10 Remote Team Building Activities To Connect With Freelancers
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10 Remote Team Building Activities To Connect With Freelancers
It is true what people say when they say that the word “team” does not contain the letter “I.”
However, putting in work as part of a group isn’t as simple as it might appear.
Team-building exercises are one of the best ways to foster a harmonious dynamic within a group, which is essential to a group’s overall performance.
Now, this really ought to be obvious for groups that work in the same location as one another. You and your coworkers can always do things together, whether at the beach or at the office.
In contrast, things have taken a decidedly new turn over the course of the past few years. To start, there are now both sole proprietorships and companies that employ people to work independently from a remote location.
Even though they may be located on opposite sides of the world and thousands of miles apart from one another, this does not necessarily mean that they are unable to participate in activities designed to build teams.
When it comes to enhancing the chemistry of a team and the morale of its members, distance certainly should not be an obstacle. Activities designed to foster a sense of teamwork and camaraderie can certainly be carried out remotely with a modicum of ingenuity.
Why Team Building Activities Are Important
It is important to establish why remote team building activities are necessary in the first place, and the following are some of the reasons why. Before we jump right in, it is important to establish why remote team building activities are necessary.
Teams that collaborate remotely don’t have the same opportunities to form relationships with one another as regular employees who work in an office. The chances of getting to know each other outside of work are also very limited, which makes it even more important to participate in activities designed to build teams.
The formation of a support network is among the most compelling arguments in favor of participating in remote team-building exercises. When you have a strong team surrounding you, you will feel more in control of the situation and more confident that someone will listen to your ideas whenever you share them. This can make a huge difference.
Familiarity is another factor that can make a significant difference when it comes to working in a setting that involves multiple people. When people are aware of one another’s strengths and weaknesses, not only does the work become easier to complete, but it also leads to improved results. When people are familiar with one another’s tendencies, collaboration is able to proceed with greater ease.
The sense of camaraderie that is developed through the completion of team-building activities is yet another component that is absolutely necessary. When you have coworkers that you can talk to and joke around with, it makes the workload feel like it should be lighter than it actually is. When you work remotely by yourself, it can be easy to feel isolated and lonely at times. This leads to an improvement in morale as well as an increase in overall happiness, and this occurs even in the midst of the most trying of circumstances.
Lastly, the development of a robust culture of working remotely can be helped along by participation in activities that build remote teams. We are all aware that being surrounded by supportive people is one of the most important factors in achieving one’s objectives, and this is especially true for a group that works together virtually, as this can assist in the development of clearer channels of communication.
Activities for Building Remote Teams That Freelancers Can Participate In
1. Create a Virtual Break Room
When compared to in-house teams, remote teams do not have the opportunity to participate in water cooler conversations; however, this does not necessitate that such conversations are impossible to have.
There is no denying the enormous value that these simple conversations bring to any group, despite the fact that they might appear and even sound unimportant. Why? because they are significant elements that naturally contribute to the building of teams.
Developing a virtual break room is the most effective way to recreate a similar environment for a team that is working remotely. It is common practice to have a virtual break room where members of a remote team can log in and have meaningful conversations with the rest of the group while they are on their lunch or tea break.
The team manager needs to take the initiative in order for this to be successful. Not only should the virtual break room be created, but the team members should also be encouraged to join.
2. Hold Tours of Remote Working Locations
The members of the team need to become more familiar with one another in order to build chemistry, and there is no more effective way to accomplish this task than by having individual members of the team show their workspace to the others.
Before each of your weekly meetings, you can accomplish this by requesting that members of the team each give a quick video tour of their workspace to the rest of the group. Everyone will have the opportunity to showcase their more lighthearted sides as well as the things that interest them thanks to this.
They could highlight their extensive DVD collection, the gorgeous patio where they enjoy their morning coffee, or the breathtaking scenery that can be seen just outside the window of their home office.
This does more than just help them get to know one another better; it also enables them to learn about potential interests they share with one another that they can bond over. It provides a light-hearted moment for everyone to take a breath and forget about their work, even if it’s only for a couple of minutes at a time.
3. Have a “Messy Desk Faceoff”
A messy desk faceoff is more about having fun and being honest with one another than it is about giving a tour of your home office or other location from which you work remotely.
Working from home can make us feel very convenient, especially because no one is there to judge us for how disorganized our workstations might be. This is something that we are all aware of and can appreciate.
By participating in a messy desk faceoff, everyone has the opportunity to let go of their inhibitions and simply laugh at how unorganized they can become when they are not being watched.
4. Start a Good News Conversation
Because working remotely can be isolating as well as stressful, it is important for everyone to surround themselves with positive energy whenever it is possible.
Making a channel for “good news” is a fantastic idea for two reasons: first, you provide everyone with a forum in which to discuss the things that have brought them joy, and second, you provide everyone with an opportunity to form relationships with one another.
Can you even fathom the connection that could be made between other mothers who work as freelancers if one of them shared her story about her child’s earliest attempts to communicate?
The act of passing along uplifting information serves more than just as a springboard for further discussion. It also gives everyone the opportunity to get closer to one another by celebrating their small wins.
5. Start Friendly Challenges
A little healthy competition is the single most effective way to bring out everyone’s best performance in a given situation. Not only will it inspire people to improve their lives and become better versions of themselves, but it will also bring people together.
Make an effort to devise challenges that will provide your team with a common objective to strive for in the future. Think of something that will motivate everyone to contribute while at the same time allowing them to enjoy themselves.
A good illustration of this would be a fitness competition in which each member of the group would be required to achieve a certain percentage of weight loss and the winner would be the group that achieved the lowest total weight.
A challenge of this nature will be beneficial not only to the cohesiveness of the team but also to the overall health and happiness of those involved. The possibilities are endless when it comes to the challenges you can come up with.
6. Do a Daily Snapshot Routine
Because of the pervasiveness of social media in our everyday lives, it is safe to assume that the vast majority of internet users regularly share content on Facebook and Instagram.
Some of us enjoy taking photographs of the locations that we have visited, the food that we are about to consume, or even the activity that we are participating in at a particular point in time.
You can take advantage of everyone’s shared interest in photography to bring the group closer together by instituting a practice called “daily snapshot,” in which each member of the team shares a selection of the most impressive photographs they’ve taken in recent times.
Everyone will have the opportunity to voice their opinions and start conversations, both of which will contribute to the formation and strengthening of bonds between coworkers.
7. Hold Remote Workshops and Classes
When team members are geographically dispersed, it can be challenging to identify the areas in which they share interests with one another; however, if you look closely enough, you should be able to identify some areas of overlap.
Workshops or classes outside of the realm of professional work are an excellent idea that should be pursued. Just make sure to pick something that everyone on the team will find interesting. Something that they will openly attend and won’t consider to be obligatory on their part.
Also, make sure that there is something for everyone to do to the best of your ability as much as possible, even if not everybody wants to take part right away.
Classes on how to cook, workshops on graphic design, or even painting lessons would be wonderful, provided that the members of the team find those activities interesting.
8. Hold Virtual Workout Sessions
Working remotely can sometimes force you to spend the majority of your day seated in front of a computer, which is known to be hazardous to one’s health.
When you don’t have to climb some stairs or ride your bike to and from work, it can be difficult to maintain your fitness, which is especially difficult when you have to do it by yourself.
Holding virtual workout sessions, which can also serve as a good activity for building a remote team, is a good way to get around the challenges that are presented here.
It’s a good time, it doesn’t cost anything, and you can participate alongside a large number of other people all at once. It’s a win-win!
9. Play Online Games Together
One can become a boring person if they do nothing but work and work all the time, and the best way to put this theory into practice is by playing online games together.
There is a plethora of content available in the form of online games that encourage working together as a group and that you can make available to your staff to play together. You could schedule a session during everyone’s free time so that it won’t affect productivity, or you could have them play during work hours as a way of breaking the ice with one another.
10. Participate in a Virtual Trash Challenge
The last step, but certainly not the least, is to take part in The Virtual Trash Challenge, which is currently one of the most well-liked competitions for building teams.
The question now is, how exactly does it function? It’s not hard at all. Everyone decides on a local park or other area that is close to their residence that they would like to clean up. After that, they can take pictures of the scene both before and after they worked on it to demonstrate the positive change they’ve brought about.
Not only does participating in a trash challenge provide an opportunity for team members to become closer with one another, but it also contributes in some small way to protecting the natural world.