Live long & prosper team-buildings

We’ve already discussed this in our previous blog, where we were comparing the office vs. home office and the advantages & disadvantages of both.

In today’s insights, we will focus solely on remote work & remote teams and explain that this arrangement can also work really well if regular in-person team building activities are a regular part of it.

Remote teams are now more common and popular than they had ever been. Young professionals are liking the idea of having a job that respects their lives and not the other way around. People enjoy working when it suits them and from wherever they feel most comfortable and creative. Besides, of course, they have the possibility to work on something that is meaningful to them and also benefits the wider society.

As many people as many opinions

Since Covid hit, not just work went almost entirely remote. Many other aspects of people’s lives switched to remote even more than before. And people will continue using these services more remotely (online) than in-person, even post-Covid. They simply got used to it. They realized that they can save a lot of time and hassle and it can be super comfortable too. 

Activities such as grocery shopping, banking, museum visits, concerts, fashion shows, gyms, or expos have all been able to move to the online space and offer people these kinds of services & experiences entirely from the comfort of their own computer & home.

Remote work is, of course, no exception and while in the past working for a company located in a different country or even a continent was something completely unimaginable, now it's as common as buying bread.

This type of work can work extremely well if rules are set in place & clearly communicated to all team members, times zones are taken into consideration & respected & people actually get to see each other face to face. Because let’s face it, everyone needs an actual chat from time to time.

Isn’t teambuilding like a teambuilding

Regular in-person remote team catch-ups should be planned & be a regular occurrence. All team members should know about them well in advance so that everyone can plan their workloads better and those located further can also plan their travel accordingly (which should ideally be paid by the company). Team building activities can also take on different forms. From a casual lunch meetup at a local restaurant to a week away at a tropical island. It all depends on the size of the company, the remote team member locations, budget, and willingness to really make it all happen.

You have surely heard the sentence: “People don’t leave companies in search of better pay but because of bad management and not enough opportunities for growth”. The latter is actually more true now than ever before.

If you ask a person who just left their job in a corporation or even a startup for that matter why have they done so, the most likely answer will be that they haven’t seen any potential for growth, career progression, or any opportunity to learn. They simply didn’t feel that they could spread their wings in any other direction anymore. Why are we mentioning this and what does this have to do with remote work? A lot actually.

People want to work in a place where besides earning a nice paycheck they are also regularly given opportunities to learn, improve their skills, socialize, basically grow professionally & personally. And be given trust, freedom, flexibility, feel valued, respected, and a legitimate part of the team.

Take your team on a retreat

You may have or have not heard of them already. Team retreats are nothing new, but nowhere near as common as going out for a company dinner or going go-karting. They can be the answer to being forward-thinking and an ideal way to achieve all the above-mentioned.

They give even remote teams as well as any other type of team a rare chance to spend quality time together in an environment, where everyone is at the same level and most importantly more relaxed, behaving naturally, just like when they are at home or on vacation.

A team retreat is a neutral ground, where it becomes a lot easier and more natural to be yourself, be open, and be honest. Innovative ideas and the ability to become a bundle of creativity at a moment's notice become second nature. This is also thanks to the new environment, fun activities, no strict deadlines, notifications, and tens of emails in your inbox all waiting to be answered asap.

Give people freedom & trust & they will give you loyalty

We hope we have given you some food for thought on how you can bring more regular & creative in-person team-building activities into your remote teams. Don’t think of it as an expense. Think of it as an investment into your staff loyalty & happiness.