One of the biggest challenges facing companies today is the shift in demand for remote and hybrid working. During the pandemic, many companies were forced to adapt and allow their employees to work from home. While restrictions have now been lifted, many workers are reluctant to give up these freedoms.
This presents a unique challenge for companies trying to build strong and resilient teams. Without day-to-day contact in the office, it can be difficult to organise events like team building activities. And team building is more important than ever before when you consider that employees rarely have any face-to-face time with their colleagues.
With this in mind, we’re looking at some team building activities you can try with a remote or hybrid working team. If you struggle to get everyone in the same place at the same time, these team building strategies can help to bring everyone together on the same page.
Why is team building so important?
First things first, why should you even bother with team building?
It’s a good question, and one worth exploring in more detail.
Team building is something that takes time and resources, so you want to make sure that it’s going to have a positive outcome for your company. And the good news is that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of team building.
Team building helps to build trust, develop psychological safety, enhance communication, boost creativity and allows everyone to be more collaborative. This can lead to lower stress levels, enhanced productivity, fewer sick days and more profitability for your business.
With hybrid and remote teams, the challenge is to make everyone feel connected to the central goals, with fewer opportunities to collaborate in person. Employees will have to rely on digital tools to bridge the gap, or find a purpose and reason to get together frequently. And this is where team building comes in.
Team building for remote or hybrid teams: the challenges
The main challenge you’ll face when creating a plan for team building with a remote or hybrid team will be to get everyone on the same page. You’ll need to learn to read their calendars and come up with a flexible plan for team building activities.
It’s important to keep things flexible when working with remote teams, or accept that attendance might only reach around 80%. Provided everyone gets a chance to take part in the activities regularly, it doesn’t matter if you don’t reach 100% attendance for everything you plan.
By making team building a regular part of your company calendar, it should hopefully become something that people look forward to – particularly if they are missing the office environment.
Activities to consider for remote or hybrid team building
Ready to start filling up your calendar with team-building events? Consider these as a great place to start your journey towards a stronger team.
Weekly or monthly video calls
Perhaps the simplest place to start is with regular check-ins with your team. While this might have a business purpose, make sure you include time at the start or the end of the call for icebreakers and personal catch ups so that everyone can feel connected. A fun task is to challenge everyone to a “show and tell” where they share a story about something in their environment. This could be as simple as introducing their children and pets to the group.
Company picnic
Planning an annual company picnic is a great way to bring together everyone in one place to get to know each other. You could also plan an annual Christmas party for the same purposes. Consider including some team building activities in the festivities to help make this as productive as possible. A bi-annual get together should be easy enough to plan, even for difficult to pin down employees.
Outdoor challenge
If you want your team to bond over a shared feat such as a physical challenge, consider a long distance bike ride. This is an excellent choice if you have a particularly active team who like to use the time saved on their commute to get moving. A long distance cycle challenge will require months of preparation, culminating in the team coming together for the final event. The purpose is not to win the race as an individual, but to cross the finish line together, keeping each other motivated along the way.
Book club
A virtual book club can be held once a month and will help to encourage everyone to read more and engage with their co-workers. This is a surprising way to build resilient teams, as discussing a book together helps to find common ground and similarities. When talking about literature, we bring a lot of our own experiences to the table, and sharing these can help everyone to connect with their teammates in a more authentic way.
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