The remote workers’ communities begin to grow in number as people realize the benefits of working from home. Meanwhile, the current problem that the world faces regarding the spread of Coronavirus (CoVid-19) redefines how teams can work and communicate virtually. As remote work becomes the new norm for many businesses, employers and leaders should manage their teams in effective ways.
One of the main challenges of team engagement is communication, followed by trust between the employers and their talents. No matter how different the approaches may be, companies must aim for happy and productive employees even in the virtual workplace.
The Significance of Employee Engagement
There are many huge benefits of managing your employees’ engagement in a workplace. Every business should consider it as an essential part of its culture. The term ‘engagement’ is about the establishment of trust and connection between the organization and each of its employees. At the same time, commitments and promises made are fulfilled by both parties.
Employees should feel that they are an important part of the team. There must be authentic and strong values, a supportive environment, and clear goals in the team. A company should empower its team’s growth by recognizing achievement and developing skills. If all these are fulfilled, you will be able to build an engaged and empowered team that can help drive your business to greater success.
Here are the key steps you can take to ensure that remote workers will enjoy fair treatment and continue to be highly involved in the business.
1. Connect Employees to the Business Goals and Purposes
To build a healthy and strong foundation in the company, there must be shared values that retain and attract talents in the workplace. The key is to establish loyalty and trust which calls for equal participation. Remember that remote employees who feel that they are left behind from the rest become less productive and happy at work. On the other hand, those who are actively involved in an organization stay longer and perform better.
2. Communicate Regularly
Enhancing your internal communications is something that employers should work on as part of employee engagement efforts and relations. Make sure to communicate regularly. You can set up in-person or virtual company meetings. This is crucial for remote teams that are unable to speak with their co-members daily or regularly.
3. Team Building
Working at a physical distance can lead to emotional distance or isolation. Once an employee feels isolated, he or she will start feeling uncomfortable being with his or her co-workers. However, there is one important approach that employers can take to create a friendly and comfortable environment for all remote workers – virtual team building.
Hosting virtual team building exercises can be a challenging task but it can be a very effective strategy to unite team members and it helps everyone understand their individual differences.
Here are some tips and ideas that will make your team building fun and successful.
Guessing Game
This guessing game can focus on personal facts of the team and it is a fun and effective way for team members to get familiar with others’ non-work related interests.
The game starts with the manager or the leader asking each member to share personal facts about themselves which the manager will compile them into one shared document. Then, each team member guesses which member shared such a fact. While other members make guesses, the facilitator could show a digital board on the screen to note down the guesses.
You can do this game through a live video chat. When played properly, this will not only be hilarious, but will also develop camaraderie within the team.
Sharing Photos
A picture-sharing activity is one of the most fun and interactive icebreakers. The photos can be about hobbies, people, pets, gadgets, etc. A member will say something about the photo and explain why he or she chose it. Your team’s funny, creative and/or unexpected guesses and explanations will get you laughing together.
The Bucket List
This is another awesome game idea for an online team building activity. Each person will share a bucket list. For those who are not familiar with this term, a bucket list is a list of all the things that a person wants to experience or wishes to do in his or her lifetime.
Sharing a bucket list with one another is an effective way to get to know each other better. One way to conduct this sharing activity is by asking the team members to show or talk about their bucket lists. You can either do it with one person sharing his or her bucket list every week or with everyone sharing their lists in a single session.
One person speaks at a time on a live video chat while the others listen and compare notes. Others can ask fun questions and it will bring out more interesting facts and ideas for the activity.
Emojis
Your team is likely familiar with sending emojis with messages. So why don’t you make use of these emojis and turn dull hours in front of the computer into extremely funny moments?
The first thing you can do for this activity is to send a list of the players’ names to all the participants. Next, let the participants guess the five emojis that each person on the list uses the most. They will be given 3 to 5 minutes to think. After the timer stops, it is time to reveal the correct answers. The member who recognizes the most number of correct answers is the winner.
Conclusion
There are pros and cons of working remotely. As an employer, you must think of the mental, emotional and social health of your team members so that they will be able to perform their jobs accordingly.
There are several ways to engage your remote team members including simple yet fun ways such as team building. The sky’s the limit when it comes to making creative and hilarious activities for your online team building.