Team bonding activities during lockdown
Hopefully you’ve read our previous blog about the importance of staying connected when working remotely from your colleagues during lockdown. If not, please CLICK HERE. I suggest having a read as it will provide motivation and meaning behind these team bonding ideas.
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Team bonding activities for small companies during lockdown.
I suggest using Zoom for these, as not only is it easy to use, good quality to hear and see everyone, but you can share your screen which makes it very adaptable for various team bonding activities which require, for example a PowerPoint presentation or share sound.
When and where? I personally think spending time and effort to bond as a team, albeit through a fun activity, has a crucial impact on work-load and efforts. Therefore, it should be included in the typical working day hours, especially as many individuals will be busy managing home schooling etc. They may not be able to take off more time on top of the working day, or subsidise the precious time they have to work for an unpaid team bonding exercise. As for where, having activities that can take place over zoom means employees don’t even need to leave their desk. Alternatively, making sure people can have access on their phone or laptop can give them an option to have a softer seat as they are not needed to physically sit at a desk.
- A quiz all about the company
This is a great way to sneakily test everyone’s knowledge about the company. An important tip: make the whole quiz light-hearted and enjoyable, don’t make it come across as an exam! We, at Worldteachers, had a laugh trying to guess figures such as how many followers we had for each social media platform, or how many live candidates were on our website.
Keeping it fun means there is no pressure or judgement on anyone’s answer. We found everyone benefited from the quiz by refreshing some of the company’s key facts and figures. These questions will also have a check on everyone’s perception of the company, making sure everyone continues to understand the company’s unique brand. This is especially important as everyone is physically away from the office.
- Guess whose is whose
This game can be used for a variety of topics. An example is favourite destinations: I asked each employee for a photo from three different places they had travelled to/ been on holiday. I prompted these to be a special place, either that brings a nice memory or story. This lets us get to know each other continually, just like the day to day chat in the office. Having a specific theme or topic allows for easy discussion and conversation. Individuals will be passionate and want to chat about their favourite place or a photo with a story behind it.
I made a PowerPoint with each picture on a slide (tip: make sure all the photos are jumbled up in a random order!) and shared my screen when on Zoom so we could go through each picture and the team had to guess which employee they think took that photo. We wrote each answer down on a piece of paper only we could see. Once we had gone through all the pictures, we started from the beginning again and said our guesses aloud, then the owner of that photo spoke up and explained where it was and why they chose it. Now this was more challenging than we thought it would be! We’re a small close knit team and have all spoken lots about our special holidays/ significant locations throughout the time working all together but people forget over time, and especially having a set photo than a location meant half the challenge was to find out where the photo was taken.
Getting employees involved in the quiz content makes it more personal and provokes a genuine flow of that vital ‘colleague connection’, see my other blog post for more information on why this is so important at a time like now. CLICK HERE.
Other ideas can include employees’ favourite dish, favourite memory, favourite song, animal they feel represents them the most, or whatever you want. Again, employee involvement is key. So, ask them for any ideas for what they would want to share.
- Virtual coffee break
This is a great way to have a more organic ‘mini’ team bonding session. It also involves no planning if you’ve got a busy schedule. Simply organise a date and time where everyone can grab a drink and snack to take a break from work. Tip: remember to check with everyone which time suits best, bearing in mind a mid-morning or mid-afternoon could work best. The idea of this activity is to replicate the day to day chat that occurs in the kitchen or at the coffee machine in the office.
These are just a handful of ideas we, at Worldteachers, have done over the past few weeks. Each idea can be tailored slightly to have a unique twist. For example, we are wearing a crazy headpiece/ hairdo during our 'virtual coffee break' tomorrow. This just creates another talking point, sparks creativity and ads a different activity to the repetitive working day.
Bonnie 
Digital Marketing Manager
bonnie@worldteachers.net