The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the way people live their lives. Thankfully, modern technologies have made it possible for businesses and teams to continue with their usual operations. With the rise of remote working came the need for online team building games to continue company culture no matter where the staff members might be in the world. It has definitely changed the game in more ways than one and some of the benefits of virtual team building include the following:
Improve the Efficiency of Online Meetings
During online team building programs, everything starts off with one meeting that involves all participants. After several basic agreements about communication, virtual break-out rooms will follow. Based on the course of the game, the team will meet again several times or smaller groups can discuss the progress. The online environment is not only used to exchange information and discuss progress because active collaboration also ensues. You get to work with your teammates online just as how you will normally do if all of you are in one room together.
Nurture a Growth Mindset
More companies have already realized that focusing on growth culture is more effective than focusing on performance alone. Some of the critical areas of growth culture include:
- A safe environment
- Emphasis on continuous learning
- Constant feedback to help one another get and grow better
- Experiment with new behaviors to break the status quo
Through online team building, gamification will be the reward for success while mistakes and failures will be considered as the perfect chance to improve and learn on the spot as a team and an individual at the same time.
Sense of Engagement and Belonging
Before the pandemic, it was hard to imagine working from home with no regular face to face meetings and live contacts with colleagues. While some form of remote working was already possible in most organizations back then and it was also on the rise, it wasn’t as large scale as it is today.
Online team building can make you feel a sense of involvement and belonging to your colleagues and the organization as a whole. The contact might not be physical and direct but it is there. While phone calls and video calls have a more professional approach, informal conversations can also be brought online through online team building activities.
Hone Specific Online Skills
The last, but not the least, online team building also makes it easy and possible to develop skills, specifically soft skills. The game setup lets you work in teams composed of several people with everyone playing a certain role. The team works together to achieve an end goal and the setting lets you practice different valuable skills like collaboration, problem solving, and empathy.
All these benefits of online team building are a work in progress. This should be continuous process with a constant room for improvement. You need to work on building your team regularly and ensure that you pay attention to each member of your team so they will feel valued in the organization.