November
28, 2020
5 min read
The opinions expressed by the entrepreneur's contributors are their own.
Team building has been identified as a very important investment that you as a business owner can make. When you have a team of employees, you likely spend a lot of time thinking about ways to increase productivity and the quality of work. However, it's important to also spend time building the corporate culture and finding the right work-life balance on your team. Here are a few activities that will help remote workers stay connected:
Related: Tame Your Sales With These 4 Team Building Ideas
1. Virtual coffees
As a company that works with remote workers, you may not have the freedom to physically meet with your coworkers for coffee. The nice thing about the internet is that you can hold virtual coffee meetings pretty easily. Just grab a cup of coffee and make an appointment to chat!
You can have a virtual coffee meet every Monday morning before everyone starts their work. This is about doing less business and work and more team building. There is nothing wrong with building a relationship between your employees.
2. Book Club
One way to effectively build a team with your employees is to grow together. Reading great books that everyone is interested in and engaged in together, and then discussing what you learn can help you grow as a company.
Although business and finance related books are the easiest subject, you can also have fun and write fiction books too. Since the idea of a corporate book club is for team building, you should also consider holding one of your employees responsible for the event.
Related: 11 Affordable Employee Morale Boosters
3rd game night
There are many different games that you can play together, both virtually and physically. If you are in the same town you can meet up for board games and drinks. When you are far away you can play games together online. If games aren't your staff's special imagination, you can watch parties for movies or TV shows online.
If you are unsure of how to play online games, think about what you would normally do while camping if there are no board games, cards, or similar items on hand. While using Zoom, Skype, or an online video conference, playing a game like Charades is still very easy.
4. Happy hour (also known as virtual drinks)
One of the most common recreational activities people enjoy around the world is having a drink to unwind after a long day. As an employer of remote workers, it's nice to show your entertaining side and not just engage in exclusively business activities with your employees.
If you can't meet on-site, schedule a time for a virtual happy hour. For the most part, people have no problem making time for a drink.
5. Quarterly face-to-face meetings
Consider meeting employees face-to-face every fiscal quarter. It is important that you have a conversation with your employees. Corporate retreats are one of the best ways to do this. During this time there should be a good balance between work and leisure. Try to focus on getting in touch with everyone who will help you with your business. Show them that they are valued and make sure you have a full list for team building, cross-training, fun activities, and of course, some downtime so everyone can relax.
Related Topics: Six Tactics To Improve Collaboration For Remote Teams
6. Monthly competitions
Monthly contests are a great way to get in touch with your employees and create a fun atmosphere where people playfully compete with each other. These competitions can be designed to increase productivity, increase employee retention, and so on.
You don't want the competition to be something where the reward is so small that people don't care about the competition. Try giving away special rewards, gift cards, or something that will make everyone more motivated to compete.
7. Virtual quiz night
Everyone loves a quiz game. For the best results, relate the content of Quiz Night to something that everyone in your company will face. If your business is into online marketing, ask them about internet marketing-related terms like drip campaigns, A / B testing, SEO, etc.
If you want to make things more interesting, you can try giving out prizes for the winners. If it's a routine activity, you can change the subject of the trivia content.
Why focus on team building?
Team building is an important part of business education. You need to see your employees way more than people helping you generate income. Realizing that these are people who are ready to be your friend and co-worker, you can easily build a positive company culture and a loyal group of co-workers ready to help you for years.
