The COVID-19 pandemic had undeniable effects on the role of HR, the traditional office, and several other aspects of our professional life. Here, on the IseeQ Blog, we already covered many of these changes, to prepare our clients and readers for the new, post-pandemic era of company culture.

Now that we feel like this era arrived and we think remote (or at least hybrid) working is the future we are diving into the topic of building team cohesion in remote teams. Yes, we see how many company leaders are still concerned about not being able to keep their teams together without the water cooler talks in the office. There is no need to worry though, we promise there are several ways of creating remote team chemistry! Read this article to learn more about them!

Set up channels for various topics

When it comes to managing an effective team, constant communication is a must. It is the same with virtual teams. Even though most companies already had their online communication platforms (Slack, Discord, Teams, or anything else) before going remote, the new way of working requires them to set up new channels for newly emerging communication purposes.

To ensure easy, effective, and noiseless communication between co-workers, leaders should aim to provide separate channels for the most commonly appearing topics. The exact number and type of channels may differ for each business, but there are a few things that should be covered no matter what:

Announcements

Every company needs a channel where they can communicate important information, goals, and progress. These announcements or posts from (usually) the leadership team can go to a channel where only they are enabled to post, so the most important news and updates can’t get lost in the noise

Chat channels about work

There should be at least one separate channel for work-related communication between employees. This channel can be used for urgent information exchange about projects, tasks, or anything else. Depending on the organization’s structure or size, most companies might need more of these formal productivity-boosting channels

Channels for informal communication

These are likely the most important channels when it comes to keeping the team spirit strong. Create platforms for employees where they can casually chat and share pictures of their everyday “remote life” Depending on the individual personalities it might be a task for leaders and managers to bring the chat to life with active posting at the early stage, but believe us, after a while even introverts and newly onboarded colleagues will join the conversation and become an active part of the community!

Video and voice channels to keep things more personal

Sharing information and chatting in short texts on company channels is fun and effective, but remote teams usually need more touchpoints to feel close to each other. Create a voice and video channel where colleagues are able to organize meetings whether they are professional or just coffee break chats.

Here at IseeQ, we have monthly video calls where we evaluate the previous time period. These meetings provide a platform to exchange information about the company’s performance, and short-term goals and since employees have the opportunity to ask their questions and discuss the raised topics, this method makes the presentations way more personal than just posting numbers in an announcement channel. We also have daily online stand-ups in these video channels to keep the company and teams as transparent as possible.

Keep the team engaged with virtual teambuildings

Of course, keeping teams well informed is a priority, but in itself, it’s not enough for long-term employee engagement.  Informal relationships are just as important as formal communication when it comes to keeping employees motivated and committed, but setting up a few channels for chatting is not enough to facilitate these talks.

But how to plan teambuilding events for a remote team?

Traditionally have two main teambuilding types when it comes to keeping their workers happy and engaged to begin with:

1. Online
2. Offline

Of course, for a remote team (especially when we are talking about global remote) Online activities are way easier to attend to, so let us bring examples for these.

Coffee talks, Lunches, One on ones

We briefly mentioned how we use voice or video channels to spend our coffee breaks with colleagues but the idea can be transmitted to lunches and one on one sessions too. It might be a smart idea for team leaders to plan these short meetings first with their members because introverted employees are less likely to invite their coworkers to these talks even if they actually crave these human interactions.

Gaming together

Besides the classic occasional video call lunches and drinks, we wholeheartedly recommend company leaders to introduce gaming sessions to their teams. Here at IseeQ team, we played Skribbl, held a Battleship and Tic tac toe tournament, tried Among Us, and Jackbox games but the list of potential games to try is endless!

Conclusion

Keeping a Remote team engaged might be less straightforward than planning a pizza night for an on-site team once in a while, but we firmly believe not being tied to a location and spending hours commuting is the future of working, so it’s worth a try!

We wish everyone the best of luck in their transitioning to / staying remote journeys wherever they are! And what if everything is set, and only the best talent is missing? Contact us, we promise we can help hire your dream remote team!