Here’s an essential guide for recruitment firms on the various team building activities for diverse teams that is remote ride high on productivity and success. Keep reading for more.
With companies going 100% remote and with remote hiring on the rise, modern organizations recognize that to be leaders in their industry, they need a workforce that represents the society in which it exists.
Therefore, investments in the proper recruitment tools like that of CRM software, Applicant Tracking System, assessment tools, etc., are needed. This is why most companies are putting their best efforts into recruiting a more diverse remote workforce.
However, it’s the experience created for employees that will ultimately drive success. So, to keep employees from all backgrounds engaged in a remote work setting, all while leveraging their skill sets and sharing their ideas, team building is essential.
The individual members should respect each other and their differences and share common goals and expectations. This is where the concept of team building comes into play that creates stronger bonds among such members of a diverse group.
Team building can include any daily interaction that employees engage in when working together to carry out necessary jobs. This form of team building is natural and can be assisted if the group takes the time to develop a set of team norms. Such norms help team members know how to interact with each other appropriately and the rest of the organization.
Team building can also involve structured activities and exercises led by team leaders or with proper budget and goals; managers can use external sources. External facilitation by an experienced person can give your team-building efforts a much-needed boost.
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4 Main Benefits Of Team Building Activities
Below is a summary of how team building activities help,
1. It Induces Creativity
To run a successful business based on ingenuity and innovation, you need to recruit different sets of people with diverse perspectives and expertise to “cross-pollinate” the organisation with original, fresh and unconventional approaches.
Out-of-the-ordinary team building tasks permit employees to use their ingenuity to come up with creative solutions. In addition, they send the message that creativity in the workplace and bouncing ideas off each other are always welcome.
2. There’s Positive Reinforcement
Team building can also be used to recognize employees by highlighting the performance of specific employees or fresh recruits and the behaviors that have led to the recipient receiving the recognition.
By combining employee recognition into team building, companies can send a strong signal to every attendee about their company values and what that means to the organization’s success.
3. Improved Communication & Collaboration
Perhaps the key benefit of an adequately planned team building activity is improved interaction among employees. Certain enjoyable and fun activities allow employees to get to know each other better and create a strong understanding.
All of that, while breaking down walls of suspicion by encouraging them to focus on what they share in common. Team building activities surely can be a powerful way to develop the following,
- Collaboration
- Improved motivation
- Trust
- Strength and weaknesses
If such activities are planned correctly, they can indeed make a genuine impact, rather than just providing just ‘a nice day out of the office’.
4. Enables Cross-Departmental Amalgamation
Team building activities also bring people from several departments together. This usually gives employees a chance to interact with people they wouldn’t typically interact within an in-office setting. When employees from various departments collude and cooperate, it can be the origin of fresh ideas and topics that previously wouldn’t have been possible.
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5 Activities To Promote Remote Team Building
Here is a list of top 5 activities that can promote team building,
1. Winner/Loser
Objective: It lets people look at things from a positive outlook and turn it into a practical experience of knowledge.
Time: About 10 minutes
How To Play The Game?
Winner/loser is an excellent ice breaker game. Separate employees into groups of two. After this, one of the team members will be required to share a negative life experience with their partner. Now, the other team member retells the same story but only highlighting the positive aspects of the experience. Team partners should switch roles after talking about each issue. This entire game can be conducted online via a zoom call.
Result: By the end of the game, each member will have found the silver lining to their life experiences that they probably did not wish to relive. This will teach them to view the hardships of life (both professional and personal) from a positive perspective and learn from it.
2. Story Time
Objective: To build trust and collaboration among team members. The nature of the game also focuses on developing communication and active listening.
Time: 20-30 minutes
How To Play The Game?
Every week you can ask employees of your company to choose two employees and ask them to share their life stories with the rest of the team in the form of an interactive PowerPoint presentation. This is an extensive remote team building activity that most remote teams nowadays engage in.
Result: This helps in fostering trust and a sense of belonging among your employees.
3. Memory Wall
Objective: A remote activity that establishes and relives the team’s shared set of memories. Teams sketch their shared memories with members of their team and place them on a virtual wall. The wall remains up throughout the event, working as a focal spot of the team’s intimacy.
Time: 45-90 minutes
How To Play The Game?
- Ask each of your participants to come and sit in front of the video call with a sheet of paper, markers, and tape.
- Ask each of them to survey the zoom call room. Take about 15 minutes to jot down positive memories of shared experiences while working together.
- Once participants have a few memories listed, ask them to draw a few of these memories on fresh paper sheets. The drawings can be anywhere from too real to completely abstract renditions of the shared memory. Give them up to 30 minutes to finish this.
- Once the time is up, ask participants to put it up so that everyone in the call can see it.
- Ask for volunteers to approach the picture and expand on the memories they just taped on the sheet with the entire group.
Result: A visual “memory wall” creates a welcoming environment and reaffirms the positive relationships between team members. It renders each memory – individually or in groups – as a drawing adds much-needed fun and camaraderie to the whole exercise.
4. Start Virtual Hobby Clubs
Hobby clubs are a fantastic way to bring together all like-minded people. The organization can provide financial assistance to such virtual clubs and encourage people to spend a few hours a week on hobbies they genuinely care about.
Remote book clubs, photography clubs, cooking classes, online painting classes, etc., are a few such examples. Such activities give employees a chance to engage in conversations which doesn’t involve work.
5. Two Truths & A Lie
This exciting team building activity needs every team member to write down two truths and a lie about themselves on paper and not disclose it to anybody. Instead, show this to everyone on the call.
Allow team members to have 15-minutes to question each other about their truths and lies, trying to guess which is correct. After the questioning is over, vote as a group on each member’s truths and lie.
Points are granted for guessing correctly and how amazing you are in hiding your lies. This encourages better interaction and communication and helps to get to know your co-workers better.
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How important is team building in a diverse team?
In a word, yes, very important! Just like diversity is essential as almost all of the people we interact with daily, in our homes, schools, workplaces, and community, reflect this mix. We can learn from one another and expand our understanding of others in a way that mitigates some of the hidden stereotypes and personal biases we hold about people and groups who are different from us.
As people from diverse backgrounds and cultures are included in our teams, we can value new thoughts and adopt new ideas and experiences. And let’s not forget how we all feel when we are welcomed and feel that we belong in a place.
The principal reason why workplace diversity is essential for success is that companies are becoming more global each passing day. Whether you run a mom-and-pop restaurant, a 10-employee coffee shop, or a 100-employee call center, diversity and team building will help you get ahead!
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