Online team events are a bummer. Wait… are they?
The past months have turned some lives upside down. Although #WFH workers have not been impacted by the pandemic to the same extent as other groups, this cohort must also adapt to workplace changes. New ways of working have become the norm, for example:
- Physical meetings have been replaced by Zoom or Skype calls 📞
- New tools like Slack, MS Teams and Miro have been introduced ⚒️
- Sitting at the desk without trousers 🙈
- Home cooking instead of lunching together in the canteen 👩🏾🍳
- Disconnecting from work and finish work for the day is not that easy ✋🏾
- BUT most of my friends have told me that the fun times 🤪 with their colleagues is what they are missing the most
We take jobs and we leave jobs, but what remains with us forever are the connections and relationships that we’ve built with our colleagues, clients and other partners during these times.
Last week, we have hosted a virtual summer team event at Veertly. Our goals for this event were to:
- Get to know each other better
- Have a fun time
- Create some tangible outcomes
Here’s how we have achieved that 👆🏾
- Get to know each other: As a #RemoteFirst team, many of us have not met each other in person. Hence to learn more about the different personalities besides the work component this is a key goal for our events. We have used a playful tool (integrated into Veertly of course) to speak to each other in different constellations and using the broadcast messages
to always prompt new conversations, such as asking about the most crazy activity one dreams of or about the favorite place to live.
2. Have a fun time: Each team member prepared it’s very personal room and I can tell you, we got some creative folks in our team! From sharing summer photo stories (e.g. with padlet or presentations) to playing word guessing games and taking funny pictures and gifs in a virtual photo booth. Check out Celina’s shot 📸
3. Tangible outcomes: The main focus of the event lied on the first two parts, but we couldn’t refrain to get some input from these smart brains around us on a new idea that we have — stay tuned! We have simultaneously worked on a digital whiteboard and added the results to a presentation — of course — both apps were directly integrated into our platform.
Here’s what our team said about the event:
“Thanks for arranging the team event it was a lot of fun 🙂”
“I loved the playful ways that we have used within Veertly to get to know each other better!”
“Could not imagine beforehand that a remote event could be that entertaining”
Especially in times of social distancing, it becomes more difficult to maintain a great company culture. Waiting until all goes back to normal? Not an option. Be creative and find innovative ways to keep your team morale high 🙌🏽
If you are planning your next event team event or company holiday party and would like to get some tips how to make it really interactive and engaging for your employees, please reach out to me and I am more than happy to share my experiences.
#TeamEvents #OnlineEvents #Fun #RemoteWorking #DigitalExperience
