One of the major downsides of remote working is the disengagement that leads to lack of motivation to work. Loneliness, lack of collaboration and communication, and not staying motivated are the main downsides of remote working. To cope with this, virtual team meetings and activities have to be included as a part of everyday exercise, a way to communicate with co-workers who rarely meet. Just a few minutes’ exercises to build team rapport can turn out to be beneficial.

Here are a few suggestions that work,

Virtual Coffee Meetings/ Lunch

Once a month team lunch or coffee meetings is a great way to connect with the co-workers. 30mins coffee meeting or a 60mins lunch meeting. This can help you socialise and stay connected with the team members. The company can sponsor a fixed small budget for these meetings so that each member can choose their favourite café or restaurant to login from or even use food delivery services to order food at home (In the times of pandemic, staying home is the safest) These meetings are a fun variation to regular meetings and can help the team socialise and learn about one another.

Virtual Games

Pictionary, charades, photography competitions, online quiz and puzzles, and online games- UNO, Ludo, Bingo. There are several games available online, you can choose the best that suits your crowd. Schedule a 30mins virtual games activity every 15 days or once in a month. This helps the team get closer, build trust and become friendlier.

Recommendations

We all like to either watch good movies or listen to good music or read books and poetry or visit places or try new food. A fun collaborative suggestions corner is a great way to communicate your personality and also help one another to discover new things. A simple once a month collecting each team members’ favourites and circulating it to the team can be a great idea or even a team call to discuss it can improve team dynamics.

Tips and Easy Hacks

Similar to the recommendations, we like simple hacks and shortcuts. Sharing them can come handy to the team members. Whether it is a simple shortcut of using the computer or household hacks, we all like to make our lives easy. Choose whatever works for you, monthly or weekly circulation of ideas and see how enthusiastic your team members are to learn new things.

The above are only a few suggestions that work well for remote teams. Read here to know in detail the activities that can improve your team’s relationship. You can try and experiment and see what suits your team. More than what you choose to do as team activity it is more about the purpose which points down to inclusion, building trust and improving collaboration and communication.