Bonding with your team is important no matter what industry you work in and no matter how large (or small) that team may be. But in 2021, bonding can be a little (read: extraordinarily) different. After all, you’re now trying to bond with a team that isn’t located in the same place (now more than ever). So, what are some remote team bonding ideas you could implement?

The Importance of Bonding

Bonding with your team is crucial to building a strong and cohesive unit that works together in all the best ways. Think about the people who are important to you in your personal life. Why are they so important? Because you have shared memories that bind you together. You have events and inside jokes that will always make you think of each other, even when it’s been a long time since you’ve seen each other last.

Those bonding moments and memories make it easier for you to think about that person and to do nice things for them as well, right? Well, what if you had those types of feelings for the people that you work with? What if you positively thought of them every so often or if you felt the desire to do something nice for them? It would definitely make your workday that much better right? And it would make your team work together even better.

When you bond with your team you are helping everyone to feel as though they are important and to want to work together toward a positive outcome rather than feeling like they simply ‘have to’. But when it comes to remote working, bonding experiences can be quite a bit more difficult. After all, most of the memories that you have with your friends that created those special memories involve being in the same room together, right? So how do you create the same type of feeling without being physically present all the time?

Bonding Pre-COVID

We all know that 2021 has presented some unique challenges that exacerbate the remote work issue, but let’s start by looking at some remote team bonding ideas that you could do pre-COVID (or post-COVID as we start to find our way through).

Teambuilding Weekends

Pre-COVID, if your team was working from home but not quite remotely, you could host teambuilding weekends. These events might take place at a camp or even a hotel. They might be highly structured where everyone follows the same schedule or they might offer several different options so each team member can find something that they enjoy and partner up with other team members who enjoy similar things.

Virtual City Tours

Taking people on a tour of your city can be a lot of fun and it can be a way for each part of your team to get to know more about the others who they work with. Basically, this is one of those remote team bonding ideas that let everyone learn about where you live and what’s unique about the place. You can set up a Zoom or Skype call with your team and take them around the area.

Bonding During COVID

Of course, the reality is that we have to accept where we’re at right now. And we have to understand that the way things are right now may be the way things are for quite a while. So, what is there to do to increase bonding amongst your team without being in physical proximity to one another?

Random Channels

Chances are you and your team have some type of ‘channel’ that you use to communicate, right? You probably use Slack or some similar service so you can chat about assignments and task lists and deadlines. But instead of using that platform only for work, consider having (or a few) random channels where your team can talk about anything that interests them. Getting to know one another will dramatically improve the way that they feel about each other and help everyone find commonalities.

Theme Days

Having a theme day ‘at the office’ can be a whole lot of fun for your team as well. Think of it like when your child goes to school on pajama day or crazy hair day. You can do the same thing with a virtual team and create your own special themes. You can use the same ones that you’ve seen your children do or you can create your own (though schools have likely covered most of the bases by now). The idea is to have some fun with it.

Movie Night

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a movie, or at night. But setting up an online activity that your entire team can do together from their own homes can help people feel closer. The news and local health departments have been telling us to have virtual game nights and dinners with our friends and family for almost a year now. Why not do the same with your team? These activities can actually be a lot of fun (especially since you get to be curled up on your own couch) and they let you see each other outside of the work environment.

Live Meetings

Meetings can be a little bit difficult because some offices seem to have far too many of them, which can burn people out on meetings. But if you want to get your team together to bond you may want to schedule a few meetings that let them just talk to each other. Or schedule a few activities that encourage certain topics, host a speaker or in some way make the meeting exciting and not at all about work.

Online Games

Whether you do this during the workday or outside of the workday, you can engage your team in playing different types of games together. This could be playing bingo or trivia or just about anything. There are even websites where you can try out different team-building games. Even murder mystery games and puzzles can be a lot of fun online.

Finding New Options

There are always new remote team bonding ideas available and with so many more people working remotely than ever before, expect that those ideas will only continue to expound. In fact, expect that there will be entirely new ways invented the longer the current conditions continue.

For example, new games have recently been developed that can be played entirely online with people you know that are remote from you. The same with watching the same movie through a watch party on your favorite streaming service.

In the end, you’re only limited by your imagination (and the imagination of your team). If you want even more options, look at this list of 57 different remote team bonding ideas.

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