3 Ways to Bond with a Remote Team (Pandemic Edition)
When the COVID-19 pandemic made us retreat from the office to our homes in March, we thought it would be just a matter of weeks before our normal returned. Take your cry/laugh break now.
Like many remote workers, I found myself missing the in-person chatter and connection from working in the office with my team. I didn’t realize the impact of the (at the time) mundane moments like walking to fill up on coffee in the kitchen, heading up to the fifth floor for a snack break, or grabbing a salad at our location’s cafeteria…our team is very food motivated, what can I say?
While some of us quarantined with a partner or roommate, others were completely alone in their homes. Our normal social interactions from 9 to 5 and 5 to 9 were nonexistent. Through the interactions of virtual meetings and Slack messaging, it became obvious that we were becoming less and less engaged with each other.
To help remedy some of these feelings of detachment and solitude, I worked with my management and fellow team leads to plan activities and gestures to help us all feel just a little more connected.
Desk toys. Everyone loves desk toys, right?
The initial serotonin boost I administered came in the form of a Funko desk toy. We were working from home, some of us at a make-shift desk unsuitable for 8 hours of designing. I decided to do something to brighten up everyone’s spaces.
I asked the designers on my team what their favorite pop culture references were, including TV shows, movies, video games, and comics. Then, I Amazon primed a Funko toy to everyone.
I only did this for the squad I lead since I paid for it myself and our larger team is about 20 people. However, it was about $10–$15 per person, so it would be relatively easy to accomplish with team funding.
I was happy to find out that everyone still had their toys on their desks 9 months later when I asked them for photos to include in this article. It would have been real awkward otherwise.
Secret Fauci
Later in the summer, I orchestrated a more elaborate team bonding event to include our greater team. Like many teams, we do Secret Santa during the holidays. In the toilet year of 2020, I decided Christmas needed to come early. With the blessing of my managers I planned “Secret Fauci.” It was billed as “Secret Santa, but for masks so we don’t get COVID-19.”
Each team member created a wish list on Draw Names and instead of asking for specific things, people would only provide their shipping address and any information to help their Secret Fauci find them the perfect mask. We set a deadline for ordering masks to make sure everyone got theirs in time for our Secret Fauci reveal.
People received packages at different times due to different shipping speeds or locations (one mask was sent all the way to England), so we agreed that no one would open them until we were all on a conference call together for the reveal. I set up a Webex (our version of Zoom) for our meeting and we all took turns opening our masks and modeling them for the team.
The mask designs fell on a spectrum from ridiculous to fashionable. My team knows I’m an animal lover, so mine had an actual dog face printed on the front. Another designer wanted to support BIPOC owned businesses, so her mask came from a Black designer.
Secret Fauci required a lot of planning, but everyone had a ton of fun and we shared many laughs watching people open their packages.
Culture Captain (beta)
Planning consistent, unique, and enjoyable team building activities is not sustainable for one person. And it kind of defeats the purpose of team bonding if only one person is coming up with fun activities. Something I might think is fun wouldn’t be enjoyable for another person on the team.
I introduced the idea of Culture Captains, which we are currently piloting. I created a sign up sheet so that one or two people can volunteer each sprint. During this time, their responsibility is to plan one team activity of any kind.
The activity could be a 30 minute Skribbl game or we could all share a dumb TikTok video. The event does not have to incur a personal cost like the Funko desk toys or be as elaborate as Secret Fauci. But it could be if the Culture Captain wanted to take that on.
I encouraged everyone on the team to add a few ideas to a bank at the bottom of the sign up sheet so there were options in case someone was stuck. Some of the submissions include show and tell from your desk, MTV cribs home office edition, online escape rooms, and playing Among Us.
We are entering our first sprint using this system and I am hopeful it will not only add to the variety of ways we communicate with each other, but will make individual designers feel like they help define the culture of our team.
Team bonding when everything’s a disaster
This year provided heaping doses of stress for people: the pandemic, the election, protests, economy, isolation, and even those murder hornets…what happened to them? Are they still trying to kill us?
A healthy team can be a constant in chaotic times. We need to know that we are emotionally safe with the people with whom we spend 40 hours a week. Now more than ever, it is important for us to take time to build and maintain trust with each other. Even if that means giving someone a mask with a dog face on it.
