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As our work culture is gradually changing, several new trends have emerged in the corporate arena over the past few decades. COVID-19 has also played a great role in disrupting the world order, thereby paving way for a grand change in the business world. The practice to hire virtual workers is one such trend that has become a successful business endeavour due to the constant advancement in the area of cloud computing and real-time collaboration tools. Initially, there were a lot of inhibitions around hiring remote workforce, but seeing numerous organisations excel because of this unique working model has made others more confident to take this leap of faith.
Now, business owners have started considering their remote employees as an extended part of their in-house team. Not only do they accredit their virtual staff for their success, but also try to establish a sound relationship with them to make their workflow smoother. Measures like organising activities for virtual workers have become a necessity in the outsourcing industry to keep the team spirit alive, and make the remote employees feel valued. These frivolous activities help the employers to enhance collaboration between their distributed teams, and garner an impeccable remote working experience by accentuating employee engagement.
“The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.” – James Cash Penney
If you’re working with or managing a remote team within a virtual staffing company, keeping your employees’ morale up is most certainly your responsibility. Here is a list of seven tried-and-tested team-building activities that could help you earn a lifetime bond with your remote workforce and augment productivity:
Team Building Activities for Virtual Workers
1. Office Games Online
Who doesn’t want their distributed teams to work in a well-coordinated manner? To foster such an environment, ice-breaking games are one of the most effective activities for virtual workers. Although these games are conventionally designed for in-house employees, but you can easily conduct them over a group chat. This playful session wouldn’t even take out a lot of time from your team’s productive hours.
Pro Tip – try dividing your remote employees into small teams and conduct interesting games in the form of a competition.
2. Fact Hunt
Employees of a virtual staffing company are usually working in very uptight environments or odd-hour shifts, which could make their work very monotonous. Fun facts are always exciting, so here’s a drill to let the perky learning begin. Ask your remote team to dig up some interesting facts related to different spheres of life, and then share them with their colleagues in an amusing manner. This activity has proven to promote camaraderie amongst team members.
Pro Tip – divide your remote team into smaller groups and ask them to prepare a presentation based on their fun fact.
3. Virtual Coffee Breaks
If you’re looking for easy-breezy 15-minue activities for virtual workers, this one might be it. All of us relish interesting conversations with our colleagues over a quick cup of coffee. How about making a fun-filled team-building exercise out of it? As managers/employers want to keep the team members disciplined, a hearty, uninterrupted coffee break is no less than a luxury for employees, especially remote employees. So, you can have them establish a better professional relationship, while sipping coffee over an informal conference call.
Pro Tip – allow your remote employees one or two coffee breaks in a day to help them destress and deliver better work.
4. Gamifying Health Initiatives
Having your employer care about your health and wellbeing is very reassuring, whether you’re working as an in-house employee or remote employee. When a business owner hires from a virtual staffing company, keeping acquainted with the lives of your remote workforce becomes doubly important. A great way to show your virtual employees that you wish for them to have a healthy lifestyle and keep the fun spirit alive is to throw enjoyable health challenges at them.
Pro Tip – asking your team members to complete x number of steps/lunges/push-ups/squats could be an exciting drill.
5. Topping Knowledge Bank
This is probably the best exercise to enhance your remote employees’ knowledge bank and refresh their thought process. Start by asking them to suggest you a knowledgeable topic that they would like to share with their fellow team members. Select some useful suggestions and have the team discuss about those topics the next day.
Pro Tip – conduct this exercise via video conferencing to see your virtual team bond over a sound learning experience.
6. Quiz Up
Quizzes are one of the best team-building activities in the business world, but they could be even more rewarding when you hire virtual workers. Why, you ask? Well, because you can use quiz competitions as a podium to educate your remote employees about your company and business, since they do not get a proper induction session by your HR as your other local employees. Challenge your employees with interesting quiz questions and see them put forward their competitive spirit to win the game.
Pro Tip – prepare questions around technology, geography, culture, company history, and let the game of wit begin.
7. Creative Storytelling
How does the idea of using a simple exercise to create a culture of teamwork and creativity within your partner virtual staffing company sound to you? Great, right? So, let the creative juices flow by conducting an engaging storytelling activity amongst your outsourced employees. Allow them to amaze all with their hilarious stories that unfurl laughter.
Pro Tip – throw random words at your virtual employees to be incorporated in their story to make the activity more fun.
Wrapping Up
When you hire virtual workers, one of the biggest challenges you might face is to make your outsourced employees feel more connected. It is important for them to become one with your thought process, so that they could be adequately encouraged to work towards your organisational objectives and respect you as their employer.
We hope that the above-mentioned team-building activities for virtual workers help you get closer to them, and build a work culture based on mutual trust. If you have other great ideas to instil team-spirit in the hearts of your remote employees, do not hesitate to experiment.
