Team connectivity/collaboration during lockdown

Brock Turnpike

Looking for some suggestions/recommendations from people.

Have your companies done anything over the course of lockdown/current restrictions to assist people with feeling more connected to their team? E.g. team day outs, quizzes over Skype, coffee mornings, etc..

If not, any suggestions on approaches to this type of thing?

@Mods - please feel free to move to a different forum if it shouldn't be in the work problems forum.

_Brian

Many of us are still enjoying the distance from workplaces and those who occupy them.

El Gato De Negocios

Brock Turnpike wrote: »

Looking for some suggestions/recommendations from people.

Have your companies done anything over the course of lockdown/current restrictions to assist people with feeling more connected to their team? E.g. team day outs, quizzes over Skype, coffee mornings, etc..

If not, any suggestions on approaches to this type of thing?

@Mods - please feel free to move to a different forum if it shouldn't be in the work problems forum.

In the early stages my employer were very proactive with quizzes, contests, photography competitions etc but once full lockdown ended so did the fun activities. I never partook anyway so it doesn't bother me. Still WFH and will be for the foreseeable thank the lord.

antix80

The best a good manager could do is give each staff member 2 meetings a week.

One, a more formal meeting to plan work, permit escalating of issues, etc. Small groups even 1 to 1s.

The second on friday, a larger group with no particular agenda, go around everyone and see how they're getting on.

Games and quizzes.. Not interested.

KaneToad

Brock Turnpike wrote: »

Have your companies done anything over the course of lockdown/current restrictions to assist people with feeling more connected to their team? E.g. team day outs, quizzes over Skype, coffee mornings, etc..
.

Nope. If they did, they wouldn't get far. I've zero interest in feeling more connected to work colleagues.

wally1990

I'm a manager and have calls with my team members every day, quick chat, how's things, need help etc.

No day goes by that a team member hasn't been on the phone to me even for 5 min or less.

They get onto me anyway throughout the day themselves for advice and we work on issues together too.

I have a weekly team meeting to plan our work and see where we can support each other and get their feedback and input.

We also have an '' innovation meeting'' every fortnight since covid where I encourage their ideas to change our processes, systems etc and together as a team we all have input and then I work with them in 1 to 1 fashion.

Overall, communication and collaboration has increased due to covid.

We have less meaningless chats and more productive work meeting chats we feel.

We did the general quiz and stuff at the start but it fizzed out fast. My team aren't children and had no interest.

We did it, didn't enjoy it and wanted to get work done.

It's a good atmosphere acorsd the team the majority of the team and I'm not going to ruin that with quizzes which we trialed and tested and didn't like it.

So we dumped it and now the innovation meetings work better than quizzes

Get your teams feedback on this stuff I think.

It's not everyone Cup of tea, I'd rather not waste my work and teams time with such.

There is other ways to increase communication.

Ask them, if no feedback then just engage with them in general more on work issues, get their opinions, feedback, listen more, bring others in on the chats, over time you will notice the communication Increasing.

Don't make it too formal, otherwise it cns be forced and have the opposite effect

ibarelycare

In "normal" times our team would have a huddle every morning at 9.30 to discuss workload/issues. Since WFH we have continued that, and also have an afternoon one at 2.30 every day. They can last anything from 3-15 minutes depending on how busy we are. We all agree that it's nice to just say hi to everyone, even on our quiet days when there's not much to discuss workwise. The nature of our job means our team has to communicate a lot, we would be constantly talking to each other in the office anyway.