Creative Team Connection

5 ideas for team building during remote work

Companies that have great cultures scale. When clear and cohesive, culture that is intentional and matches the values of the company, empowers each employee to make decisions and be their best. More importantly, it helps individuals feel connected at a deeper level, to tribe and meaning, which is the highest-octane rocket fuel for success.

The new world of remote work means a need for ingenuity around culture and connection building, virtually. In person, people can see the culture, on the walls, in trainings, and even through casual conversation or non-verbal cues. If someone wasn’t following the culture, even on the small things, it was easy to talk about or instill before it became a big issue. Now, if you don’t focus on building culture virtually, it will start to deplete. And for new employees, it will be a struggle to build social capital from behind screens and likely that they bring in their own culture from their old workplaces without cohesion.

A number of the management teams in the companies I work with have been looking for creative and authentic ways to do team bonding. Given happy employees are 12% more productive in their careers and almost 80% of employees say recognition makes them work harder, focus on this area will pay dividends.

Below I share a few of the most creative ideas we have come across for team building during remote work. But first, I want to preface that the most critical factor for any of these ideas to work is leadership engagement. This may sound obvious, but leaders need to step up and show that culture is important. They need to acknowledge that it is hard to support WFH, that they feel awkward or silly trying to facilitate some of these virtual connectivity events, and even be transparent and vulnerable about the stories from their own careers that formed the culture to be the way it is. Embrace the discomfort. When I was struggling with this, I decided to volunteer as a camp counselor for children affected by childhood cancer. Hanging out with kids and needing to run around dressed up like a dinosaur is a great way to take yourself less seriously in life and with your teams. I’ve also had a friend take up clowning to do a similar thing. Whatever you choose to do, it’s about the mindset.

Here are 5 startups tackling the problem of team collaboration in unique ways:

1. Morning coffee chats with Ten Thousand Coffees

Ten Thousand Coffees is a software, created by founder Dave Wilkin, that matches employees for virtual coffee chats, 1-on-1s and in Ask Me Anything Group forms to make mentorships and cross-function collaboration a natural part of the work culture.

As we move away from the informal interactions we have around the coffee station, creating a virtual morning coffee chat to connect with people on a personal level is a great way to connect on non-work related things and build connection. Ten Thousand Coffees algorithm helps match people who may be in different parts of the organization but share mutual interests, both personally and professionally. This is especially relevant for new employees who need to develop social capital and mentorship from behind a screen.

2. Energy management across mind, body and purpose with SPACE BTWN

From a mental perspective, creating opportunities for people to pause and create healthy habits is important. Group mindfulness and wellness classes helps teams build a sense of community, support one another, and even give back during these difficult times.

SPACE BTWN is the hardware and software for mindfulness and wellness classes that can be mailed directly to team members' homes. It includes a yoga mat, compact meditation cushion, carry case and access to 3-months of curated wellness platforms to decide which classes resonate best for each person and team. Best of all, it is like the Tom’s Shoes of mindfulness, where profits give back to support youth in at risk communities get access to mental health tools. Feel good, and do good, as a team.

Brian Jones and I founded SPACE BTWN late last year to make mindfulness more accessible.

3. Raw and honest team course correction with SHIFT

Tough conversations that surface the bright spots, hot spots and blind spots within a team dynamic are even harder to facilitate remotely. SHIFT has developed the tools that make tough alignment conversations with teams personalized and fact based. This means high impact conversations can happen so teams can build new habits and find news ways of working together. This is like the first aid kit of remote teams to avoid small problems from building into big ones. The team at SHIFT come from professional careers in leadership development and are making these best practices accessible to all.

4. Moving from awkwardness to fun with Ice Breaker and ME

Get moving (literally). Exercises that get you out of your seat and out of your head to physically think differently. When I first met Daniela Plattner, I knew I had to invite her to break the ice at a conference we were hosting in the CVC space. We've been working together ever since. Her extensive history in somatic therapy and movement shakes you out of your head, anxiety, and apprehension and into a space of possibility. Her new venture, ME, facilitates these experiences virtually and also leverages great new startups like Ice Breakers to prompt one-on-one discussions that break the ice.

5. One space to be together with ClickUp

There are lots of tools now to bring remote teams together – Slack, Zoom, Teams, etc. ClickUp is an all in one app for team collaboration that helps teams work smarter and integrates with all of the most important tools. It is incredible for productivity around tasks, docs, goals and chat. Think of it like a digital office – the destination for teams to go daily where they have all of the tools to thrive. 

Have other ideas that are working for you or your teams? Please share in the comments or in a private message. Remote work is a growing evolution and great ideas are needed for teams to thrive!