Remote Team Building Activities

Remote team building activities are becoming increasingly popular as more and more companies are turning to remote work.

This is not necessarily a consequence of the pandemic alone. Many corporates had begun encouraging their staff to work remotely, for multiple reasons like being able to leverage people working in far off places.

Those working in distant spots can also sometimes be hired at better costs as the cost of living where they work could be lower. Plus, the wage rates where they work maybe lesser too.

In this situation, team building online has become very crucial. There are many reasons why, let us look at some of them.

The most obvious is, of course, is that it helps remote teams stay connected. While teams do, of course, meet each other online every day, the fact remains that the bonus of some remote team building activities could encourage them to connect a little more often.

More important, team building online can help teams to build trust and collaboration. Most such games and tasks require team members to rely on each other to complete whatever they are to do. They leave players with no choice other than to entrust some crucial pieces of work to colleagues. This builds habits that can be carried forward into work.

Improved communication is an inevitable outcome of any team building online. Communicating with others is the very basis of all virtual team building activities. This becomes even more important when people are actually not sharing the same physical space.

One good end outcome inevitably is the boosting of team morale. That in turn always leads to increased productivity.

And when it comes to connecting the old with the new – that is, old timers in a team or a company with new joinees – they are the only way out. Virtual games are often an effective way to onboard new employees and ensure that everyone is on the same page.

This could include virtual team-building games, online discussion forums, or even virtual happy hours. By investing in these activities, remote teams can ensure that they remain connected and productive even when they’re working remotely.

These activities can take many forms, from virtual happy hours to online scavenger hunts or group challenges. The games have to be entirely different from what is done in the physical world. So, it requires a different kind of activity designer and brain, to conceptualise.

With the right tools and strategies in place, remote teams can use these activities to strengthen their relationships with each other. All this definitely fosters strong team relationships even when colleagues are not physically together. They create a sense of camaraderie among remote teams.

Virtual retreats and workshops are also now coming into vogue. Colleagues can actually seclude themselves online into communities and groups, to immerse in engagement and activities. This helps them, in the long run, to work together in more meaningful ways, regardless of their physical distance or differing cultures. And what could be better for a company than that.