Top 5 Virtual Team Building Strategies for Your Remote Team
With COVID-19 disrupting businesses all over, most teams have been forced to go remote. As a result, managers are looking for ways to virtually conduct team building activities for remote teams. That’s why we have researched some ideas, tools, tactics, and strategies you’ll need to conduct team-building exercises successfully online.
What is a virtual team building?
Virtual team building is the continuous virtual activity of bringing remote teams together. It’ll help your remote team achieve deeper connections by creating a collaborative environment that’s similar to an in-office setup!
Why is virtual team building important?
The physical distance of remote team members can quickly turn into an emotional distance which in turn, may lead to social isolation. And believe me, when your employees feel isolated, they won’t be as comfortable working alongside their fellow team members as working in an office setting! This is why it’s important to create a team environment where remote workers can engage and collaborate comfortably.
Virtual team-building efforts may include several carefully designed strategies, games, and activities that are meant to bring more human interaction to their daily work. It’ll help your team engage with each other—making them feel like they’re actually part of a community! And of course, a happier team obviously leads to higher productivity and employee retention!
Need strategies for engaging team building activities? Here are some strategies you can use to bring your virtual team closer:
- Promote employee engagement: In times of social distancing and remote working, employee engagement activities have to take place virtually. And this is where CircleCare comes to the rescue. CircleCare is the ultimate corporate employee engagement app that serves as a private social networking app for your remote employees. CircleCare not only promotes employee engagement but also helps organizations strengthen their culture and operate with higher productivity. You can learn more about them here.
- Focus on productivity: Focus on tools that improve employee productivity. For example, CloudDesk is an employee monitoring software with user productivity tracking and analytics features that can be used to increase productivity, streamline operational efficiency, and harden security. Once their productivity increases, they automatically feel a sense of accomplishment and will automatically inspire others in the team.
- Face to face communication: Schedule regular face-to-face time for your entire team or on a one-on-one basis. These face-to-face meetings can be easily conducted via video conferencing tools. Also, try to occasionally schedule some facetime in person if possible, for training, performance reviews, and building relationships.
- Encourage collaborative leadership: Collaborative approaches to problem-solving merge diverse points of view to resolve conflicts. When it comes to virtual team management, collaboration is preferred as the team leader cannot be in each location meeting with each stakeholder. In a collaborative leadership approach, each team member assumes a leadership role whenever required, making sure he or she communicates with the team lead and other members of the team as needed. This spreads a shared sense of power among team members, as well as mutual trust and rapport.
- Set standards: Different team members have different ways of approaching tasks. That’s why having some standards can shorten the time needed to achieve the desired result. By setting standards and defining repeatable work systems, the team has generally fewer questions and gets a clear understanding of how long certain tasks should take. These work systems need to be both standardized to allow for maximum effectiveness and tailored to allow the necessary freedom for the whole team.
We hope the strategies we’ve discussed have left you feeling informed about what it takes to plan successful virtual team building activities and also empowered to see what works for your own unique and special team.
