This article comes from Entrepreneur.

7 Virtual Team-Building Ideas to Keep Your Staff Connected

Team building has been pinpointed as a very important investment that you can make as a business owner. If you have a team of employees, you probably spend a lot of time considering ways to boost productivity and high-quality work. However, it is important to also spend time building company culture and finding the right work-life balance among your team. These are some activities that help keep remote staffs connected:

1. Virtual coffees

As a business that works with remote employees, you might not have the freedom to physically meet up with your employees for coffee. The beauty of the internet is that you can have virtual coffee meet-ups rather easily. Simply grab a cup of coffee and schedule a time to chat!

You might consider having a virtual coffee meeting every Monday morning before everybody begins their work. The idea here is to make it less about business and work and more about building a team. There is nothing wrong with building rapport among your employees.

2. Book club

One of the ways that you can team-build effectively with your employees is to grow together. Reading great books that everybody is interested in and engaged in together and then discussing what you learn can help you grow as a company.

Although business- and finance-related books might be the simplest theme, you can also have fun and do fiction books too. Since the idea of a company book club is for team-building, you should also consider letting one of your employees be in charge of the event.

3. Game night

There are lots of different games that you can play both virtually and physically together. If you are in the same city, you can meet up for board games and some drinks. If you are remote, you can do games together online. If games are not the particular fancy of your employees, you can do online watch parties for movies or TV shows.

If you are unsure how to do games online, think of what you would normally do out while camping where there are no board games, cards, or similar items handy. While using Zoom, Skype, or an online video conference, you can still do a game like charades very easily.

4. Happy hour (aka virtual drinks)

One of the common leisurely activities that people all over the world tend to enjoy is having a drink to unwind after a long day. As the employer of remote workers, it is nice to show your fun side and that you don’t just want to engage in strictly business-related activities with your staff.

If you are unable to meet locally, then schedule a time for a virtual happy hour. In most cases, people will have no issue taking time out of their schedule for a drink.

5. Quarterly in-person meetups

Each business quarter, consider having an in-person meetup with employees. It’s essential to have some facetime with your employees and company retreats are one of the best ways to do this. During this time, it should be a good balance of work and play. Try to focus on connecting with every individual that you have helping you out with your business. Show them that they are appreciated and make sure to have a full roster for team-building, cross-training employees, fun activities, and of course, some downtime for everyone to relax.

6. Monthly contests

Monthly contests are a good way to engage with your employees and build up a fun atmosphere where people playfully compete with each other. These contests can be designed to boost productivity, increase employee loyalty, and so on.

You don’t want the contest to be something where the reward is so small people don’t care about the contest, though. Try giving away special rewards, gift cards, or something that will make everyone more motivated to compete.

7. Virtual trivia night

Everybody loves a game of trivia. For best results, make the trivia night content related to something everybody in your company faces. If your company handles online marketing, quiz them on terms related to internet marketing such as drip campaigns, a/b testing, SEO, and so on.

If you want to make things more interesting, you can try to give out prizes for the winners. If it turns into a routine activity, you can then consider changing the theme of the trivia content.

Why focus on team building?

Team building is an important part of business building. You need to see your workers as much more than people who help you get income. When you recognize that they are human beings ready to be your friend and employee, you will easily build a positive company culture and loyal group of employees ready to help you for years to come.

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