tasks and overcome barriers. This can subsequently increase productivity and, in a way, keep employees connected.

Combat Loneliness:

Although remote working allows employees to stay close to their families, many face a lack of support from coworkers. To tackle the feeling of loneliness, virtual meetings and calls can help a lot. Virtual calls and meetings allow employees to share their feelings with their colleagues and participate in informal discussions.

Enhances Collaboration:

It is said that when relationships between employees are strong, there are always better business outcomes. The primary goal of team building activities is to strengthen employee relationships and enhance collaboration.

Top Approaches to Virtual Team Building:

Video Chats:

The idea of video chats may seem trivial at first, but is it one of the best ways to keep employees connected. Apart from the formal conversations, teams can connect once in a week over a cup of coffee to exchange some informal discussions. Initially, it may not go well as people may be hesitant to open up over video chats. But, maybe in a week or so, this exercise will bring employees closer to one another and improve their work relationships.

Group video chats also allow employees to feel close enough to each other for brainstorming and collaboration. And leveraging video chats enables team members to collaborate from any location, achieve work-life balance, and eventually improves job satisfaction.

Virtual Book Club:

As most of the entertainment spots are closed due to the national lockdown, organizations can leverage activities such as virtual book club to keep employees connected. In this approach, employees will get a chance to connect with likeminded people in their organization. The main motive behind this approach is to make employees read the same materials and discuss thoughts altogether. As a team leader, you may also make employees read the best project management books or other fictions.

Weekly Gaming Session:

To motive your employees in the middle of a week, you can conduct gaming sessions. There are endless games that people can play remotely. Choose different games every week based on your employees’ preferences and play as a group. If your team enjoys traditional board games, there are some virtual options for them too.

Team Movie Night:

Virtual movie nights are even becoming popular these days when most of the people are spending more of their time at home. Virtual movie night involves hosting a team movie night and streaming it through a conference call for the entire team to watch. You can choose movies based on your employees’ preferences to make the session more exciting and fun. Also, consider opening a chat channel to share reactions and comments during the movie too.

Wrapping Up:

Different organizations leverage different team-building activities based on their employees’ preferences. All organizations, whether small or large, can perform team building activities to enhance communication, increase productivity, and reduce employee attrition. Virtual team-building exercises can transform your remote work employees and make them feel connected, engaged, and happy at work.

Related: Effective Virtual Team Building Activities For Remote Teams Part-2