Team building activities for virtual groups

A huge percentage of remote employees have never received team building activities for virtual groups as many business owners or corporate managers sometimes fall into the trap of thinking out of sight, out of mind. However, this may be to the detriment of your own business, as because the teams are physically apart, the skills needed to communicate are even more significant because it is not as easy as shouting across the office to get your answer. Incorporating team building activities for remote teams help to improve.

1.      Teamwork within the organization

Being able to work as a unified team is especially challenging when you can’t communicate as flexibility as you would be able to in person. To strengthen your team, team building activities for virtual groups, need to create a virtual community. This is usually quite a successful outcome of team building activities for remote teams as the program includes proper introductions so instead of just feeling like you are isolated or working with a complete stranger, or worse your computer, you know the person that you are conversing with.

2.     Work Efficiency

Within team building activities for virtual groups, it is important for every member involved to be able to understand what everyone else does and gain more insight into their schedule. This will improve work efficiency dramatically as each member can streamline their projects to when they are able to communicate with others and be able to understand exactly where they need to go to get something completed quickly. This is especially beneficial in a large company.

3.     Communication

Successful communication can be one of the biggest drawbacks to proactive remote working. Team building activities for remote teams give every member the ability to identify their own strengths and weaknesses within themselves and every other member. By doing this, you understand how to approach each member more personally than generalizing every time, how to handle any conflict or tension and who has the biggest strengths when choosing someone that needs specific skills for a project.

When planning team building activities for virtual groups within your company, you have to be mindful that the type of program needs to differentiate from the exercises your teams would undertake in the company premises. The type of team building activities for remote teams would include;

1.      A day in the life

To gain a better understanding of each team member’s work each day, virtual team members will work against the clock to complete similar projects each team member would undertake. By simulating each member's tasks, everyone gets a better idea of the workload, stresses and benefits and has a clear insight into how they can contribute to improve this. This implicitly plants a seed in each team member's mind of how they can all collaborate to help each other, making for more authentic and organic team bonding.

2.     Team wins

Each team will pair up to complete different tasks and use community boards and systems that should be implemented into processes going forward to post wins. During the team building activities for remote teams, they will be used as for example “first person to complete task” and then post up on the community board which will simultaneously train, and encourage them to use these systems in the future.

3.     Face to Face debriefs

Bringing the team together at the end of the team building activities for virtual groups allows them to truly put a face to the name. They can network and iron out any issues face to face.

Luckily, the movement in technology such as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and social networking allows for the facilitation of team building activities for virtual groups. As these types of technology are often used and required for all work purposes, it makes complete sense to carry them out across the means of communication used in the first place. You can use further programmes too as a reward set up such as point systems that will clearly state how well each employee is doing and enhance the competition element of team building activities for remote teams.

Community orientated programmes online such as Slack or Trello allow for you to easily add new channels for more team orientated talk. This could include fitness, where each employee can upload fitbit results etc. or images of bake offs, charity runs etc.

There are always obvious challenges to attempting to conduct team building activities for virtual groups. Being able to observe that everyone is taking part and fully integrating themselves into the exercises can be extremely difficult. It can also be a challenge to monitor as to whether psychologically they have absorbed, and learnt from the exercises until you later see the results from their work together.

Hiring a professional team building company that maintain the qualifications and industry experience required to carry out team building activities for remote teams successfully is highly recommended. To gain a lucrative return on investment, you need to be able to give your time and deliver a thorough, comprehensive program for it to pay off.

Fusion Associates have years and years of experience with loyal customers in huge organizations that have various virtual groups such as Google and Pepsi. Their thorough understanding of psychological behavior in business, both in office and remote, is what makes Fusion highly reputable, popular and trustworthy. They will provide their services to boost organizational development and training with their approach of experiential education. They blend this with a combination of powerful content, theoretical models and a focused business perspective to deliver powerful and successful team building activities for virtual groups within your company.

Visit Fusion Associates to find out how they can help your business to organize the best team building activities for virtual groups.