In this article, our frontend engineer Jan Philipp Paulus introduces 3 simple methods to help your team build up or strengthen their bond. You can pick up the techniques without further requirements. (Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash).

Why a good team spirit is important

🤩 Motivation: colleagues will be more motivated when there is an overall better spirit in the team.

🤝 Trust: colleagues will start to gain and foster trust in each other

💬 Communication: with more trust, colleagues will start communicating and interacting more with each other.

💡 Knowledge: the more communication occurs, the more knowledge will be shared within your team.

📈 Performance: in the end, everything mentioned above can potentially lead to overall better team performance.

Disclaimer

Remote team building is not a replacement for in person team building and will most likely not be as effective as it is face-to-face.

Pro tip 💪 Try to incorporate a mix of in-person and remote team building techniques into your team building strategy.

the techniques

👩🏻‍💻 Create an off-topic channel

Create a channel for your team in which everyone can post random memes, images (especially of dogs or cats), recipes, and music. This channel can be an alternative to the chats that would usually happen at the coffee machine. You can even start small competitions in which everyone posts a picture of their desk and then votes for the cleanest and messiest. These are some ideas, but the options are endless. Be creative!

👾 Host virtual game nights

You might be skeptical if you've never attended a virtual game night, but they are a fun way of getting to know your colleagues. Depending on the game, you will be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of your colleagues. Understanding these will help you to get a better picture of the person you're working with.

Pro tip 💪 To get everyone into the right mood, try to kick off the evening with an ice breaker. tscheck.in is a good starting point if you are looking for ice breakers.

Among the many options, here are some games I can recommend:

• Among Us
• Remote Work Bingo
• Draw Something
• Never Have I Ever (SFW)
• skribbl.io

☕️ Have virtual lunch or coffee dates

A wonderful way of getting to know your colleagues is to set up virtual lunch or coffee dates. Plus they usually don't take much time to plan and execute. You could even install apps on Teams or Slack that will randomly pair up team members every week.

Pro tip 💪 Try to avoid starting the conversation with work-related topics. Instead, try to find out what the other person likes to do in their spare time. Finding common ground makes it easier to get a conversation started.

wrapping up

We hope these three techniques gave you a rough overview on how to start remote team building.
Give them a try and feel free to experiment with more promising methods.