Digital Team Building Activities in a World that Works Remotely
Remote working trends show that many employees have been anticipating a remote working (r)evolution for years – coveting Slack hours, Zoom meetings, and working from bed in their oldest tracksuit, and those who have forsaw the need for digital team building activities, were just waiting for the future that has just arrived
Employers, not so much…
2020 however, has seen the remote working trend erupting into a full-blown Work-from-Home (WFH) movement, with Amazon, Google, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, PayPal, Salesforce and thousands of other companies around the world compelled to create innovate WFH models. And while the availability and ease of use of technologies to collaborate and stay in constant contact have long been in place, the question remains:
How will remote-working companies maintain their identity, common purpose and culture?
The answer lies in digital learning and development and digital team building activities through gamification, but let’s first have a quick run-through of why it’s important.
Teamwork Is Critical to Business Success
The guy who wrote Star Wars, Matthew Woodring Stover, said
“If you take out the team in teamwork, it’s just work. Now who wants that?”
Each individual has different talents, weaknesses, communication skills, strengths, and habits. When teamwork is working, the whole team would be motivated and working toward the same goal in harmony – with the following benefits for both the employer and employee:
- For the organisation, teamwork maximises shared knowledge, and stimulates productivity and performance, creativity, enterprise innovation, problem solving and company culture.
- For the individual, teamwork is critical to expand skillsets by learning from each other, and building and maintaining human connection, communication, support, morale and fellowship.
It’s clear that one of the most powerful reasons for teamwork is to get results. And team building is one of the best ways to for employers to establish and develop trust, performance, communication, conflict management and mentorship.
In the “old normal” work-from-office days, the solution would be simple: Let’s plan a team building event that is fun and motivational, and will magically build skills like communication, planning, problem-solving and conflict resolution.
Maybe, if there is budget surplus, there might actually be two teambuilding events a year. Right?
But what does “team building” mean in a remote WFH environment, and how would it work?
Challenges of Remote and digital Team Building Activities
Firstly, it’s important to know that remote working does not automatically mean a loss in employee productivity – one of the concerns shared by many employers new to the WFH operational model.
In fact, a two-year study, led by Professor Nicholas Bloom from Stanford University, highlighted that remote workers are in fact 13% more productive than in-office workers and take fewer sick days. Further research revealed almost a quarter (23%) of remote workers are more willing to put in extra hours to complete tasks.
Researchers agree when it’s done right, telework can improve employee productivity, creativity and morale.
Most workplace leaders will admit that it’s hard to get a group of individuals to work together smoothly.
Yet building and maintaining a successful team that cohesively work together is no simple task, even when everyone shares an open-plan office environment. But when you have to do it remotely, the challenges of building a collaborative and enthusiastic team becomes threefold:
- Google Hangouts is just not the same. In a remote working model, employees, particularly younger ones, will miss the lack of social interactions. Part of the camaraderie at work is seeing your co-workers, going out to lunch together or having a drink coffee after work.
- No more Trampoline Park. Or kite surfing, or playing Twister in the boardroom. This means all learning and development needs to be digital, with the power of motivating employees intrinsically…and remotely.
- Modern learners are short on attention span. Which means you have to keep them engaged and stimulated where they feel most comfortable – online. (Keeping in mind that the same employees who are desperate to work in their PJs, might be the ones rolling their eyes at the thought of traditional teambuilding…)
Fortunately, in the new remote WFH era, learning and development, as well as remote teambuilding activities have become much more captivating.
Doing it right: remote and digital Team Building Activities Through Experiential Learning
Over the last decade, experiential learning has become increasingly popular and more widely used to engage employees in interactive learning and development activities. As part of the remote experiential learning process, gamification engages employees in different ways. It uses game principles and techniques to create recognition (stimulating progress), feedback, fun and collaboration.
Human Development Solutions have gone beyond the hype, developing digital gamification solutions like SHIFT, NAVIGATOR and more to engage remote employees in different ways, by:
- Making the work of employees more enjoyable, creative and efficient by associating learning with the fun of playing games and being in competition;
- Engaging employees in experiential learning – building knowledge by collaborating to solve real-world problems;
- Using simulations, role plays, project-based learning, and other immersive educational experiences in real workplace situations;
- Using gamification as a feedback loop when employees practice skills in a real scenario, for example, if a team member is unable to receive a badge, fails to increase his or her score, or cannot advance to the next level, it serves as indicator that there is area for improvement on that particular learning module.
