Employees continue to face the major hurdles presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. 2020 has been a painful year for everyone. Although vaccines are now being administered in 2021, it may still take several months to a year until the pandemic is brought under control.
Aside from keeping employees safe and healthy, keeping employees engaged is vital to company survival. Companies are coping with employee engagement challenges with its remote employees and virtual teams. Communication among teams and co-workers are strained and emotional stress is on the rise as the pandemic continues.
Outback Team Building & Training shared several morale-boosting employee engagement activities that you can use during the pandemic. We chose eight ideas that we felt will be most helpful. CARROTS recommends the Virtual Icebreaker Games, Virtual Team Building activities, and the Virtual Lunch or Coffee huddle.
Check it out. And don’t hesitate to try one or two that suits your needs.
1. Virtual Yoga or Workout Classes
Getting a little blood pumping goes a lot way in elevating your mood. So, you can take a quick pause from your workday to do a virtual yoga or workout class with your team.
Your team members can take turns running a class, or you can collectively join an online workout class run by a professional.
2. Online Happy Hour
Employee engagement doesn’t always have to be centered around work.
On the contrary, sometimes the best employee engagement happens in a casual setting where your team can get to know each other better outside of the parameters of their professional roles.
With that in mind, you can gather as a group using your favorite video conferencing platform, like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, and enjoy some beverages together.
3. Cook Together Online
Most people have their favorite go-to recipe. So, consider having your team take turns teaching your colleagues how to cook their favorite meal.
If you want to up the ante, you could even offer each employee a small grocery budget to help them pick up all the items they’ll need to cook with.
But remember to make sure to check in with everyone about dietary restrictions so that nobody gets left out.
4. Virtual Team Building Activities
The pandemic has had a serious impact on employee morale. Luckily, virtual team building activities are a great way to keep employees engaged, connected, and social while social distancing.
Have fun with engaging virtual team building activities, including:
- Team Pursuit - Play to your team’s strengths as you take on four types of challenges – mental, physical, skill, and mystery.
- Code Break - Solve puzzles, riddles, and trivia in this team building competition.
- Game Show Extravaganza - Be a part of your own game show with this activity where your team will need to tackle trivia questions spanning pop culture, geography, sports, world history, and more.
5. Games on Houseparty
Houseparty is a face-to-face social networking app that’s exploded in popularity over the last few months. And, although this group video chat platform may seem like just another FaceTime or Skype, Houseparty comes with some unique social features – namely games!
Through Houseparty, you can connect with your colleagues and play any number of available games. Here are some of the most popular ones that you can choose from:
- Heads Up! - This is a video-chat version of the hilarious game from Ellen DeGeneres. Players provide clues for a word that one person tries to guess.
- Trivia - Choose from 18 different decks that cover a range of topics and test your coworkers’ trivia knowledge!
6. Virtual Group Training Programs
In a time when employee morale is down across the globe, there’s something to be said for investing in your team’s personal and professional development.
Why?
You’re showing your employees that you value them, want to support their growth in your organization, and are equipping them with tools to be even more effective in their role. If this sounds like something your team could benefit from, we’d recommend:
Emotional Intelligence Training: With the Emotional Intelligence (EQ) leadership training and development program, you can develop your team’s self-awareness and social skills.
Practical Time Management Training: Help your team minimize distractions and make the most of their time while working from home or in the office.
Clear Communication Training: Help your team become effective communicators, and develop both verbal and written communication skills.
Are you looking for more creative ways of engaging your team virtually? Have a look at Outback's article “20 Virtual Team Building Activities to Engage Remote Employees” for some more inspiration.
7. Virtual Icebreaker Games
This is a great time to help your team get to know each other even better. Doing so will help forge stronger personal bonds which will ultimately lead to stronger professional outcomes.
8. Host Virtual Lunch or Coffee huddle (to learn and connect)
Another great way to keep your team engaged is by tasking them with hosting a virtual lunch (or Coffee) and learn for your team on an ongoing basis.
Whether it’s weekly, monthly, or any cadence you choose, assign each person a time where they can research something relevant to your industry that they find useful and interesting and have them present it to the team.
This way, they can learn and practice key soft skills all while keeping connected with the rest of the team.
To boost the fun learning experience, you can sponsor the coffee or learning items delivered to their doorstep. Check out the CARROTS Employee Rewards Platform that provides reliable door-to-door delivery of rewards and coffee :-).
We all continue to experience the pain and challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we can be creative and resourceful by implementing useful employee engagement activities that can help improve employee morale and boost their performance.