staying connected in the virtual workspace
September 14, 2020
written by
Chantel Keith
As society continues navigating the many new challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, our team has been actively seeking out ways we can not only stay connected professionally but personally as well. Team building has always been an important part of our culture at 300FeetOut, and over the past few months, we’ve gotten creative thinking of ways we can continue spending time together albeit remotely.
1. virtual happy hours
As much as we enjoyed getting together and frequenting the many, incredibly tasty restaurants in SF for lunch, it just isn’t feasible in today’s current climate with many restaurants operating at limited capacity or not at all. However, we didn’t let this stop us! Once a week, our team has gotten together for a virtual Happy Hour to eat lunch while watching cat videos or talking about the latest Netflix shows we‘ve been binge watching. It’s provided a great opportunity for us to catch up in absence of the water cooler.
2. virtual games
We’ve also come across a few virtual games, both free and paid, which provided a fun challenge for our team to learn and play.
Codenames
Codenames Online is a free, virtual game based on the award-winning Codenames board game. Players are divided into two teams and each team appoints a “spymaster” to provide the clues. During their turn, the Spymaster gives a one-word clue to their teammates who then attempt to guess their team’s words on the board while avoiding guessing the other team’s words. It’s easy to learn and a lot of fun to play.
JackBox Games
Jackbox Games creates party games that can be played across various platforms such as Zoom. The games can be purchased in a party pack, which includes 6 game codes, and each player can join virtually. Our team enjoyed playing the Push The Button game, where each players is asked a series of questions to help identify which team members are the aliens amongst humans on a spaceship.
Emoji Game
The Emoji Game is another free game consisting only of a powerpoint which makes it easy to screenshare. The game consists of 25+ slides, each containing an emoji phrase, and players get to guess what the phrases mean. It’s helpful to choose a category or theme, such as “Idioms” to streamline the guesses. It’s a great challenge to test your emoji literacy! Feel free to download our powerpoint here.
3. team playlists
Lastly, our team has also really enjoyed putting together monthly Spotify playlists. Each team member selects three songs to be anonymously added to the playlist. Songs can be selected throughout the month, whenever you have time, making it one of the more flexible team building activities. It’s also fun to try and guess which songs were chosen by which member of the team. Feel free to have a listen to our 300FeetOut playlist below.
These virtual team building activities have really helped our team stay connected while working remotely. We hope these tried-and-true activities can inspire more ways your team can stay connected and continue maintaining company culture.