How can you keep up teamwork and morale when everyone is working from home?

Things you can do to ensure your team wellbeing whilst working at home

With more people working from home again during Lockdown 2.0 and as it looks unlikely many people will return to working from the office for a while, it is important to consider how to continue to foster those internal relationships amongst colleagues and keep your team happy.

I have come up with a few suggestions for you to try.

1. Microsoft Teams Chat

It may not be original, but it works well for staying in touch whilst avoiding clogging up inboxes with group emails.

If you already use Microsoft 365 then you will have access to Teams, and it is easy to use and set up.

2. Zoom lunch meet up

You could recreate the staff canteen or lunchroom at a dedicated time everyday so that those who want to can sign in and have lunch and chat to colleagues.

Easy to set up, informal and you can let it run itself.

3. Morning ice breaker / team building

Why not set up a regular team building session via video conference some suggestions include:

• Dance workout
• Laughing yoga
• Wine and cheese tasting
• Quiz
• Bring your pet to work – show and tell with family pets (if there are no pets substitute children / partner)

4. Encourage contact between team members

Encourage individuals to chat with colleagues on a one to one basis, for example rather than send an email why not pick up the phone and chat to your colleague instead.

Assign a different team member with the task of doing a daily ‘round robin’ telephone call where it is their job to call every person in the team to catch up on work, diary and how they are doing.

5. Communication, communication, communication

Ensure that staff who are working remotely understand what is happening in the business and are updated on a very regular basis.

Staff working at home will undoubtedly miss the personal interaction but they may also feel anxious about the lack of information and uncertainty about what is going on in the business, so communication and updates are even more important when you are not seeing staff every day.

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