Covid-19 pandemic has forced many persons to turn remote. The working place before Covid-19 has nothing to do with how it looks today. In fact, most of businesses had never learned to balance the energy of a corporate remote team but during the changeover they battled to keep everyone together. However, there are some companies that were already using hybrid models, they had already included empathy for remote work into their processes. As a result, despite having to deploy a more divided approach, the teams remained cohesive.
Introduction
Better communication leads to more empathy, which is the least known but one of the most successful attributes we can develop as employees. Remote workers will feel left out if your attention remains on-site, which will result their suffer of work. Because remote work and hybrid models are here to stay, companies that can extend empathy to remote workers through team-building exercises will be able to preserve a deeper connection among their employees regardless of distance. Here are 4 ways to enhance collaboration within hybrid and remote teams.
Introducing constructive socialization
Remote team-building exercises that are both useful and enjoyable to boost your staff´s productivity. Anyone, regardless of his location, can take part in Kahoot! There are also quizzes or online games like Jeopardy that give them a common topic to discuss. You may also develop dedicated support spaces for remote workers to talk about work-from-home ideas.
For example, you can send gifts to let your remote colleagues know that you are thinking of them, which is a form of team building in and of itself because it affects how they perceive you as a teammate.
These activities should have a purpose, but sometimes the purpose is to have fun. Plan a team happy hour or a “Filter Friday” once a week during which employees can use any filter they like in Zoom meetings.
While it may appear to be just for fun, supporting positive social dynamics among all employees, both corporate and remote, shows that you care about their mental health, which inspires them to do their best work for you.
Removing barriers to participation
When planning a team-building event, keep in mind that word of mouth around the office can teach someone something they don’t know, but remote workers are excluded from this. Freelancers may consider the whole effort as a headache if they have to figure out a new application on their own to participate in an activity. By removing barriers to participation in team-building exercises through education in areas such as technology, it becomes easier for everyone to buy in and profit.
Of course, the strength and security of the network are important factors in constructing a lasting hybrid model. It’s easier for remote workers to participate in team-building events if they have good internet and fiber, as well as additional security measures, such as protection on public networks, automatic firewall adjustments, and PC encryption.
When the challenges that can lead remote workers to fall behind are factored into the equation, they feel valued and also included, and they want to accomplish their jobs properly.
Taking care of your teammates
When employees are isolated from the rest of the team, it’s easy for them to disregard their health, so integrating remote workers in your team-building exercises ensures that they’re doing well. Create routes of communication that encourage shared physical activity for remote employees who often find that walking from their bedroom to their home office is their daily workout.
Over video chat, a lunchtime walk around the office may become a remote team-building exercise, and everyone can benefit from the pleasant social engagement.
Those exercises are also important for the mental health of remote workers. The rest of the team does not only provide social support to remote workers, but they also develop a greater empathy for them.
There are a lot of team building activities to keep the connection with remote workers. For example, you can organize virtual coffee, you just grab a cup of coffee and set up a meeting time. Consider holding a virtual coffee meeting every Monday morning before everyone starts working.
The goal is to make it less about business and job and more on team building. You can also organize monthly contests that are a great way to engage your staff and create a fun environment where people can compete in a friendly manner. These competitions might be structured to improve employee loyalty, boost productivity, etc. And there are many other activities to improve your team building remotely.
Encouraging active and passive learning
Working in an office has several advantages, including passive learning, therefore encouraging this in remote workers will require considerable team-building efforts. Active learning involves following a set of procedures to teach a new position, whereas passive learning occurs simply by being in the presence of someone who has more abilities or information than you.
A more senior person in the office may not be sharing his or her words of wisdom with junior employees in order for them to learn, it just happens.
It will take innovation in communication technologies to open communication between remote workers and those who can teach them through examples. You can at first just set up desk-to-mobile phone forwarding and after you can convert users to softphones that they could carry with them on their PCs.
More solutions will emerge to assist this very advantageous passive learning among remote workers as more organizations hire them, so be proactive in your hybrid-infrastructure investments.
Final word
Team building allows employees to form deeper relationships with one another by opening up channels of communication, but if anyone of the team members is remote (Fiverr employees for example), new considerations must be required.
When you make entertaining and useful activities easily available to all your employees, they can learn to work together more effectively regardless of where they are. When you care about your co-workers and value their contributions to the team, you’ll naturally want to see everyone succeed, which will lead to higher productivity.
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