The COVID-19 pandemic has led to travel restrictions, school closures and with many cities around the world in lockdown. Words & phrases like social distancing, flatten the curve, isolation and quarantine have woven their way into our everyday vocabularies and the majority of the workforce are now working from home remotely. With so much change taking place seemingly overnight, many teams are waking up to the new reality (and the new challenge) of staying connected online.
But, it’s not all doom and gloom for teams working remotely! Although a crisis like COVID-19 can put further stress on an already fragile team, it is also an opportunity for innovation and greatness. Here at Pinnacle Team Events, we have created an exciting range of online team building events to keep your team together even though they may be physically apart. Many clients are booking multiple virtual team building events in a set and forget format to ensure they set aside time to simply focus on the connection with their team – a virtual water cooler if you will. The key changes for our virtual team building events include:
Location
There are a number of (obvious) factors surrounding COVID-19 contributing to the move from physical events to connecting with your team virtually. Social distancing, restrictions on public gatherings and limits on interstate travel – and all for good reason! Put simply, these restrictions help to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and flatten the curve. With more and more teams working from home, face to face team building events have transformed to online team building. Our virtual events are held via Zoom, Google Meets, Webex, Microsoft Teams or your preferred video conferencing platform, with little-to-no set up or equipment required!
Timeframe
Online team meetings have become an essential part of work life, or even the only form of communication between teams working remotely. In order to not waste the first 20 minutes or so of the meeting testing video or just getting everyone on the same page, the majority of businesses have a plan with specific items to cover and stick to that plan e.g. sharing the meeting agenda ahead of time so everyone can come prepared. For this reason, along with wanting to keep everyone engaged (not to mention avoiding distractions such as home-schooling duties), online team meetings tend to be a lot shorter than a regular team conference. This also translates to our team building events; where our physical team building events would last anywhere from a minimum of an hour all the way to 4 hours, our virtual team building events range in time from 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Number of Participants
Maintaining large teams working without the benefit of face to face interaction may prove difficult in the current climate. In the new norm of working remotely, it can be said that smaller groups allow for easier communication, greater collaboration and therefore higher productivity. The majority of online team building events are best suited to groups of 12 – 30 people. However, we can definitely cater for group sizes outside this range. Talk to us should you like to discuss your specific requirements for your next virtual team event.
Budget
During these unprecedented times, many businesses are feeling the pinch and budgets are tight especially for activities that may not necessarily be classed as ‘essential’. However, continuing to boost your team’s motivation and connection to one another is more important now more than ever AND one of the great things about virtual team building events is they boast a much lower cost than the usual team building events on offer. They have the natural benefit of zero venue costs due to the fact that they take place inside your very own home! With this in mind the benefits of running a virtual team building event far outweighs the minimal cost to organise. The majority of our virtual team events have an average spend of approximately $10.00 per person. Contact us for a personalised quote!
Desired Outcomes
One of the biggest downsides to working from home is loneliness (they don’t call it isolation for nothing)! Connection and meaningful interaction between team members is essential for all teams to be productive. It’s safe to say that all leaders would like their employees to be more than just co-workers, they want everyone to be supportive of each other in a positive way. Creating and/or maintaining such a bond can be especially difficult when you’re not able to physically interact with your team mates in person. However, engaging in virtual team building events is an easy and effective way to ignite employee engagement, retention, company culture and to simply have some fun with your remote team. We have found that the majority of businesses engaging in online team building are seeking an activity that is fun, captivating and allows teams to come together at the same time for a shared experience.
If you would like to discuss or receive a quote for an online activity for your team please don’t hesitate to get in touch – all virtual team events are up and running!