4 Fun Ways to Strengthen Team Dynamics in a Remote Setting

Forming and maintaining relationships with your co-workers can be difficult when working remotely. The physical distance between people can eventually lead to feelings of isolation, which can cause people to feel unsupported and disconnected from those they work with. Fortunately, a Forbes article on teamwork shows that lots of communication between teams can help build and maintain a good remote company culture. Companies like Culture Amp and Mars, Incorporated have reported that they have seen an increase in productivity among employees. This is due to the growth in transparency and trust that come from open communication.

However, effort should also be made to continue communication outside of meetings, which is emphasized in the aforementioned Forbes article. Despite working remotely, there are fun and simple activities you can do to improve your team communication and dynamics. Below are a few of them:

Organize a workout session on Zoom

Put the “exercise” back into “team building exercises” by suggesting an online team virtual workout session, which can help you all bond away from work. You and your co-workers can make your own routine, search for an instructor on YouTube, or find an instructor to hire for a session. Then you can all follow the instructions, live or otherwise, through Zoom and aim to complete the workout as a team.

This can help create a culture that is based on collaboration and fun, with Entrepreneur’s feature on remote exercising emphasizing that working out with other people can help everyone to push through adversity. There’s also a sense of accountability, especially for those who need an extra push to stay physically active and fit. Some of the options you might want to try are yoga for relaxation or HIIT classes for cardiovascular and strength training.

Read and discuss Jon Gordon’s The Energy Bus together

The pandemic has forced us to adjust to remote working while balancing it with our personal lives and responsibilities at home — which can get overwhelming. If you and your co-workers need a pick-me-up, Jon Gordon's The Energy Bus is a great business fable that can infuse you with positive energy to overcome challenges. This energy is built on vision, trust, and spirit, among other things, which can help boost your productivity individually, and as a team. The book also provides an effective roadmap that can bring the best out of everyone who reads it.

When you’re done reading, you and your co-workers can share your insights with one another to grasp a deeper understanding of the book. Who knows? This could even be the start of your very own book club where you can discuss interesting titles from a variety of genres.

Host a group listen of LinkedIn’s Hello Monday podcast

Every employee has encountered difficult moments and conversations in their careers. Big questions like “Should we love what we do?” and “What does work mean to us?” can weigh heavy on how a person perceives their job.

This is where LinkedIn’s Hello Monday podcast, hosted by senior editor-at-large Jessi Hempel, can come in. It aims to help people understand these situations and questions. Hempel says that the nature of work is changing, and the podcast hopes to give their listeners the tools and inspiration needed to carry out these changes. After you’ve listened to an episode, you can discuss your thoughts on the topic, which can also help improve your relationship with your job. This could also mark the beginning of a podcast club at work.

Create a customized digital escape room on Exit The Room

An escape room is another great way to improve communication among employees. If you escape, it means you’ve to work together in an effective manner. Digital escape rooms combine problem-solving with great gameplay to make them engaging and exciting. While you can choose a room online, you can also create your own online escape room with Google with five essential steps: coming up with a narrative, thinking of clues, creating images, making locks, then building the Google site.

While these steps may seem daunting, understanding how they work will enable you to tweak them according to your needs. If you need some more inspiration or help in building your custom digital escape room, you can try the demos out and case studies here on Exit The Room.

At the end of the day, remote work should always encourage communication to maintain good dynamics with co-workers. On top of the mandatory weekly meetings, cultivating a relaxing environment away from work every now and then such as during workout sessions or discussing a book can also strengthen relationships within a team.