In times of adversity, we lean on those around us for support and help. This might be simply being around for each other, talking about what’s going on and how you feel, or it could be something altogether more in-depth, such as setting up a support group.
At the moment, we’re all going through a difficult time and our working lives have also been thrown up in the air. The coronavirus situation has us all in a spin, and it could be that the team you normally work with in your contemporary office environment are now all working from home, yourself included.
Social distancing means that we can’t meet in person, but there are ways you can stay connected as a team during this difficult time, and indeed during any difficult times that may come your way in the future.
Teamwork means supporting one another and helping to pick up the slack when someone else might be struggling. Working alone versus working as a team is really a no-brainer, especially during hard times. The problem is, communication isn’t always as personal when it’s not done face to face. The good news is that we have technology on our side these days!
Let’s check out a few ways you can stay connected as an office team during difficult times.
Virtual Team Building
Team building days have certainly gone by the by for a while, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do so in a virtual way! There are many programs and platforms which allow you to video call several people at any one time, and you all have a small amount of space on the screen to call your own. Rather than meeting for a team building session, you could schedule a call for a time that suits everyone and conduct a virtual session instead.
Have one person leading the session to avoid the whole thing fall into free-fall, and pre-arrange some games or exercises for everyone to join in with.
There’s no reason why you can’t keep the team spirit high when you’re not physically sat at your regular office desks! This could certainly help to keep morale high and therefore keep everyone on the right productivity page.
WhatsApp Groups
Most people have WhatsApp installed on their phones these days, so why not have a group for work and allow everyone to ask questions and perhaps keep each other’s spirits up? Obviously, there are limits to this and you might not want your work group to be pinging away on your phone when you’re not actually working, but in terms of keeping everyone together and communicating, it’s a good option to go for.
.jpg)
Weekly Team Meetings
We’ve already mentioned team building sessions, but it could be that you need to continue with your regular team meetings. Your manager should lead this and again, you should choose a video platform which allows everyone to be virtually present.
Employees can then talk about anything which is concerning them work-wise, problems and challenges they’re encountering and the manager can keep everyone updated on what is going on and any news that needs to be shared. Having this regular open platform ensures that nobody is left out of the loop and the connection is still there. During times of change in the workplace, that connection is more important than ever before.
Zoom Collaboration Sessions
Even when we can start to work from our regular office chairs once more, having large-scale collaboration sessions might have to wait a while. However, that doesn’t mean you can have brainstorming sessions over Zoom or another video platform.
Collaboration is vital for many reasons; not only does it ensure the fresh flow of creative ideas and suggestions, but it also bonds everyone together. Schedule in a weekly collaboration session for your employees.
Team work can be challenging occasionally and when employees aren’t physically in the same working environment, the challenges become even harder to overcome. However, when you think outside of the box, you can place importance upon connecting employees together and look forward to steady productivity as a result.