Team building events are a great way to boost team morale, improve communication and create a welcoming workplace atmosphere. Usually, team building events run as a face-to-face activity that brings staff together for an interactive challenge or game. You may not be able to run traditional team-building exercises during the pandemic, but there are many alternative ways that you can bring your team together with online team building activities. Team building is an essential part of team collaboration, which is just as important during the lockdown as it is in the office. Just because employers are working from their homes, doesn’t mean that they can’t stay connected. So, how exactly can employers still run team building events?
Virtual games
Games bring out the best in everyone and encourage even the quietest team members to speak up. There are many virtual team games available for companies to play with their team. This form of virtual team building can be done from anywhere in the world. To make the games even better, you could split your team into groups and encourage them to make team names. Games are a great way to bring people together and support each other in challenges against opposing team members. Virtual games may also provide your team with a well-needed boost of fun in their day – lockdown has cancelled most social events, so a virtual team game on zoom may just be the highlight of their week!
Health challenges
One of the best virtual team building activities is a health challenge. Health challenges encourage employees to look after their bodies as well as to connect with other members of the team. You could connect your workplace to a corporate wellness platform and take part in friendly contests. These contests include small challenges, such as walking X amount of steps or performing lunges X times a day. Keeping active is an important part of staying fit and well during the pandemic. Your team may be stuck at home, hunched over their laptops all day. Health challenges encourage them to move around which will have huge long-term health benefits. It’s also much easier to motivate yourself to exercise when you are competing against other people in a challenge!
Quizzes
Quizzes are an easy way to bring some light-hearted or informative team building activities to the table. With a quiz, you can incorporate team building with learning new information about the company or, you could keep it fun and quiz staff about their coworkers. You can easily hold a team quiz over zoom – you just need a dedicated quizmaster and someone to keep score. Many workplaces are holding happy hour quizzes in the evenings after work. These quizzes mimic those usually found in pubs and employees are encouraged to bring a drink and involve their families. Quizzes are always fun and are a guaranteed way to get team members socialising with each other during lockdown.