Virtual Team Bonding During COVID-19 (PART 2)
Social distancing can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness, so team bonding activities can be incredibly helpful for making people feel like they’re not alone.
Show and Tell
Lots of people love to share things about themselves. Bring back the spirit of grade-school with these activities and let employees share a part of their world with the rest of their team.
WFH Cribs. Much like MTV Cribs, have team members take turns showing where they’re spending all of their time.
What Is This Thing? Employees can take turns sharing a zoomed-in image of something. The rest of the team then tries to guess what the object is based on the macro shot provided.
This Is My Workspace. Round up aerial views of your team’s desks and workspaces. Bonus edition? Messy desks (because who doesn’t love a good mess that you don’t have to clean up?).
Play the Game
With online gaming being what it is today, there are lots of options out there for virtual gaming. However, people might need more real-life interaction than online gaming provides. Try these new takes on old-school games.
Whiteboard Pictionary. LIke the classic game, players must guess the keyword their teammate is drawing. Technology like Miro’s whiteboard or Zoom’s whiteboard feature can help make this possible.
Zoom I-SPY. Best with medium-sized teams using Zoom’s gallery mode, this game relies on a good eye and the whole team being on video. Employees take turns choosing something they spy in the grid of faces while everyone else tries to guess what it is. This one really takes face-to-face connection seriously!
Museum Bingo. This activity works really well with the virtual museum tours being made available right now (like The Louvre). Prepare this for your team by creating bingo cards that include features present in one of the tours. Not only will your employees get to enjoy some culture, but they’ll also be prompted to look more closely at everything.
Volunteer Virtually
It’s important that your employees take care of themselves. But if your team members are intent on helping others during this time, they’ve got a number of options for volunteering.
Make something useful. As others around the world create important and life-saving things like ventilators from 3D machines, it can make your team want to help. Helpful Engineering shares the things they need designed and created that will help in the worldwide efforts.
Sew masks. This one might require some upfront preparation, but teammates who know how to sew could come together to make masks for healthcare workers. Participants are urged to use whatever they have on hand at home as long as it meets the requirements available for mask creation. Check out Amazon for for the mask sewing supplies.
Keep up the search. If your team is hungry for more opportunities, you can find more open calls for help at sites like Idealist and Covid Projects.
Personalize Operations
Even standard processes have the potential to be more engaging. Making a few simple operational changes can help your team better connect, collaborate, and contribute.
Turn the video on for meetings. Seeing the faces of others can help your team feel more connected, limiting feelings of isolation. Enjoy the benefits of face-to-face interaction on a large scale by having regular company-wide check-ins over video. Seeing everyone in the company can have a big impact on your teams.
Send out a daily newsletter. At a time when we’re all a bit unsure of what tomorrow will bring, having a recap of company news and internal updates can help your team feel connected and part of the larger team.
Customize tools to help your team. Tools like Slack make it easy to create and personalize features for your employees.
As you can see, there are plenty of ways your team can bond even when they’re far apart. At a time when employees need to feel connected more than ever, it’s the experiences they share that help them get through each day. Hopefully you can help your team share some of these experiences as we get through each day of this together.
Original source: JUSTWORKS, author Amanda Beach, April 1st 2020
Photo Credit: West77 Apartments