Keeping your remote team engaged

Keeping your remote team engaged is tricky, especially as the one thing as humans we crave, is interaction with other humans, and that is why only a mere 5.9% of UK people worked from home in 2019 according to https://employeebenefits.co.uk/30-uk-work-home-2019/

Today this percentage has vastly increased, with most of the UK’s workforce being asked to stay at and work from home during this challenging time of our lives, our lives have become more dependant on remote living, keeping ourselves distanced from our fellow co-workers, which in turn can lead to a number of mental health issues.

Loneliness, depression, uncertainty and a general lack of motivation are a few of the issues that can creep into your remote workforce.

However, there are several ways that you can keep your remote team engaged, whilst they are stuck in lockdown, working from their kitchen table, or a propped up laptop at the end of their bed.

In this article, I wanted to share 4 things that you could organise, to help with keeping your remote team engaged, all from the comfort of your own house.

Remote Tea Break

Taking a daily tea break, where you and your team down tools and hook up remotely, for a 15 minute chat to let everyone know what you are up to and how your week has been. It does not need any structure; however, a few set questions are always a good way to get the conversation flowing.

Remote Quiz

Arrange for each person to come up with a few questions around some chosen topics, each person can then ask their questions to your team, and between you all, you could have a nice break out session. Here is a good article about team building.

Remote Exercise

Organise for someone to run an exercise session to get the heart rate up, including stretching and some short cardio exercises, like flapping arms, running on spot or jumping jacks, there are some great ideas here.

Remote Laughter Session

Laughter Yoga is a great way to release endorphins and to keep connected via zoom. You can book a Laughter Yoga Leader to run a 30-minute session, where all of your team will be connected through childlike playfulness and laughter.
It is proven that Laughter increases the immune system and releases all of your positive brain neurons, so your team will be fully engaged and feel good about themselves.

If you would like to book a Laughter Yoga session, Pete Cann is a Laughter Yoga Leader in Bristol, who specialises in running remote Laughter sessions.

You can reach out to me at pete@petecann.com or fill in this contact form if you feel that your remote team could do with a bit of a lift.