In recent years, online team building has become increasingly relevant and popular as more and more companies have shifted to remote or hybrid work setups. With the rise and integration of technology into the office and businesses, it’s important to ensure that this technology brings us closer together and enhances collaboration, rather than atomizing workers and creating a decreased sense of unity and cohesion.
Because more people are working from home, online team building has seen a surge in developing different ways to achieve this goal. Moving forward, it’s important to keep an eye on the latest trends in this area to ensure that your company is ahead of the curve. Unity within a company leads to strength, and in this article we’re going to look at the five most important trends in online team building that will help your company succeed.
Five Key Trends to Watch
Integration With Virtual Reality
One trend that is already showing signs of greater use and popularity is integrating virtual reality (VR) experiences into online team buildings. This technology provides a fun and exciting way for companies to get their workers to participate in team building in a way that is undeniably interesting to everyone.
Virtual reality allows your employees to enter a completely immersive environment where they can interact with and complete tasks as a team. From virtual escape rooms, to collaborative building experiences, to classic arcade-style games, the possibilities here are endless.
Gamification
One of the most fun and exciting trends gaining steam in online team building is gamification. This involves taking traditional team building activities and turning them into games or challenges like a scavenger hunt or trivia night.
This is a great way to produce engaging team activities that bring workers closer together. A shared sense of purpose, accomplishment, and achievements will facilitate greater interpersonal relationships and translate well into solving other challenges that come up in the workplace. You can also track performance and subtly identify areas where your team needs help with problem solving and use that to provide additional support or training.
Personal Development and Wellness
As the lines between work and home blur to an increasingly great degree, employers need to focus on their employees’ sense of personal well-being and mental health along with simply professional goals. Online team building is a great way to do this, as it provides a multi-modal and holistic way to perform employee outreach and intervention.
If employees aren’t taking care of their mental health and wellness, their performance will suffer. Consider incorporating mindfulness exercises, group meditation, or classes on maintaining a work-life balance into your online team building.
Remote Social Activities
While virtual reality is definitely an exciting trend, companies are also focusing strongly on shared real-world space such as an online happy hour, a game night, or remote cooking classes. This type of team building activity helps to mitigate the social isolation and lack of personal interaction that can occur due to remote work.
When people don’t interact, they begin to feel isolated, out of touch, and disconnected from one another. This can lead to a decreased sense of purpose and productivity within the group, and remote social activities are an excellent way to combat that.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Training
As companies continue to become more diverse and inclusive, it’s important to make sure that your team building activities reflect these values and promote a welcoming company atmosphere. Usually called DEI Training, this is one area where online team building activities are heading and is a good way to make this type of training more fun for those who may be reluctant.
Activities like cultural competency workshops, discussions around biases we may have without even knowing it, and ways to make the company more inclusive for all are good ways to begin this process. By focusing on diversity and inclusion in your team building activities, you can create a more welcoming and friendly environment that will improve communication and collaboration as team members learn to value each other’s differences.
DEI Training can be a sensitive topic, and there may be pushback from some members. It’s important to conduct it in a friendly, low-pressure way that doesn’t come across as a lecture, and to emphasize that all views and questions are welcome. Done correctly, this is an excellent way to bring a team closer together and facilitate more effective collaboration.
Online team building is an important, growing, and evolving field that is necessary for companies to stay on top of to retain employees. With the advent of “quiet quitting” and a labor shortage that is giving workers more power and freedom of choice, you want to do everything possible to retain employees and ensure that they are as happy as possible. Contact a team building company today, find the perfect activity for your group, and watch productivity and satisfaction in the workplace soar!
