Beyond Borders: Crafting Cross-Hub Engagement Activities
Ways to bridge and engage teams across countries.
In today’s landscape, it becomes increasingly common for tech companies to have talents from around the globe. With the democratization of work by technology, individuals with the necessary skills can contribute to projects from anywhere.
However, a company’s essence is more than just merely delivering products. At DKatalis, we hold the vision of forming a community where strong bonds that encourage a collaborative spirit and drive positive impact thrive. Alongside our co-located hubs in 3 countries, Indonesia, Singapore, and India, we’ve also cultivated a Virtual Hub that brings together talented individuals from diverse regions. And with the implementation of the Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) way of working, one team can comprise people hailing from different countries!
Despite the geographical distance, different languages, cultures, and time zones, we still attempt to ensure meaningful engagements and fortified connections among our team members. So, how did we accomplish this?
1. Make a joint celebration!
August holds a special significance at DKatalis, marking the celebration of independence days across our hubs! In Indonesia, the occasion is celebrated by playing engaging games, and we want to extend this culture of excitement to everyone. Hence, a joint celebration!
Even when each hub holds its own events during the date, stay connected by broadcasting the event via Google Meet and let everyone interact and show off their fun.
When planning a joint celebration, make sure to:
- Choose a universal event! Pick a holiday or event that most hubs can relate to, such as Christmas, New Year, or Lunar New Year. This way, everyone shares the same spirit of the feast and can join in the celebration.
- Be mindful of scheduling. Check the holiday schedules of each hub, and make sure your event doesn’t clash with any national holidays. Also, please be mindful of any period of long leaves, such as the end of the year or school holidays. Make sure to pick the time and date that works best for everyone. Setting up an organization-wide shared calendar will help make all events visible to everyone.
- Send invitations in advance. Send out invitations as early as possible. This ensures everyone has ample time to mark their calendars and make necessary arrangements. If your event has team games, this will also give time for participants to sign up and organize cross-hub teams if required.
2. Leveraging interactive game tools
Sometimes, interacting via Google Meet or Zoom broadcasting is not enough.
Your team may crave more activities and games to make the virtual engagement event less like their usual meetings. Luckily, there are plenty of available tools that enable light and fun mini-games involving hundreds of players, all without technical hiccups. By leveraging interactive tools such as Kahoot! or Slido, we let everyone join in the fun, even when they are not physically present.
These platforms also have features that allow you to emulate classic games such as Jeopardy, Family 100, and many others. We played Jeopardy in last year’s joint Independence Day!
Before picking tools for your virtual engagement activities, make sure to:
- Select tools that won’t strain your attendee’s bandwidth to ensure a smooth experience. Not everyone has a strong internet connection. Also, keep in mind that some of your virtual attendees may join in from their phones.
- But don’t sacrifice functionality and effectiveness! Explore tools that offer interactive features like polls, quizzes, surveys, and real-time Q&A to keep participants engaged and reduce switching between screens.
- Appoint a moderator. In a laid-back environment, people tend to shed their professional demeanor and get a bit too comfortable, sharing stuff that is not exactly office-friendly. It’s important to ensure that the tools you pick have moderation features to keep things on the right track, intervene in any inappropriate interactions, and keep the positive vibes going strong.
3. Starting a social media challenge
Social media challenges spark multiple results at once, from increased engagement to amplifying brand awareness. With most platforms accessible from every corner of the globe, these dynamic and interactive spaces welcome everyone, irrespective of location or time zone.
Rally your team around themed challenges and collaterals, connected through a shared event hashtag to create a sense of community and open a way for them to connect even after the event ends. These challenges also boost employee recognition and advocacy, as being featured in the company’s social media channels can ignite a profound sense of achievement. Furthermore, having multiple employees share company-related content on their accounts can create a wave of brand awareness among a wider audience, including potential clients and partners.
However, before starting a social media challenge, there are important factors to consider:
- Opt for inclusive and universal themes that encourage creativity. You can either push for a philosophical theme such as “freedom” (like we did during this independence month) or just some lighthearted topics.
- Push for collaborative activities. Although social media challenges tend to be individualistic in nature, you can still encourage content creation with colleagues from different hubs, nurturing a sense of teamwork in the submitted content.
4. Document and share the fun with everyone
Even if just one hub is having a special celebration (only for them, not for everyone), why not spread the joy to all? Our Katalis friends are great at showing their fun times on their social media, and they tag us. Then, we reshare it for everyone to enjoy. We also have a special channel on Slack where everyone from every hub can talk about their latest gatherings. People can leave comments and get excited to join the next one.
When formulating a sharing space, make sure to:
- Prepare the appropriate collateral for sharing events. To spice up contributions from your employees, especially on social media, make unique Instagram story frames or unique assets to commemorate the events.
- Make a dedicated room to share and engage. Collaborative workplace tools such as Slack allow specified channels for different purposes. Aside from work-related discussions, it’d also be nice to have a common room for everyone to share non-work topics and engage in casual conversations.
- Start the fire. Once you have all the materials and channels set up, people might still be reluctant to be the first poster. Consider having the people team take the lead by posting first in situations like this. This small gesture can inspire others to jump in and share their moments too!
Eager to find out how to tighten the bond and collaboration between multinational teams? Get more insights from our blog!
