Prioritize (virtual) team connection and relationship-building . It’ll be interesting to hear everyone’s different thoughts. 1. You can even do this over the course of a few meetings, keeping track of the highest scores. Ensuring your team feels heard is critical for employee engagement, so don't overlook the basics. Eating lunch together as employees is a big part of building a healthy company culture and strong teams. Keep it anonymous or let others see what everyone answered, here are some ideas of things you can poll: who has the best work-station, new company outing ideas, cutest employee pet, the best recipe when working from home, gifts to get sent home, and more. While the employee onboarding process may be different in the virtual world, that doesn’t mean it has to be any less fun.In fact, quite the opposite is true – the shift towards remote working can give team members the chance to get to know each other more than they did while they were working in the office together.When it comes to introducing new team members, having a virtual-based onboarding process will be vital towards not only ensuring they remain motivated to get their work done but also reassured they’ve made the right choice in joining you. Team members can choose whatever they’d like to do for a 1-2 minute performance on the video call. Playing together will help increase communication, motivate your team, and build your virtual company culture that will be useful later on when there’s work to be done. A peek into each other’s homes This virtual team building exercise requires team members to virtually open their homes to one another like in House Hunters or MTV Cribs. For now, at least, the days of in-person meetings, team lunches and traditional onboarding processes are a thing of the past, replaced instead by video conferencing, at-home lunches and virtual, cloud-based employee onboarding processes.While many employees – typically the millennials among us – will have seen this transition as a good thing, there’s still a long way to go before it’s completely flawless.In terms of employee onboarding, helping a new starter feel like part of the team is a lot more difficult when everyone is working remotely.So, how can employers ensure their virtual onboarding process is effective enough? Fortunately, there are many ideas and activities your organization can implement to boost employee engagement. Surprise pop quizzes are great when you’re not being graded for it like in school, but a little leaderboard to spark friendly competitiveness won’t hurt either! Then, after a set number of rounds, the team with the most amount of points wins. Teams that need to stretch work from home arrangements over a month or two might find this more applicable. Hosting an online scavenger hunt is a fantastic method of improving morale while working from home. games like Jackbox Games have plenty of fun and short games that don’t require anyone to be an expert at gaming. ... You must also harness technology and social media to offer virtual kudos. Virtual teams are the new norm and it’s important that you get creative in engaging teams who work remotely. Sometimes being apart from each other for a prolonged period can decrease a team’s engagement. So giving each of your team members the opportunity to share how they’re feeling at that moment in a word or through an image, can still make them feel heard. Whether you go down the traditional quiz route or decide to focus on your company’s culture and memories, hosting a quiz is a great way of getting a new employee up to speed with who’s who in the team. Zoom games are fun activities played over Zoom. These activities are similar to online team building games and support virtual employee engagement. Get your team out of their chairs and moving, by organising a virtual scavenger hunt. So pick the wellness program ideas that’ll benefit your employees. Mood checks, also known as mood meters, are a courteous and fun way to check-in on how your team is doing at the start of the meeting. The fun is really in seeing each other’s expressions so keep the Zoom call running simultaneously. Each person is to create a short 1-2 paragraph story from that prompt. Virtual team building hits on a variety of different ways to boost employee engagement. Virtual team building is the act of building stronger relationships between remote workers. At the end of the week, take turns sharing a quick synopsis, what they would hypothetically award the book or film for (best script / best actor / best cinematography) and what their personal lessons were from the content, if any. For example, take a photo with a houseplant or pet, assemble five different household tools, find a family heirloom, etc. It could be poetry reading, singing a song, playing an instrument, dancing, or impersonating a famous person. These ideas are for collaborating creatively throughout the week on a non-work-related project. Encourage your team to engage in some online team building activities to bring out their competitive spirit. There’s also colonist.io which is a free digital alternative to The Settlers of Catan board game - a great strategy game that is family-friendly. Here are some ideas that could help boost teamwork online. Here are a few writing prompts to start with. Create remote team building opportunties through playing simple online games together! When you think about how the employee onboarding process would be in an office-based environment, coffee breaks are one of the most effective ways of getting to know one other.Set up a virtual room where employees can drop in and out as they wish, allowing everyone to have a quick one-to-one chat with each other about various non-work-related issues.Even if it’s simply a five-minute biscuit break in between writing reports, your new team member will appreciate having the chance to get to know their team whenever they feel ready to. Each person is to create a short 1-2 paragraph story from that prompt. Here’s a list of 17 fun team building ideas and engaging activities you can use to bring your virtual team closer: 1. Kevin Sheridan, A New York best-selling author, says the bottom line to employee engagement is instituting health and wellness programs. Start with really listening to your workforce, recognizing achievements frequently , building a culture that supports engagement, and engaging new employees from the beginning. Appoint a team member with more baking experience to facilitate this session. Employee engagement idea #2: Regular check … Your team members can take turns running a class, or you can collectively join an online workout class run by a professional. Using Tom Hanks and the film Cast Away as a metaphor for the mass migration over to working remotely is a bit twisted considering he and his wife, Rita Wilson, are among those who contracted the COVID-19 novel coronavirus. You can allocate about 10 - 15 minutes at the start of your meeting for an open mic session. Register now. Send a Whatsapp message to your team members with a daily writing prompt. games like, have plenty of fun and short games that don’t require anyone to be an expert at gaming. Send a Whatsapp message to your team members with a daily writing prompt. 9 Actionable Employee Engagement Ideas & Activities. Use any of the icebreakers below to overcome that awkwardness and conduct effective remote meetings. Get your team out of their chairs and moving, by organising a virtual scavenger hunt. 12 virtual team building games and activities. Community Coffee Breaks. 3. Whether your company is mainly made up of extroverts, introverts, feelers, thinkers, judgers or perceivers, getting to know each member on a deeper level will make it easier for remote workers to learn how to communicate most effectively with them. Remote work: 10 great ideas to engage employees. Two tools that should be in your arsenal for virtual team building activities are ActionBound and GooseChase. You can get your remote team to warm up by doing the following exercises. When everyone gets together again, these pieces can be assembled into a big tapestry, a bit like these ones here. It feels good to know that what you do matters to someone. We’re always updating this list with new virtual team building games and ideas. You won’t need much here – just a good platform and the ability to come up with some great ideas. Virtual meetings can sometimes start with a few minutes of stiffness or awkwardness. … © Copyright Perkbox 2021. To spice things up, you could present surprise treats that are suitable for how the overall results turn out. As the organiser, you can even have conversation cards or talking prompts prepared beforehand to help get the ball rolling and ensure that the conversation is kept lively and inclusive for all personalities in the group. Just remember to make the grand prize worth it! Icebreakers for remote teams are activities you can do at the start of a virtual meeting to create quick, personal connections with your co-workers. You can even use it to break the ice by presenting a curated list of appropriate “Never have I ever” statements, where team members can select which statements apply to them, and get to know things they never knew about each other! Keep group learning going with a film or book club. Ask everyone to pick one that they’ve never watched / read before. When everyone gets together again, these pieces can be assembled into a big tapestry. 7 virtual team icebreaker activities to improve employee onboarding 1. This is a year where a lot of our beloved ones cannot get together for a … While some people might not like the idea of … Nevertheless, the occurrence with a virtual agent has higher chances of boosting your employee engagement score. Not every reason to jump on a Zoom call with your workmates needs to be work-related. The latest word is they are doing well and apparently eating too much Vegemite on their toast, so I’m not going to feel too bad about it. Yeah, I know. They can do this gradually in their free time. Finally, once everyone has shared their individual roses and thorns, ask each team member to share a ‘bud’ – something they’re looking forward to in the not-too-distant future.By encouraging these types of discussions, your employees will feel a lot more at ease in their work and will be thankful for having an opportunity to get any exciting news or stress off their chest.It’ll also give your new team member the chance to see how nurturing and supportive an environment your workplace is, making them feel assured in their choice to work with you. For multicultural teams, you could take it a step further and make it a learn and share session with a traditional-themed lunch. Simple. Then, allow the new team member to do the same so they can get to know the people they’ll be working with a little bit better. So, you can take a quick pause from your workday to do a virtual yoga or workout class with your team. The Rose, Thorn & Bud game is not only a great way of encouraging employees to speak up but it also creates a shared feeling of optimism and energy among the team – which can only be a good thing!The premise of the game is simple: 1. Just send out an invitation so everyone shows up on the Zoom call with their lunch in hand, and then enjoy eating and catching up virtually. There’s also. Barasha Medhi August 6, 2020. At the next meeting, everyone takes turns to share their short stories for each prompt. As many schools are moving activities from in-person to virtual settings in light of the COVID-19 crisis, many higher education professionals and campus event organizers are looking for new ways to engage students digitally. Employee engagement idea #1: Remote work playbook. P.S. The best managers know that modern workers want more than just a … Everyone picks a material of their choice - cloth, paper, or a lightweight item, and decorates it using paint, beads, buttons, magazine scraps, and bits and bobs to express their creativity. Everyone else who returns with an item within the allocated time will receive three points. Complete “X” number of steps daily. It’s important for people to remember that there’s meaning and joy in work, and sometimes these come in the form of camaraderie and staying creative! 10 Employee Engagement Ideas for Remote Workers. PowerReviews keeps it traditional by asking employees to submit ideas and requests for things they would like to change in the office. Gets together again, these pieces can be assembled into a big part of your efforts to improve employee 1... By organising a virtual agent has higher chances of boosting your employee engagement of improving morale working! 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