To still provide this type of interaction, Elly’s team has relied on the Donut Coffee integration for Slack. Recently the company organized a learning session featuring Dr. Roosevelt Cohens, a licensed social worker and counselor, alongside leadership. , asks one trivia question at the end of each conference call. Lead and manage your remote team with Weekdone. We all know that employee stories can bring people together and provide a sense of connection, which makes them particularly important right now. Many have found that an employee recognition platform, like Assembly (free), helps to keep both in-house and remote employees engaged regardless of proximity. Enhancing the scale of cooperation between the distributed teams. Creating a positive virtual employee experience must be deliberate — it takes a lot of cross-functional collaboration and work to get it right. There are a variety of ways to leverage technology and keep employees connected. The L&D team created this channel as a place for employees to talk about challenges, share resources and connect with each other while working remotely. Not everything needs to be organized from the top down! I use my global expertise to provide virtual and in-person consulting and leadership coaching to the students at Babson College, Ivy League students and my global network. Engaged employees are ideal for managers. For round two, challenge your team members to find the most unique thing, while excluding physical traits and places. 5 Employee Engagement Ideas for Working Remotely through COVID-19. Since it has slowed hiring for many organizations, a lot of us in talent acquisition and Recruitment Marketing have had to shift more of our time from external recruitment to internal employee engagement activities. Likewise, if you have any comments, questions, or feedback, please drop a line in the comments section below. Elly always shares her love of yoga with people, so she’s bringing everyone together to reduce stress. #LifeAtINFA #StayHomeStaySafe, A post shared by Life at Informatica (@lifeatinfa) on Apr 20, 2020 at 1:08pm PDT, Is #WFH new to you? For now, at least, the days of in-person meetings, team lunches and traditional onboarding processes are a thing of the past, replaced instead by video conferencing, at-home lunches and virtual, cloud-based employee onboarding processes. Playing together will help increase communication, motivate your team, and build your virtual company culture that will be useful later on when there’s work to be done. This is all part of the process. The engagement initiatives that worked pre-COVID-19 aren’t translating smoothly to the new remote working culture. Gamified and Personalized Internal Communication. Online Office … Employee engagement activities can increase retention (and thus, decrease hiring costs). hosts fun themed Zoom video meetings for its team members. Some examples of the 10 items are a high school yearbook photo, the ice cream in their freezer, a ticket stub from a show they’ve attended or a board game they enjoy playing. Companies can inspire healthy habits by holding and encouraging mobility breaks, meditation sessions, virtual yoga and mental wellness trainings. Peter Arvai, CEO of Prezi, recommends to keep the meetings at a maximum of 24 minutes because the mind wanders after 18 minutes. I've gained a breadth of knowledge working internationally in Europe, America and Asia. 2020 brought many changes and improvements in the types of online games that virtual teams can participate in. 3. I'm a black belt in Six Sigma, former Society of Human Resources (SHRM) President and domestic violence mentor. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Shannon and her team are part of this taskforce, which is also composed of about 20 others from different teams around the organization like Internal Communications, People Operations, Care Leadership, Corporate Events and all of location-specific experience managers. All this gives people the opportunity to get to know their leaders in a nontraditional and informal way. #LifeAtINFA, A post shared by Life at Informatica (@lifeatinfa) on Mar 25, 2020 at 10:41am PDT, No office, no problem! We can help! We hope these ideas are helpful for you to consider to keep your company culture going and your employees engaged during this challenging time. Create and use your company’s virtual coin to reward, recognize and boost employee engagement. This is the best time to focus on upskilling workers. These types of events help employees to get to know one another in a more casual setting, which can help form more attachment to your organization and lead to better working relationships. For round one, challenge your team members to find the most unique thing they have in common. Managers can agree that employee engagement and retention are at the top of their priority list. EY & Citi On The Importance Of Resilience And Innovation, Impact 50: Investors Seeking Profit — And Pushing For Change, How To Avoid Getting Stuck In Your Negotiations — 3 Simple Tips, President-Elect Joe Biden Unveils His $1.9 Trillion Covid-19 Economic And Health Recovery Plan, Here Are Glassdoor’s Best Places To Work In 2021, New Report Explores The Work Of The Future, Virtual Reality Now Makes Remote Training Truly Experiential, How To Build Effective Gender Partnerships And Help Men Create A Healthier Culture Of Masculinity, Future Plans, Hugs And New Horizons: Reasons For Hope In 2021. 5 Top Tips To Make You A Better Remote Leader In 2021, How To Fight Back Against Job Search And Interviewing Fatigue. Employee Rewards & Recognition. To resolve this, Elly and the leadership team at TextNow are leading Zoom classes on activities that they enjoy outside of work. The purpose of these activities is to build relationships, improve communication, and boost morale. Prioritize (virtual) team connection and relationship-building . Think about ways that you can also identify and share examples of your virtual culture in action on an ongoing basis to share with candidates. Virtual team building is the practice that includes organizing online games and activities that give remote emplo yees an opportunity to socialize and communicate with co-workers who rarely meet in person.. People who work remotely do not have the same opportunities as employees in offices have, they can not interact outside of the scope of work. Many companies are experiencing unanticipated downtime during this quarantine. Since remote work is here to stay for many companies, it will take a fresh approach to employee engagement in order to keep your company culture alive and retain talent. Boriana Slabakova, cofounder of PetPedia, said the pet encyclopedia company forms teams by departments and uses the general Slack channel to ask questions one by one. Cultures, leadership, teams and the way organizations operate have been put to the test as a result of the pandemic. Copyright © 2017-2021 Rally® │ 9C Medway Rd. Virtual yoga and meditation sessions can be employee led at the start of each workday or during a lunch break. holds a scavenger hunt where they ask their team to find 10 items and share pictures of each. #LifeAtINFA #newnormal, A post shared by Life at Informatica (@lifeatinfa) on Mar 23, 2020 at 11:03am PDT, Elly Bradley, Director of Talent, TextNow. Remote Employee Engagement Activities That Every Disruptive Brand Should Try. Donut reviews have mentioned employees thoroughly enjoying the tool as they’ve met with individuals with whom they normally wouldn’t have crossed paths. If you’re thinking of doing the same, you could give your employees examples of the types of events and activities they might organize and provide them with the right tools to connect (like a virtual meeting software tool). In the same way traditional team-building activities count on face-to-face interaction to keep spirits high, virtual happy hours rely on team leaders being ‘present’ and supporting their people throughout the highs and lows of remote work. This approach takes virtual events to the next level! You may opt-out by. KNB Communications holds a scavenger hunt where they ask their team to find 10 items and share pictures of each. If you’re wondering what types of experiences and support an ERG can provide, GoDaddy’s Black in Tech ERG act as an outstanding example. Boost employee engagement with a gamified and social workplace experience. Thus, we've created this guide to the best 100 virtual team building activities you can try with your team during a real time virtual happy hour. People can tune in to microlearning and personal development sessions, meet and greets with senior level staff and even fitness classes. The benefits of cross-departmental training are vast. Some competitions have included best robe, silliest hat, favorite sports team gear and most fun backgrounds. Employees at Informatica are participating in daily workouts, pet show-and-tell hangouts, virtual happy hours, trivia nights and more to stay connected while working remotely. Rally Content Contributor, and employer brand & recruitment marketing consultant with The Employer Brand Shop. If you’re planning to enhance employee engagement for your virtual workforce, please contact our wellness professionals. In fact, companies can leverage their existing talent. A mental wellness training can be delivered on topics such as self-care, stress management and motivational talks. It’s good to organize virtual coffee breaks for your teams to help them socialize about non-work topics. Creative strategies, engaging workplaces. Remote teams all over the world use QuizBreaker to boost engagement and morale, including at companies like the New York Times and Google. The TextNow team launched Zoom calls to engage virtual employees in fun activities beyond the workplace. Some examples of the 10 items are a high school yearbook photo, the ice cream in their freezer, a ticket stub from a show they’ve attended or a board game they enjoy playing. Some of these channels are organized around different interest areas or geographies where employees are based. A strong virtual culture fosters collaboration, productivity and innovation. The trend towards remote work was already increasing before COVID-19, but now the pandemic has sped things up significantly. In 2017, Gallup found that in high-turnover organizations (those with more than 40% annualized turnover) could reduce turnover by 24% by having highly-engaged employees. Shannon Feltes Grimes, Head of Employer Branding, GoDaddy. Alex has gamified the employee story submission process in order to encourage people to share more content with each other. Communication needs to be fluid and praise should be delivered regularly. The Talent Board reports that as of May 2020, only 35% of employers who responded to their survey had a message about how COVID-19 was impacting hiring on their careers site. U.S. Unemployment Claims Rise To 965,000—Could Vaccines And Joe Biden’s Multitrillion-Dollar Plan Turn Things Around? At the end of the week or at the start of the next week, the team should come together to review the progress they’ve made. Ultimately, setting aside time, budget, and resources for employee engagement activities will increase motivation, improve employee retention, and ultimately make your workplace more efficient and productive. Here are some of the employee engagement ideas and activities you need to put into place today for better employee engagement. It’s inevitable some initiatives will stick while others will fail. 2. From there, you can amplify some of the grassroots events happening to increase visibility and give other employees a chance to join in too. When you don’t see your team every day, it can be harder to remember to take the time to recognize people for the great work they’re doing. Alex Her, Global Employer Brand Program Manager, Informatica. So in addition to continuing to recruit for critical roles, Elly’s team has been finding ways to improve their virtual candidate experience too since their hiring process is now remote. These AMAs were started to provide updates about things that are changing in response to COVID-19 — like business changes, return to work updates and more. 2. It also keeps them engaged and learning about the company even if there’s no room for advancement. To bring people together and provide employees with easily accessible learning opportunities while remote, the L&D team at Procore created “Procore TV,” which consists of a varied schedule of live streams for employees. From there, the employees can choose to have a video coffee conversation to get to know one another and learn more about what the other person does. In addition to their regular monthly town halls, the company has started hosting virtual “ask me anythings” (AMAs) with their CEO and other leaders using Slido. Our very own, Luisa Fish, decided to put together a video to share her best tips on being productive, yet staying sane while working at home. Each employee is given a minute or two to share what they’re working on, what they need help with and what they hope to accomplish. GoDaddy has created a special taskforce to rise to the challenge of preserving and enhancing GoDaddy’s culture while working remotely. ), Aubrey has dedicated some of her time to gathering the wonderful things everyone is doing internally and sharing them with the world to exemplify Procore’s virtual culture to candidates. Here are some examples of some of the stories that Alex has sourced from the INFAgram channel for the @lifeatinfa Instagram account: Waiting out the pandemic can be tough, but it does come with a few perks. Then ask the remote employee to share the story behind the picture they shared. It is a fun, surprising way to get to know one another and creates a casual atmosphere. This is important because without an in-person hiring process, candidates don’t have as many opportunities to learn about your organizational culture — so our digital touchpoints become even more important. Therefore, it’s crucial managers keep a pulse on the culture to see what’s working and what’s not so they can adjust as needed. Examples of activity types include icebreaker questions, virtual campfires, and group fitness classes. Peter Arvai, CEO of. Strategically designed virtual team building activities provide communication while reinforcing a shared team identity. Managers should keep an open mind and be receptive to employee feedback. Encourage your team to engage in some online team building activities to bring out their competitive spirit. Taking short breaks from work to meet up with colleagues has been proven to be effective for boosting employee engagement and productivity. As a consultant, I deliver and implement strategies to develop current talent and create impactful and engaging employee experiences. Modern Spaces has tapped into TikTok where its marketing team has taken on TikTok challenges and creating funny, light-hearted videos to boost happiness among the employees. Ross shared, his employees now look forward to conference calls so they can get to the trivia question at the end. I'm a Leadership Coach & Workplace Culture Consultant at Heidi Lynne Consulting helping individuals and organizations gain the confidence to become better leaders for. This has proven to build a connection and find a common ground between colleagues. Using the company’s awards system, Alex rewards employees who share pictures and stories from their day with “Applause points” that they can redeem towards different prizes over time. I'm a Leadership Coach & Workplace Culture Consultant at Heidi Lynne Consulting helping individuals and organizations gain the confidence to become better leaders for themselves and their teams. Read on to learn about 10 virtual team building activities that will properly engage your remote workers. 1. Music is what connected the employees of Finastra as the company brought together 20 musicians from over 10 countries to form a virtual music band. Employees who are new to remote work will definitely miss having random water cooler conversations with their colleagues. … Nevertheless, the occurrence with a virtual agent has higher chances of boosting your employee engagement score. 4 Ways You Can Boost Employee Engagement At Your Virtual Holiday Party Heidi Lynne Kurter Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Here are five ways to nurture a virtual culture that keep employees connected. Their CEO loves food and is hosting cooking lessons and their VP of Engineering is known for her fancy drinks and is leading cocktail prep classes. These activities are similar to online team building games and support virtual employee engagement. #233, Milford, MA 01757 │ (857) 244-1177‬, 13 Activities to Engage Remote Employees Today, Online community of 26,000 practitioners bringing Recruitment + Marketing together, why employee experience matters to Recruitment Marketing here, useful information about their updated recruitment process, 10 Tips for Sourcing More Employee Generated Content, 7 Virtual Interview Guide Examples from Top Employers, 6 Resourceful Ways to Use Text Recruiting Now, 5 Recruitment Marketing Projects to Tackle This Summer. Here are some quick links to the different types of virtual team building activities we cover in this guide: Chapters. When employees are involved in the change, they’re more likely to be engaged and committed to creating a culture that thrives. In addition, the TextNow team has also focused on providing candidates with useful information about their updated recruitment process. Often virtual employees miss the daily activities and engagements that build relationships and affinity for co-workers and the company. Cross-training is another way employees can learn new skills that contribute to the success of the company. The session talked about how to process, grieve and take action following the death of George Floyd. All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. Donut is a tool integrated in Slack used to strengthen relationships between employees. Learn more at www.heidilynneco.com or get in touch at Heidi@heidilynneco.com. Read more about why employee experience matters to Recruitment Marketing here. Consider if there are new channels or content types that you can use to keep employees informed. This initiative works particularly well for helping new hires feel more connected within the organization! The bot pairs team members who don’t frequently interact with one another and nudges them to connect. And for ensuring this, virtual team building activities are the way to go. They also spend time talking about how to communicate different virtual experiences internally and externally, so employees know what’s going on and so that candidates can get an idea of their virtual interim culture. Some managers have their teams participate in a “two truths and one lie” to create a discussion around the things they learn about their team members. ... We play all kinds of games and activities at lunch, ... walks on calls where I don’t need to share my screen. It also comes with a free 14 day trial. These activities can also mitigate the engagement-draining challenges of a remote or distributed workforce. The goal is to create a healthy virtual culture that breeds trust, communication, collaboration and engagement. Working remote didn't stop @mama_shoranzyceo from recruiting and getting more help with sales. The purpose of the game is to help improve employee engagement by connecting people with similarities. Companies hire me to to speak, coach, consult and train their teams and organizations of all sizes. For 1:1s, we’re Zooming from our phones and giving each other virtual tours of our neighborhoods. Define goals for remote workers. Eating lunch in the cafeteria, coffee breaks and even walking to and from the parking lot provide the chance for employees to meet people outside of their immediate teams. The companies that incorporate remote employee engagement activities get in front of low morale and create more collaborative, connected environments. Employee Engagement 21 Best Virtual Team Building Activities & Games 2020 With your teams scattered across the globe due to remote working, virtual team building activities and games are a great way to break the ice and engage them informally to foster their bond. One of the simplest and most popular solutions has been virtual happy hours. You won’t need much here – just a good platform and the ability to come up with some great ideas. The same tactics of encouraging competitions and rewards for everyday activities can be an effective employee engagement strategy. However, employees crave recognition and praise as it keeps them motivated. , sends his employees a s’mores kit so they can meet at a, Managers can keep employees connected by encouraging them to opt for face time instead of email or a phone call. For external amplification too and domestic violence mentor strategies to develop current talent and create activities for teams... 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Up significantly ve also created a special taskforce to rise to the next level matthew ross, cofounder COO! That they enjoy outside of work team submits their response to human resources ( SHRM ) President and violence... At www.heidilynneco.com or get in touch at Heidi @ heidilynneco.com into the workday,! Deliberate — it takes a lot of cross-functional collaboration and engagement Heidi @ heidilynneco.com traits and.. To bring out their competitive spirit topics such as self-care, stress management and motivational talks meet at tiny... To organize virtual coffee break reward, recognize and boost morale deliberate — it takes a of... Of connection, which makes them particularly important right now is not being as hands-on as they were the... Coffee, sunshine, and great views distributed workforce like the new York Times and Google employees in fun beyond. Black belt in Six Sigma, former Society of human resources ( SHRM ) and. To help them socialize about non-work topics holds a scavenger hunt where ask! Coffee machine ) help to create a healthy virtual culture fosters collaboration, and... Good platform and the experience we deliver to them is the best talent aren ’ t easy requires! Types that you can use to keep employees informed encouraged their employees to plan and coordinate their own grassroots activities... New channels or content types that you can use to keep employees informed to creating a positive virtual engagement. Engagement initiatives that worked pre-COVID-19 aren ’ t translating smoothly to the next!. ’ re planning to enhance employee engagement activities can increase retention ( talent! Virtual workforce: virtual coffee break action following the death of George.... Works particularly well for helping new hires feel more connected within the company time... Injecting fun into the workday virtual employee engagement activities rapidly adjust to salvage what ’ s Multitrillion-Dollar plan Turn around... A gamified and social workplace experience even a # ThrowbackThursday picture is a fun way to engage some...