Author: Kristina Proffitt

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Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

Managing autistic employees: Neurodiversity at work part 3

Read Neurodiversity in the workplace part 1: Why is this important?

Read Managing employees with ADHD: Neurodiversity at work part 2

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a condition where someone’s brain works differently than what’s typical. It can lead to challenges in social situations or with speech and language. It can also present difficulties in the workplace, including for those managing autistic employees.

Plenty of people with ASD lead normal lives, and many go through life without a diagnosis until they’re an adult. This is in part due to old-fashioned assumptions and stereotypes about autism.

There are lots of incorrect stereotypes that cause people to make assumptions and treat autistic people differently. 

But you can’t spot someone who has autism just because they walked down the street and wouldn’t make eye contact, or they didn’t understand a joke. It’s not as simple as a lack of social skills or always taking things literally.

There are hundreds of symptoms, and some are more prevalent than others. If you feel – or know – that you’re managing one or more autistic employees, here’s some advice on how to work with them, support them, and keep them happy and engaged in the workplace.

Don’t make assumptions

ASD can manifest differently in different people. The best way you can ensure you’re supporting someone as much as possible is to do your research. 

Don’t make assumptions that they can do this or that because someone else you know with ASD can. It’s not that simple or that black and white. 

ASD is often misinterpreted or misdiagnosed. Scientific research and understanding of some of the rarer or more nuanced symptoms is only just beginning to emerge.

Understanding the nuances that come with these conditions is really important if you want to be supportive when managing autistic employees. 

You may also find that some employees exhibit traits you think make them autistic, but they haven’t disclosed a diagnosis. This could be because they don’t have one, they’re unaware of their symptoms, or they’re uncomfortable sharing their diagnosis with colleagues. That doesn’t mean you can’t still make accommodations, though. 

There’s no downside to finding ways to work that empower employees to be the best and happiest versions of themselves.

Listen

Listening is an important part of people management. It’s also the only way you’ll learn what accommodations you could make to equip your employee to reach – and maybe even exceed – their potential.

Even if they don’t know what they need, recognizing the challenges they face could help you both find solutions. 

Or perhaps you’ve helped an employee with a similar problem in the past. This could provide a basis for suggestions of what could work for this individual, too.

Learn the language

The language around ASD and neurodiversity in general can be hard to understand if it’s completely new to you. There’s no reason you can’t learn, though. 

Taking the time to learn it shows your employees that you don’t just say you care about their wellbeing, you actually mean it.

Communicate clearly

Sometimes, when we’re saying something we don’t want to say, we can tiptoe around the topic, or use euphemisms. This can be problematic as the key message can get lost in the sea of everything else we’ve said.

Be mindful of how you say something, but be clear when you do speak. Everyone involved in the conversation will have a greater understanding of the key points. Plus, they’ll feel happier with the agreed-upon outcomes. 

Give specific instructions

Giving employees the freedom to make their own decisions about how they grow in their role, and what their role entails, is important to some businesses. 

But this can be challenging for neurodivergent employees. These individuals often need clear guidelines to help them know what’s expected of them and when. 

Some employees who don’t understand the instructions may feel uncomfortable speaking up about it. As a result, they can end up suffering in silence and will be less efficient in their role.

If you want to give them more freedom, ask them what they’d like to achieve. Talk to them about where they see themselves fitting into the business. 

If that doesn’t help, consider what their strengths and areas of interest are. You’ll get far more out of neurodivergent employees by playing to their strengths than by forcing them to do tasks that they find challenging, or which cause them to disengage.

Be accommodating 

You know those ice breakers that are often forced on us at the start of team-building activities but that nobody really likes? Those are even worse for people with ASD.

Instead of forcing everyone to speak in a controlled environment, find a more natural way to involve them in conversation. You could ask them for their opinion, for example. This makes them feel valued and included.

Sometimes, people need time to digest something before a meeting. So give them some time to think on big discussion topics before they come up, or let them mull it over after the meeting and before a decision is made. Not everyone thinks well on the spot.

Another way you can make them feel more comfortable in meetings is to ensure they have a pen to fiddle with, or a fidget spinner. Many people with autism ‘stim’ (i.e. self-stimulate) as a way to self-soothe, and playing with pens is a common one. 

Fiddling, fidgeting, and doodling can help everyone to engage during meetings. This makes us more likely to retain what we’ve heard, whether we’re neurodivergent or not.

Conclusion

Managing autistic employees doesn’t have to be difficult. Neurodivergent team members can be great assets to a business—if they’re allowed to work in a way that complements how they think. 

Forcing them to work in a set way can backfire and mean they disengage. This can make them less productive, unhappy in their role, and lead them to leave without ever fulfilling their potential. 

Supporting neurodivergent employees, on the other hand, can make teams more efficient, creative, and productive.

If you’re looking to build a more inclusive and supportive environment for all team members, regardless of neurodivergence, check out Workrowd. Our platform offers a one-stop shop for marketing, managing, and measuring all your employee events, groups, and programs. We make it easy for employees to see everything they can get involved in from day one, no matter where or when they work. Drop us a line at hello@workrowd.com if you’d like to learn more.

8 ways your team is being held back by unconscious bias at work
7 ideas for tackling unconscious bias in hiring practices
10 innovative ways to reduce unconscious bias in the workplace
Categories
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

Managing employees with ADHD: Neurodiversity at work part 2

Read Neurodiversity in the workplace part 1: Why is this important?

More and more adults are getting diagnosed with ADHD, which means more and more people are managing employees with ADHD. Women, in particular, are being diagnosed later in life. Their predominantly inattentive or combined type was frequently ignored because it didn’t cause problems for other people. This is also true for those of us who identify as non-binary and trans.

As we develop greater understandings of neurodiversity, awareness is building around symptoms. These can include brains that won’t switch off, or struggling to concentrate on uninteresting tasks.

Symptoms can differ depending on people’s history, culture, age, gender, and more. They can also differ based on the type of ADHD that a person has (hyperactive, inattentive, or combined). The medical establishment previously called the inattentive form of ADHD, attention deficit disorder, or ADD.

In some countries, not everyone can afford to get an official diagnosis. Others may get stuck on a long waiting list. 

Accommodating these individuals even without medical verification, and finding ways to work with them, can lead to increased morale across the team. In addition, it can boost productivity with tasks completed more quickly and efficiently, and generate more creative ideas.

But these things only happen if you work with your employee, not force them to work in the way that you think is best.

So, what can you do to ensure you’re successful at managing employees with ADHD? Here are some tips.

Research

While research may seem like an obvious thing to do, it’s often forgotten. 

But if you have an employee struggling with a health condition you know little about —or that you only have assumptions about—researching the condition is an important step that will enable you to assist and encourage them in the right way. New studies are coming out all the time; understanding the results shows you care about your employees’ lives and want to support them.

One of the big reasons for this lack of awareness is that ADHD is often misinterpreted or misdiagnosed. Most studies have centered white boys, which means there’s little understanding of how ADHD affects adults, other genders, or POC.

Someone being a relentless fidget isn’t the only symptom of ADHD. It’s not as simple as them constantly disrupting classrooms or meetings.

Understanding the nuances that come with a condition like ADHD is really important if you want to be supportive when managing employees with ADHD.

ADHD looks and feels different for everyone, and can change over time depending on what’s happening in a person’s life.

Use the right language

Using the right terminology can be hard, especially when you’re learning new words and phrases you’ve never needed before. This dictionary is a really helpful reference.

The most important thing to remember is that it’s okay to get things wrong. Make it clear that you want to be corrected, too. This shows your employee that you’re open and willing to learn.

Don’t say phrases like, “we’re all a little ADD/ADHD”

Phrases like, “we’re all a little ADD,” or “we’re all a little OCD,” downplay the detrimental and lifelong impact these conditions can have on someone’s life. 

Yes, these conditions often operate on a scale. 

But if you haven’t lived with the condition, or don’t know someone with it, you can’t know what the impact of that condition actually is. (Which is part of why research helps, but the impact will still vary from person to person.)

It’s your job to be supportive of employees with different conditions. Using inclusive, supportive language is a big part of that. 

The language we use can reflect how we think and feel much more than we realize, so it’s important that we educate ourselves.

Listen to what they need

It’s all too easy to suggest meditation or exercise as ways for people to control, or mitigate, their brains. But it isn’t always about controlling or mitigating the fact that someone’s brain works differently.

An ADHD brain can be a superpower in the right environment. It can make someone more creative, empathetic, honest, insightful, and observant. But employees can only embrace those powers if they’re offered the right support.

So, instead of forcing them to work in a way that works for you, or the business, find a way that works for them. Let them tell you what they need; don’t make assumptions.

If you—or they—aren’t sure of what those solutions could look like, check out resources such as ADHD 2.0 and How to ADHD.

Don’t micromanage

Supervisors may be tempted to micromanage when an employee isn’t fulfilling their potential, or is feeling overwhelmed. But this can lead to further frustrations for everyone.

Micromanaging says to an employee that you don’t trust them. It’s understandable if they’re missing targets, but instead ask them what’s going on and how you can support them. Maybe they need fewer responsibilities, more responsibilities, or an alternative way of doing something.

Break tasks down

ADHD can make it challenging to get things done. Breaking tasks down can really help with this process, as it triggers the brain’s reward response, something which ADHD loves. The more often you can trigger this response, the happier it’ll be.

Imagine that you’ve got a report to put together, and your employee with ADHD is in charge of it. Instead of saying ‘project manage this report,’ break it down into each step that needs to be done. This could include planning, drafting, editing, designing, marketing, etc. Then, assign dates to each task. 

This makes it easier for you to track what’s happening. It also allows them to feel like they’ve accomplished something sooner, triggering that reward response. Plus, it will help reduce the feelings of overwhelm or intimidation that can lead to procrastination on big projects.

Tools like Trello, Milanote, or even a physical planner can be useful to help them—and you—track deadlines and progress.

Give clear (positive and negative) feedback

Most people, when they give someone feedback, only focus on the negative. Or they use a ‘compliment sandwich,’ which can be very transparent. 

Instead of either of these approaches, just be honest! 

Share what you like about what they’ve done or how they’ve done things, then suggest areas where they could improve. 

And include them in the process of identifying how they could improve. 

Give them time to go away and research ways they can improve on the identified issues. Don’t immediately expect them to have answers if they didn’t know that adhering to deadlines was an issue for them. 

There’s no harm in you both going away to do research using resources like the ones mentioned above, to find solutions that work for everyone.

Conclusion

A diverse workforce is one that can be more creative, better at solving problems, and happier to go to work every day. That can only happen if employees are provided with the right support, though. And that support comes from an understanding of the fact that everyone thinks, feels, and prefers to work in a different way.

One final way to enhance your company’s efforts around managing employees with ADHD is through employee communities. Providing additional colleague support can go a long way towards improving the lives of neurodiverse employees. If you’re looking for a way to manage your employee community efforts, we hope you’ll give Workrowd a look. We’ve put the tools and data you need to manage successful employee communities at your fingertips, including best practice resources to help team members drive impact. Drop us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

Read Managing autistic employees: Neurodiversity at work part 3

8 ways your team is being held back by unconscious bias at work
7 ideas for tackling unconscious bias in hiring practices
10 innovative ways to reduce unconscious bias in the workplace
Categories
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

Neurodiversity in the workplace part 1: Why is this important?

Neurodiversity in the workplace is increasingly gaining attention, as it should be. Estimates suggest that 2.21% of US adults have autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Figures vary for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but they’re thought to be between 2.5% and 4.4%. Dyslexia, meanwhile, impacts 20% of the population. These are just some of the conditions which fall under neurodiversity. And those stats only refer to people with official diagnoses.

The actual percentages for each condition may be much higher—many people are undiagnosed, or waiting on a diagnosis. They may not even know they’re neurodivergent. More and more people are getting diagnosed as adults, when they start to struggle with everyday life.

Some people never seek a diagnosis because it’s too expensive, too time-consuming, or there’s no benefit to doing so.

But what are the benefits to businesses building and supporting neurodiversity in the workplace?

Supporting neurodiverse employees

As society becomes more accommodating toward things like mental health conditions, and building work environments and company cultures which understand and support employees who face these challenges, it’s important to not overlook those who experience the world differently. 

Phrases like “we’re all a little ADHD,” can be thrown around without considering the detrimental impact conditions like ADHD can have on someone’s wellbeing, and their experience of the working environment. 

And, if a neurodivergent employee doesn’t have a job that allows them to work in a way that suits them, it can lead to frustration, fatigue, and disengagement.

Old school management processes and businesses may prefer to treat every employee the same rather than making accommodations for neurodiversity in the workplace. It’s easier that way. And it may feel like this is working towards equality, too.

But achieving any form of equality isn’t that simple. Instead, it’s about focusing on an individual person’s needs, and not assuming everyone’s needs are the same. That means everyone requires a different management approach.

Thinking differently is a superpower

When businesses embrace diversity of any kind, it can lead to more productivity and increased creativity. 

Neurodiversity in the workplace comes with its own set of benefits. A new way of looking at something could be exactly what you need to solve a problem. The more different points of view there are in a team, the faster that group can come up with a solution that’s creative, effective, and efficient.

Diverse teams are happier and more productive, too. In fact, neurodiversity is a competitive advantage according to Harvard Business Review. 

While every neurodivergent person experiences their ADHD, autism, dyslexia, etc. differently, these conditions often come with abilities such as hyper focus, exceptional memory, heightened pattern recognition, or strength in mathematics.

When someone thinks outside of the norm, it can make them a great innovator, too. This is particularly beneficial in fast-moving industries such as technology.

But these superpowers only come out at work if someone is happy and engaged in their role. If they’re not, it can make it challenging for them to pay attention in meetings, understand instructions, or get any work done.

Noisy work environments, for example, can cause issues for people with sensory processing disorder, a condition which is common alongside ADHD and ASD. Employees with this condition may need to wear headphones to drown out the everyday, distracting, overwhelming, and sometimes pain-inducing noises that a neurotypical employee may not even notice.

Hiring processes

Despite the benefits, estimates suggest that unemployment may be as high as 80% among those who are neurodivergent. The traditional hiring process isn’t suitable for many of them meaning they either don’t make it through, or may not apply for jobs at all.

It’s not that they don’t understand the job itself. Many have masters degrees or graduated with honors. The application process simply isn’t suited to their needs. 

There are lots of skills that hiring managers traditionally see as the cornerstone of a good employee which neurodiverse employees may not have. Things like being able to network, good communication skills, and being salesy, to name a few. 

These soft skills eliminate many neurodiverse applicants before they’ve had the chance to show their knowledge. Knowledge that could help businesses to learn and grow.

Job interviews can be particularly challenging for those on the autism spectrum, who can have confidence issues because of previous job interviews, be too honest about their weaknesses, or may not be good at making eye contact. They could then score lower on interviews than neurotypical candidates, even if they’re more qualified.

Despite society’s dependence on job interviews,  there are other ways to assess someone’s talent to increase neurodiversity in the workplace, such as casual group environments, where candidates can demonstrate their skills. 

Select candidates can then go on to a two- to six-week program which will further assess their skills. Governments and nonprofits often support this initiative, and candidates are usually paid.

Businesses such as SAP and Microsoft run hiring and training programs to encourage neurodiverse talent to join their teams. And their businesses have since reaped the rewards.

Conclusion 

These are just a few of the benefits to neurodiversity in the workplace. It starts with being open to the fact that some people view and experience the world differently, and taking small steps to accommodate this. 

Businesses that embrace diverse talent – including neurodivergence, gender, race, culture, and other characteristics – are more creative, productive, and innovative. This leads to happier teams, more revenue, and faster growth. 

Really, there are no downsides other than businesses having to change their ways of thinking. It may take time, and it may cost money, but can you really afford not to?

If you’re looking to build a more inclusive workplace, you may want to check out Workrowd, a one-stop shop for employee initiatives. You can build digital communities for underrepresented employees, including those with neurodivergencies, survey and monitor employee sentiment, and much more. Visit us at workrowd.com or drop us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

Read part 2: Managing employees with ADHD

8 ways your team is being held back by unconscious bias at work
7 ideas for tackling unconscious bias in hiring practices
10 innovative ways to reduce unconscious bias in the workplace
Categories
Hybrid/Remote

10+ virtual office holiday party ideas to end the year right

The time of year for office holiday parties is almost here again. These events are often a time for employees to let their hair down and connect on a more social level. But is that really possible with a virtual office holiday party?

Yes; yes it is.

There are plenty of things you can do to celebrate the festive season with a virtual team. Celebrations don’t have to be—and shouldn’t be—limited to teams who can meet up in person!

They also don’t have to be limited to employees. It’s a lot easier—and cheaper—to include employees’ loved ones in virtual team events.

If a lot of your employees have children, see if there’s a way you can include them in the activities at your virtual office holiday party, or put something on that they’d enjoy. This shows that you understand employees have lives outside of their work, and helps to encourage and support them.

Give employees a food/drinks budget

A big part of an in-person holiday party is going out for a meal with colleagues. 

While that can’t be recreated at a virtual office holiday party, one thing you can do is provide employees with a food and/or drinks budget. 

They can use this to treat themselves to a nice meal at home. This way, they don’t need to cook and can enjoy the festivities for the evening.

Conduct a yoga or Pilates class

To prepare employees for the festivities to come, you could hire a yoga or Pilates instructor to hold a virtual class. Both can help employees to wind down after a busy period at work. Starting off this way will ensure they’re better able to enjoy the rest of the activities. 

Yoga and Pilates are also amazing for helping to work through joint stiffness you didn’t even know you had. You never know—you may even inspire a new habit for the new year!

Hold a virtual bake off

The holiday season is a time for baking. So why not share some recipes and see which your employees would like to bake? 

This can be a fun way for employees to learn a new skill and talk to people they may not have engaged with before. They’ll also be creating social media content for you to share. Your social media followers can vote on the winning results.

Do a magic show

One family-friendly activity you could try is to hire a magician to put on a magic show. You’d be surprised at how well these work virtually when done over Zoom or Teams.

Much like in-person magic shows, there’s often an element of audience participation. This can be a great way to get employees and their family members involved.

Tell ghost stories or standup comedy

This one is for the more confident public speakers in the group. Much like a lightning talk or PechaKucha, employees get a set amount of time to tell a spooky story or make everyone laugh. 

It’s a lot of pressure and not for the faint of heart, but a great way for employees to hone their public speaking skills and be entertained in the process!

Find a standup comic

Instead of (or as well as) getting employees to provide the comedy, you could hire an actual standup comic. There are plenty out there who entertain at business events, and many have pivoted to online events, too.

Host a festive movie night

Everyone has their favorite festive film, whether it’s a classic like Home Alone, or a more recent Netflix one like The Holidate. It might even be something less safe for work, like Bad Santa.

Watching a film together can be a great way for people to share their thoughts and bond over what happened in the movie. Plus, they’re a great way to relax!

Test everyone’s general knowledge

You could host a holiday-themed quiz, asking questions on holiday-themed foods, pop culture, and customs from around the world.

Take a class or workshop

Office holiday parties can be a chance to learn or develop new skills, from cocktail making to painting. There’s no reason a virtual office holiday party can’t offer the same benefits!

There are online teachers for just about every skill imaginable. If you can, choose something with a low barrier to entry, like writing. This way, employees need less space and resources to take part.

If you want something that requires equipment, like painting, make sure you provide employees with everything they need for the class if they wish to take part.

Put on an awards night

What better way to show employees you appreciate them than with an awards night? 

You could host awards for serious things, such as best problem solver, and put them alongside more humorous awards, such as best baker.

The combination of serious and humorous awards shows employees that you pay attention to what they do at work, and what they’re interested in outside of work. 

Highlighting employees’ achievements is also a great way to show other team members what kinds of attitudes and approaches are the most effective. In turn, this can encourage them to operate in a similar way going forward. 

Including the more humorous awards also shows that it isn’t a super serious awards night that people need to get anxious or worked up about. It’s designed to be fun and not a competition.

Ask employees what they want (or don’t want)

If you’re unsure about an idea, ask! Employees may already have ideas of what they’d like to do, or have suggestions from previous virtual holiday parties they’ve attended before. 

You may even find they loved past activities you’ve done and want to do them again.

Conclusion 

Office holiday parties boost employee morale, help employees get to know their colleagues, and show employees that you appreciate all their hard work over the last twelve months. 

There’s no reason a virtual version can’t do the same thing. There are plenty of activities you can put on that can have the same benefits to employees’ mindsets and morale.

If you’re looking for an easier way to market, manage, and measure the success of events like a virtual office holiday party, we invite you to visit workrowd.com to see how our suite of tools can help you supercharge your impact.

Our platform makes it easy to keep everyone in the loop. It also includes an evolving library of activity guides, and offers automated surveys to ensure you capture crucial feedback. Drop us a line at hello@workrowd.com to learn more.

8 ways your team is being held back by unconscious bias at work
7 ideas for tackling unconscious bias in hiring practices
10 innovative ways to reduce unconscious bias in the workplace
Categories
Hybrid/Remote

9 virtual team-building activities for teams of all sizes

Team-building activities can be a challenge to organize during the best of times, but even more so when they have to be virtual team-building activities. How can you organize something that appeals to a diverse group of people with different interests?

But it’s worth taking time to organize them. They’re a great way for colleagues to bond, leading to a happier working environment. This can improve communication between team members, promote new ways of working, and create more productive working environments.

Remote team-building activities are difficult to organize, but there are lots of options available.

Virtual team-building activities are also more inclusive for employees who may not be able to go out during the evening because of caregiving responsibilities. It’s also easier for employees with chronic illnesses, and for remote teams or hybrid teams to connect.

Here are a few virtual team-building activities you could try.

Lightning talks (or PechaKucha)

In a lightning talk, people get around five minutes to talk about something they’re really passionate about. 

PechaKucha takes a similar approach—people have 20 slides on a topic and get 20 seconds to talk about each slide. 

Talking about something they love makes people are less likely to feel nervous than they would in a typical work-related discussion. These talks are therefore a simple way to help someone develop their public speaking skills.

Someone’s chosen topic doesn’t have to be work-related. It could be dog nutrition, novel writing, the environment—whatever makes them happy! It’s an opportunity for employees to find out more about their colleagues and for them to connect through shared interests.

If you’re planning to host lightning or PechaKucha talks, you could also hold a workshop beforehand on public speaking skills. 

Sometimes people want to join in but have no public speaking experience, or are afraid of it (public speaking is a really common fear!), so giving them some tips will boost their confidence and may increase the number of people who feel excited about participating.

Volunteering or fundraising challenges

Volunteering and fundraising allow employees to bond over a passion for a common cause. 

You could offer a regular window during working hours to volunteer, or several hours per month to donate to a good cause.

Fundraising challenges are shorter, but allow employees to work toward a shared goal, such as walking or running a certain distance together.

Both options provide employees with the opportunity to give back to the world, whatever their situation.

It doesn’t always have to be about donating money—donating time to help those who need it can make just as much of a difference, and provide lots of team-building opportunities, too.

Volunteering and fundraising opportunities also show what your company cares about to the outside world. 

Demonstrating the impact you want to have, beyond what your business does, helps employees to feel like a part of something and can attract more job candidates and potential customers.

Hackathons

Hackathons, where participants have a set amount of time to create a solution or product, are another option. 

These events can last any length of time, but they’re usually short. The idea behind them is that the shorter time frame leads to more creativity, innovation, focus, and, of course, teamwork.

Typically, they’re focused around a key challenge the company is currently facing, but they can also be more open-ended than that. There should at least be some sort of theme to bring everyone together. And probably some prizes on offer for the best results, too.

Hackathons are an opportunity for employees to play to their strengths and challenge themselves. Which is the perfect environment to grow as a person and an employee.

Movie nights 

Informal communication is a key way to build employee morale. Movies are one of the ways you can encourage this. They help us connect with others, and the genre(s) we prefer can say a lot about us. 

Horror helps us confront our fears and anxieties in a safe place; romance offers us an escape; true crime helps us subconsciously prepare for something that could happen to us; films we watched as children can give us that nostalgic, warm and fuzzy feeling.

Discussing and dissecting a film is often water cooler chat, but why not organize it so that everyone has seen it at the same time, and they can discuss it at the same time, too? 

You could provide a list of questions to think about at the end, or let the conversation flow once the movie is over.

Quiz night

Quizzes can be a great way for different team members to show off their areas of expertise and work together to answer the most questions.

You could do a standard quiz, go for something different, like a Jeopardy!-style contest, or make up anagrams or puzzles for participants to solve. Or even combine different types of questions so that everyone gets a chance to use their knowledge and skills.

Dividing employees into small groups, outside of the people they normally work with, gives employees the chance to connect with others and get to know them better. It also ensures that employees who have fewer work-based friends don’t feel left out because they weren’t asked to be in a group.

Escape rooms

In-person escape rooms were growing in popularity before the pandemic hit. Now, the same growth is happening to online ones. 

You can do anything from escaping a spaceship to running away from vampires. 

Sometimes they involve things being sent to someone’s house in advance, while in other instances, everything is done via email or video call.

Teams usually range from 4 to 8, so this is better for small departments, or when people are separated into small groups.

Murder mystery

True crime is one of the biggest genres in the world right now. What better way to build problem-solving skills for true crime lovers than investigating a (fictional) crime?

Online murder mysteries can operate in a few ways, from guided calls to independent, web-based tales. 

Book club (work-related)

Establishing a work-related book club encourages an atmosphere of learning, and discussions about that learning. 

It also teaches active reading skills, which can improve employees’ editorial and analytical abilities.

Suggesting nonfiction books related to upcoming business decisions can often be more powerful than a manager dictating how something will happen. It gives employees a greater understanding of the situation and makes them feel more like a part of the decision-making process.

Book club (fiction)

If you’re going to offer a fiction-focused book club, make sure to alternate genres each week so that everyone’s tastes are included. You could even give each member of the group a chance to pick a book. 

If possible, aim for easy reads so that it doesn’t take huge amounts of time or brain power for people to complete the book. This will be more accommodating to people of different reading skills and energy levels. You’re then more likely to get employees to want to take part and chat about what they’ve read.

Conclusion

Being in different locations doesn’t mean employees can’t still build team skills. These are just a few examples of virtual team-building activities you could try with your employees to foster better communication, a more engaged workforce, and happier employees.

If you’re interested in a better way to market, manage, and measure your team-building activities, check out Workrowd. We’ve got a full suite of tools to help you build transparency and connection for every employee, and track the value of your programs over time. Drop us a line at hello@workrowd.com if you’d like to learn more!

8 ways your team is being held back by unconscious bias at work
7 ideas for tackling unconscious bias in hiring practices
10 innovative ways to reduce unconscious bias in the workplace