Virtual team building consists of several carefully designed strategies, games, and activities designed to bring more human interaction to the virtual work. Online team building will help your team understand each other better – it will help them feel like they are part of a community. And, of course, a happy team leads to an increase in the percentage of “employee retention.”
Difficulties in developing effective team building
The challenge in building good relationships with most remote teams is that your employees don’t have much time to plan different events. For these purposes, you should first take advantage of the Professional Employee Organization (PEO) Services, especially global PEOs, such as NHGlobal Partners that will allow you to transfer all of your human resources needs, allowing the service to collaborate with your employees. Another challenge you will have to face is that you and your employees can work in different time zones in most remote teams. For example, many activities and exercises can be accomplished by recording videos that you post in your workspace for each employee to see for hiring in Germany.
We’ve prepared some team-building exercises and other fun activities that you can use to bring your virtual team closer together.
1. Look into each other’s houses
This virtual team-building exercise requires members of each team to virtually “open” their homes to each other, as in House Hunters.
Jesse Sussman of MuseumHack thinks this is a fun way to get to know your remote team members and their personalities. Each team member will make a short video showcasing their home and some of their favorite things. This exercise allows team members to get to know each other better based on their environment and leads to cohesion and camaraderie. The creation of a virtual team is an ongoing process of merging remote teams. This process will help your team develop closer connections within the group, creating a collaborative environment similar to an office environment!
2. Desert island scenario
In this virtual team-building game, party members are presented with a scenario in which they end up on an uninhabited island with seven objects – but they can only take three of them. Keep these objects as obscure and complex as possible so that your team members are forced to make the most of critical thinking and planning. Then divide the team into small groups and choose which items they want to take with them. As soon as all discussions are over, go to the general video chat and discuss the results.
3. A game of guessing personal facts
This game is a great way to discover the interests of your team members outside of work.
In the first step, the manager asks each team member to share some personal facts with him. These facts will then be compiled into a document to be shared with each person on the team. There is an empty column next to each personal fact in which each employee will have to guess which team member this fact belongs to! Not only can this game be fun, but it can also be a great way to develop team cohesion and camaraderie. After all the assumptions are ready, the correct answers are sent to check how well they know each other.
4. A wish list. Share your plans for the future
A dream list is a list of things you want to do or experience during your life.
Naturally, each person’s list says a lot about them. So what better way to get to know your team members than by sharing your wishlists? Assign one person each week to share your wishlist. You can specify the length of these lists and decide if goals that have already been completed should be included. Anyone who listens can spend some time discussing whether their lists are similar or just asking fun questions. Here you can also make use of a weekly schedule template where you will get to write the professional ambitions that inspire you to work even harder.
By sharing your dreams, you will learn a lot and understand how similar you are to each other in a team.
Final thoughts
Remember! The physical distance of teleworking can quickly turn into emotional distance, leading to isolation. When your employees feel isolated, they will become uncomfortable working with their teammates! That’s why it is crucial to create a comfortable team environment that remote workers can rely on.
Guest Post This was a guest post by Shaun Parker