Are team building activities important? Employee engagement is a big deal no matter how big your team is. Employee engagement is an underestimated metric that has a direct effect on the bottom line. Companies with ‘highly’ engaged employees had a 3-year revenue growth 2.3 times greater than companies whose employees were engaged at an average level. Managers that put effort into effectively engaging employees with team building activities can make a huge impact in results overall.
As a small team working remotely from four countries, we know this to be true. Here are some of the best team building activities. We’ve tried these out ourselves!
The best team building activities
Out of office work days:
Our homebase happens to be in an incredible city and not venturing outside the office once in awhile would be a sin. One of our favorite ways to bond as a team that doesn’t cost us any productivity time is working outside the office together. We all work on Hibox virtually anyways, so taking time to leave the office and explore a new location is effortless. With a small team, it doesn’t require a ton of logistics. Sometime breaking out of the office dynamic and moving to work together in a more interesting setting helps people loosen up and form bonds. This is a great activity for a small creative team that does a lot of brainstorming together. Changing environments can bring new ideas and dynamics to the group.
A team building activity: playlist
This is another Hibox-team tested, really easy team building activity. Using Spotify desktop, we set up a group playlist that our team members from around the world can contribute to. When someone new joins the team, it’s something else they get to join and feel a part of. It creates for an interesting international mix. It doesn’t really take major time or energy out of our work day and is a continuous activity. The best part? It costs $0. Being able to collaborate on a playlist kind of goes along with our company’s virtually collaborative culture, so it’s a great introductory team building activity. With a small group, this is really manageable.
An “after dark” chat stream:
We came up with this one. We work as an international team across four countries. We all work remotely, and despite having an amazing digital workspace, it’s always a challenge to keep connected as a team. Team building is particularly important with remote teams, especially when introducing new members. One of our team members created a separate chat stream from our work chat streams called “Hibox After Dark” where all team members share side projects, life updates, funny things from around the internet, photos from where they’re based, etc. It’s a great way to take a break from work and get to know our team from around the world virtually. Even if we don’t get to meet often, we still feel like we know each other well. Employees who build personal relationships with team members are seven times more likely to be engaged at work. It’s simple to set up a team building company chat in Hibox.
Digital team building activity: Brainstorming
Remote or in office, we get in such a habit of sticking to ourselves and keeping to our individual work most of the time. But the best ideas and strongest team bonds form when we spend time working and thinking together. You don’t need to adopt an open office plan to get everyone collaborating. We use our chat streams to our advantage to make brainstorming and “team” collaboration meetings a part of our work day. In Hibox, you can set up a stream for brainstorming where anyone can float ideas across departments and organization levels. You can use a brainstorming stream to engage employees and get them working together no matter where they are to get them out of their individual work ruts. Allowing employees from all areas of the company to share their ideas and input develops a sense of ownership. Not only does this help build relationships but also helps solve problems and come up with better ideas. The best part? You can assign tasks right from your chat stream in Hibox to improve your task management.
None of these team building activities takes time out of your schedule or a dollar out of your budget. They are simple ways you can make current employees feel connected to their team and new employees find their place right away. Their benefits may not be measurable in numbers but employee engagement and satisfaction is increasingly important. Try Hibox for better team collaboration and productivity.
