How To Keep Your Employees Connected While Working Remote

Times have changed and they’ve changed very quickly with COVID-19 pushing many of us and our staff to move to 100% remote work. The first couple of weeks might have been fun and might have even felt like a novelty, but as we move closer to a new normal, working from home does come with challenges.

Thankfully, staying connected is easy with today’s high speed internet connections and technology, however keeping folks engaged and helping them maintain a strong sense of belonging can become quite a challenge.

We thought we’d put together a list of 5 easy ways to help you and your teams stay truly connected while still apart.

1. Reinventing the water-cooler: You can easily create a virtual water-cooler via whichever conferencing platform you use (Teams, Hangouts, etc.). All you have to do is create an always on “room” that your team can sign into at any time. Drop in, see who’s on, strike up a conversation. Virtual social collisions can be that easy.

2. Care packages: It’s important to still remember your employees personal milestones such as birthdays and work anniversaries. Beyond that thought, consider sending all of your employees a care package to their homes, the picture at the top of this article is an example of what we’ve done for some of our clients. Be creative… theme it around relaxation, fun and games, or anything you like. Your employees will love getting something in the mail from you! 

3. Share a meal: Even though you can’t have taco Tuesdays at the office or team lunches out, you can still have a virtual company lunch.  Try a zoom team cooking class and supply all the ingredients or a virtual potluck.

4. Yoga with your team: Don’t laugh until you try it - it’s a great way for co-workers to get to know one another with this new craze during COVID19. It is also a proven fact we all feel more energized and less stressed when we partake in physical exercise. Try a new activity each month!

5. Virtual team building: Team building doesn’t have to be restricted to people being physically present in the same location. Consider playing a group game together, maybe organizing a murder mystery, the options are endless. Not sure what to do or how to run it? Check out Moniker Partners for some great ideas, they can even run the event for you.

Go have some safe distancing fun and stay healthy!
Shameless plug :) Get in touch with us at Chocolate Soup. We can help you with any recognition or care package initiatives you might have.