7 Creative Ways to Remotely Integrate Yourself into a New Team

It’s becoming the new normal – starting a new job remotely. Since 88% of organizations worldwide have made it mandatory or encouraged their employees to work from home after Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, it means that successfully integrating a new employee within the organization is a key focus for businesses large and small. In fact, in 2020 there was a 9% increase in Google search interest related to the phrase “team-building”. Why is that?

Challenge 

Without a water cooler, lunch-room, or just a casual in-person meeting, it can be a struggle for employees working from home to get to know their teammates and build trust while working long distance. Trust is the foundation of a successful team, but trust is usually built over time. When working in a virtual team, there isn’t always time to build a rapport with team members. Although you might be part of a group, you may have no idea about other people’s work ethics or anything about their personal lives.

So how can a new employee get off to a great start and build camaraderie with their co-workers from the very beginning when starting a new project or job?

Social Strategist Charles Etoroma posted that question on Twitter and many people from a wide variety of industries chimed in to give their thoughts.

Seven Practical tips to integrate yourself into your team virtually:

·  From @JuiceboxCA – “I try to be the first person to every meeting with my camera + mic on so I can steal a few casual minutes with the first attendees before work talk starts.”

·  From @philpirkovic – “I know people hate meetings but I scheduled one-on-one’s with everyone on my team, communicated a lot, and always asked “how can I help you?”

·  From @bkrzywinska – “I asked all my coworkers to recommend their favourite songs then created a Spotify playlist to listen to while I work.”

·  From @maddddb – “My company is doing mini virtual coffee dates where they randomly pair you with an employee to chat for 15 minutes every week!”

·  From @amaliaefowler – “Ask to be added to any social oriented slack channels, do a lot of observing of norms in meetings, reach out 1:1 to connect and introduce yourself via slack, ask those you really seem to connect with or on your team to have a quick coffee meeting / get to know you.”

·  From @hannahGrubow – “Be unapologetically yourself and tell stories of your likes and interests when there is down time in meetings. Also, it might be slightly frowned on, but creep on their IGs. I just recently found out my boss loves legos as much as I do and now we chat about it often.”

Very simple and effective huh? Being the first person to every meeting so you can chat with first attendees is genius. The idea of doing mini virtual coffee dates – awesome.

Now for idea #7. (This may not be for you) 

I initially tried this approach when I participated in the CX World Games with other CX Rockstars such as Nate Brown, Andre Grandt, Brittany Naylor, Shane Goldberg, Tim Lynch and Stacy Sherman. Since we didn’t know each other and the entire team was remote, I thought it would be fun to ask every team member via Slack to share with me the answers to 5 silly but insightful questions that would reveal details about themselves in a fun way. The questions were:

1. What is a show or movie you’ve watched again and again?

2. What is a nutty (crazy) thing you’ve done to earn or save some $$$

3. What is a pastime or hobby that a jerk might tease you about?

4. What is an unusual object in your house?

5. A crazy thing you did in school/college/early 20s

Result? 

Genuine honest to God hilarious answers that had everyone cracking up! We learned that someone once ate a peppermint patty they found in a Mexican restaurant parking lot in order to save a few bucks. One team member’s unusual object in their house was a wine bottle signed by Barry Switzer and another team member’s hobby was collecting Diddle Mouse papers. Mouse papers??

These were just a few of the many funny truths we all told and revealed about ourselves. By opening up and laughing at ourselves and with others, we were all able to get off to a great start and collaborate so easily. We even managed to win a few of the CX games while having fun in the process.

So, when I recently began my new remote gig with one-of-a-kind SMS Marketing tech startup Cartloop, I thought, why not try this again? This time around, I provided my responses in a Loom video that added another personal touch.

How did it go? Did I successfully integrate myself with my new co-workers?

To say it worked terrifically would be an understatement. : )

How about you? Do you have an interesting way on how to integrate with a new team you’d like to share?