The global pandemic has made everyone adapt quickly to the ‘new normal’ and shift to remote working. HR managers who think that employees will take care of team building at their end are grossly disillusioned. In this distributed and remote world, team building activities are crucial than ever before.
Organizing a team building event isn’t just about sending an invite and plugging your device into a stable internet connection. Like any other event, virtual team building requires preparation, planning, and coordination for flawless execution.
In this article, Kraftylab brings to you some of the best practices for HR managers to remotely plan and coordinate team building events:
1. Understand your audience
You need to get an understanding of your target audience. Get into the shoes of your audience to understand their likes and dislikes. Are they tech-savvy? What type of questions/comments do they respond to? There are so many questions that need to be answered.
A critical point to keep in mind is their level of familiarity with each other. Based on this, you can decide whether to split the participants into groups for an activity or to go for one-on-one interactions.
Send out surveys or start a discussion forum to seek inputs from your audience. You will be amazed to find how exciting employees are to share their ideas.
2. Choose a date and time
“I am sorry. I’ll need to drop out because the event time is clashing with another pre-planned meeting or event!” ☹
Indeed, you don’t want anyone to drop out just because there is another pre-planned office meeting, event, holiday, or festival at the same time.
This is why choosing a date and time is really important.
Ensure your selected date and time does not collide with any office event, festival, or holiday.
Check the time zone differences for your globally distributed audience.
Take suggestions from your audience. If it’s a smaller group, you may personally inquire about their preference. If the list is long, go for a poll.
3. Engagement “before” going live
We can’t stress enough the importance of engagement. Focus on engagement not just “during” but “before” the team building event too.
Send continuous emailers, teasers, text messages, and reminders to build hype about the upcoming event. You can also send out short posts leading up to the live to build excitement.
It’s time to get creative and get everyone in the spirit of the event.
4. Make it inclusive
The virtual team building event must be inclusive and accessible for everyone in your audience.
Most often, you would’ve noticed that the start of a virtual event is slow and bit awkward. To a large extent, this happens because junior employees do not mingle with the senior leaders in the group of people from different countries, and teams don’t interact.
“Birds of a feather flock together” – heard this phrase before? Create opportunities for people to connect naturally.
Plan an exciting ice-breaker to release the tension and get people to feel involved right from the beginning. We all enjoy getting a package in the post, don’t we? Send the same DIY kit to all employees and get them to share their thoughts and feedback on receiving the gift. You can also set a dress code where everyone dresses up in a specific color or theme so that all participants are in the same mood and can enjoy the same vibes.
5. Be prepared for technical glitches
Well, who hasn’t experienced the technical challenges during a virtual session?
“I can’t hear you.”
“I can’t see you.”
“My presentation isn’t working.”
“I am not able to connect to my internet.”
“This link isn’t opening.”……………, and so on.
What’s the best way to avoid these technical glitches?
Prepare and share an easy “how-to guide” with a checklist for all participants to go through before logging into the virtual team building event. You can share all the resources, including links, polls, and chat features, so that everyone makes sure they are up and running.
Conclusion
We all hope traditional in-person team building events return soon. Going virtual isn’t a stopgap arrangement, but it’s time to reimagine your team building events. It is a great way to continue bringing together our office teams to share camaraderie and fun moments.
Using these tips for planning and coordinating virtual team building events, Kraftylab is sure you’ll orchestrate memorable team building experiences for your remote working teams.
Are you looking for some fun team building activities?
At Kraftlab, we strive to inspire teamwork by fostering meaningful connections. Check out how our unique crafty activities and virtual team building activities are making strides in creating a happier and healthier workforce.
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