If the search stats for ‘virtual team building’ over the past few months are anything to go by, companies around the world have started to make peace with the fact that they will be working with remote and dispersed teams for quite a while.
In fact, some South African businesses have found that they quite prefer the new status quo.
Of course, the idea of virtual teams is not a new one. Companies like SAP, IMB and General Electric have been reaping the benefits of working with high-performance virtual teams for years.
In fact, as one of the world’s largest inter-enterprise software companies, SAP has 30 000+ employees in 60+ countries, including Germany, the US, India, China and Israel. Each of its research and development centres has a specific area of expertise and shares it with the whole company, which keeps costs lower. It also allows managers to call up virtual teams made up of employees from each specialty group when they need to address new business challenges.
The key to making a set-up like this work, lies in good communication and epic virtual team building. After all, when you’re collaborating with co-workers half a world away, you can’t exactly hightail it to Bootleggers for a flat white for a chat to get to know one another. Throw in some crazy time difference, and things become even more complex.
Fortunately, we live in the age of connectivity, which means that there are all sorts of fun and interesting ways to get some cohesion going between virtual team members.
Here are nine virtual team building ideas that can be enjoyed via the web (which, of course, also makes it ideal for social distancing):
1. See the big picture with pixel art
Challenge your teams to level up and think outside the box by collaborating on a creative pixel art project. Have them reach consensus in design choices and compete with other teams in order to win a prize. Bonus points if you can tie it in with a diversity and inclusion initiative by having the theme focus on different cultures, fashions, eras, etc. This is a fun, inexpensive way for remote teams to work together on something other than their day-to-day tasks.
2. Encourage peer-to-peer recognition
Employee recognition and reward is one of the most effective ways to promote engagement, and it also has great team building potential when there is a focus on facilitating ongoing peer-to-peer recognition as a part of your company culture. When you have a SaaS-based platform that makes it easy to tie recognition to business objectives as well as to your overarching organisational ethos, it becomes almost effortless to boost employee engagement in this way.
Read more: The tried and tested employee recognition framework to boost motivation and performance
3. Get together for happy hour
Have something cool delivered to each of your team members, and get together via Zoom or your preferred video conferencing platform to share a drink at the end of the day. There may be a little admin involved if your team is dispersed across various countries, but it can be done. Also check to see who prefers non-alcoholic options and treat them to some nice juice or kombucha instead.
4. Play Cyber CSI
You gotta love the South African entrepreneurial spirit. Companies like these are coming up with all kinds of socially distant corporate team building ideas. This includes ‘Cyber CSI’, which entails a murder mystery featuring interactive characters, a compelling story and many opportunities to connect and explore around the Greyville Race Track in virtual 3D. Bonus points if you can get your team to dress up while they partake!
5. Lunch date roulette
Get a game of ongoing lunch date roulette started- match pairs of team members randomly each week. They then have to make a date to share a lunch date via their preferred video conferencing platform to get to know one another a little better. It doesn’t have to be long, but the rule is they cannot talk about work and they need to learn at least 5 interesting things about one another.
6. Create cool playlists
When you’re working from home, a cool playlist can make all the difference. Get your teams to collaborate on Spotify or Apple Music playlists, according to theme. For instance, you could have a ‘fast and furious’ playlist for when you need to get things done quick sticks, and a ‘chill vibes’ playlist for when things are a little frantic and you need to pull yourself towards yourself.
7. Get to grips with your personas
Get everyone to do this really cool, comprehensive, free online quiz to see which personality they have. Then host a casual Zoom meeting to see who got what and if there are any overlaps in personalities in your team. Each team member can also share some interesting aspects of the results that they felt resonated very well with their picture of themselves, and something that surprised them. This is a great way to learn more about how people think and act, and can be invaluable in a work environment.
8. Create a community of plant buddies
Gift each team member with a voucher to buy themselves their choice of indoor plant. They then have to name this plant, keep it alive and send regular proof of life pictures to share how it’s doing. House plants have numerous health benefits, and you may just find that a little community of gardening enthusiasts may assemble as a result.
9. Host digital yoga or Pilates sessions
Yoga and Pilates are known to increase body awareness, relieve stress, reduce muscle tension, strain, and inflammation, sharpen attention and concentration, and calm and centre the nervous system. Treat your team to a regular online session by a trained professional that they can tap into via a shared digital platform. Bonus points if you throw in some branded activewear!
There you have it – 9 epic virtual team building ideas to nurture a strong team in the age of digital disruption. Have fun!
In the meantime, remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel for some short and sweet video content on everything from bridging common employee engagement barriers, to creating a communication strategy that suits the needs of your company.