Team Building Activities During and After a Pandemic

Your vision is your team(s) work together effectively whether they are in an office or remote. There are frameworks out there for forming teams like the Tuckman Model, but within that model, there is a need for people to learn and trust each other. This is where team-building events and activities come in. This article is going to discuss the types of team building, suggestions for both in-person and remote, why you should do this, what to do with people who are hesitant, and the questions to ask yourself if you’re unsure of where to start.

Definition of a team-building event or activity

These are times set aside at work or outside of work to motivate people to work together, develop strengths, and relationships. After you start doing these, you will start to see stronger teams, improved productivity, and motivation.

Why you need team building

You may think your team gets along and all is well. That may be true, however, there is always a next level you can work toward and when it comes to employees, you need them to trust each other, support each, and learn about each other so that they can approach problems and projects in the best way possible.

8 Additional benefits from team-building

1. Show employee appreciation
2. People learn to work together
3. Socializing to know one another better
4. Learn things you didn’t know about people and how they work
5. Build engagement
6. Build bridges between people or departments
7. Encourage a comfort level that encourages creativity to come out
8. Trust and respect built between employees, and also management and employees

What are the types of team building?

According to Indeed.com, there are five types of team-building activities and that link to Indeed.com has an extensive list of ideas.

1. Meeting Kickoff Team Building

This is likely the quickest of all of the types as it occurs during meetings, most often at the beginning to get everyone comfortable while learning something about each person.

The best ones for this are starting a meeting with

• A no-smile rule to see how long it takes someone to crack.
• Mimic elementary school show and tell and ask people to show something.
• Try two truths and a lie where people state two things that are true about themselves and one that is not.

If you’re remote-first rather than office-first, and people are not together:

These work perfectly whether you are in-person or on Zoom meetings, not much needs to be adjusted.

2. Communication Team Building

These types of events and activities focus on the team needing to work together and communicate effectively to win a game or solve a problem.

The best ones for this are

• The circle of appreciation is where each person shares something they appreciate about the person to the left.
• Scavenger hunt.
• Office trivia with questions related to the office.

If you’re remote-first rather than office-first, and people are not together:

The circle of appreciation can be the square on the Zoom screen rather than to the left of you. The scavenger hunt could be done on a Zoom call with websites while sharing a screen rather than walking or driving. Office trivia can be done via virtual meetings as well by sharing docs and screens.

3. Problem-Solving Team Building

The goal with these events and activities is to learn how to find solutions together in a relaxed environment so that when it comes to crunch time, they are used to working together to solve problems.

The best ones for this are

• Board games.
• Escape room.
• Solution day where employees bring solutions to the table for real problems the company is dealing with.

If you’re remote-first rather than office-first, and people are not together:

Board games could be translated to online games while sharing a screen and on a virtual meetings. Escape rooms are something you would likely have to skip. Bringing solutions to the table for real problems can be done via small groups split out from Zoom, that is easy.

4. Creative Thinking Team Building

The purpose of encouraging creative thinking is so the team is comfortable thinking out of the box and they are comfortable enough with each other to speak up with ideas when needed.

The best ones for this are

• Pictionary.
• Ask teams to design a poster for a product.
• Ask your teams to come up with names for new products or launches to be voted on.

If you’re remote-first rather than office-first, and people are not together:

Pictionary could be done via camera and virtual meeting, the design project is the same and can be done over virtual meeting with whiteboard apps, and same with the name, you have a virtual meeting and contribute to a shared doc.

5. Employee Bonding Team Building

The goal of employee bonding activities is to build relationships up so that people feel they have support at work and that they can be comfortable in asking for help when it’s needed.

The best ones for this are

• Volunteer work like building something for a cause.
• Potluck.
• Team lunch.

If you’re remote-first rather than office-first, and people are not together:

This one can be more challenging, with volunteer work and potluck in particular. However, you can have team lunches via virtual meetings where you pose interesting questions either ahead or at lunch and let people answer so it’s not such a haphazard mix of conversations going all at one time. You can put people into groups in most meeting software, and if it were a company-sponsored lunch like in the case of a virtual town hall, you could have lunch delivered by sending gift cards out ahead of time. I’ve seen companies send bottles of wine ahead of time to homes in preparation for company-wide meetings.

How often should you be doing team-building activities?

The meeting ice breakers could be weekly, and the other events could be as often as makes sense. To start with once a year is a starting point, but you may find that each time a new hire occurs you want to do something. You could do something in the Spring and something in the Winter to change up the activities and so people expect a fairly regular plan where people may look forward to it.

How do you know which type of team building you need?

Think about the questions below before you narrow your list of team-building activities. Remember that this is not about competition, so while that may seem fun, that can have the opposite effect of what you are trying to do, so any team building should require collaboration.

1. Do you have any specific conflict going on, and what is it?
2. Do you have new hires you are trying to incorporate into an already tight team?
3. Do you have individuals that stand out and work as lone wolves?
4. Is overall morale down? Are people not seeming engaged?
5. Do you think people simply don’t know how to break the ice to start working together effectively?
6. Does your team communicate poorly?
7. Is team availability after work an issue? Maybe it needs to be during the day or lunch.
8. Does the activity force people to be uncomfortable? Some are more social than others.

What if you have people who don’t want to do it?

The larger your company gets, the more likely you are to have people who don’t enjoy social situations and those who believe work is work and not for friends. Others will have outside commitments even if they are a star team member. Consider these things as well when determining the plan.

1. Make sure the event or activity has value to employees so they don’t feel it’s a waste of time.
2. If you do it at the office or during work hours, do it outside, or rent a space so it’s not devalued by people answering the phone or checking emails.
3. Allow people a break from work to do this.
4. Don’t forget to explain the reasoning for what you are doing.
5. It should be mentioned in interviews that this is part of the culture so it’s expected and normal. For that reason, document it, post it, talk about it. This may make the hesitant people more likely to try it next time.

Don't pressure people into team building

You may still have people who don’t want to participate but making it part of the workday helps significantly. Otherwise, you can’t force people. They may have reasons they can’t share. It could be a spouse at home uncomfortable with it who makes life hard when these things come up, something bad could’ve happened previously with alcohol or a person at a previous company event, or deep social anxiety to name just a few so don’t pressure people.

Finally, don't skip team building

There isn’t necessarily a one size fits all solution, but these questions should get you thinking in a direction as to where you should begin. Then think about the format and whether you need to do things in person or if you can accommodate everyone. Snacknation.com is another list of ideas if you’re still unsure.

Being in a pandemic is not a reason to not do this. Major universities have adapted to the capability of teaching courses online and they all require teamwork, as have almost all companies, but sometimes the teamwork may be less in day-to-day work. People meet spouses online and have full relationships. The point is, team building is key to team success and if you just put some time into thinking about how you can accommodate everyone and various locations, there are no excuses to not get started with this.