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The work pressure of the new remote employees is higher than ever. Such practices will eventually lead to burnout and make your employees feel disgruntled, stressed, and anxious. It is crucial to provide regular breaks to promote mental health and well-being among remote employees. Frequent breaks are vital to rejuvenate and boost one’s self. That, in itself, is perhaps one of the best virtual employee engagement ideas to engage the people working from home.

Or to congratulate them on a job well done? Give them the day off. Remote employees want to have a day off with no responsibilities, meetings, or conference calls to worry about. It can be the day to get a full day’s sleep. Catch up on their favorite movies. Or to simply bond with their kids. It might be a virtual concert, virtual stand-up show, or even an insightful seminar. These WFH engagement activities can be vital in allowing remote employees to rewind and relax during a tough week.

A lot of managers or leaders feel the need to micromanage their remote workers. It is because they perceive that without micromanaging , nothing will ever get done. Like regular workers, people should have the option of working with autonomy and feel trusted. Micromanaging remote workers will only make them feel alienated and result in morale and productivity loss.

Setting specific and measurable goals for every remote worker will promote transparency and eliminate the need to micromanage everything.

While physical health was the greatest worry of , mental health also took a downhill turn. Working remotely can be challenging for any person. Anxiety and stress about the world’s happenings can impact a person and their ability to perform well. Unless a remote employee is mentally well, any form of WFH employee engagement activities will not work effectively. Simply put, ensuring that your workers are in a healthy frame of mind is a critical virtual employee engagement idea that you can’t overlook.

Therefore, ensure that the remote employees are in a space where they are in a mental state to do their job without any issues.

To promote mental health and its importance, take some necessary steps such as calling a mental health advocate to do a company-wide seminar. Similarly, allow mental health day-offs and consider hiring an office counselor. You can also give the work from home employees free subscriptions to meditation apps such as Headspace. Make your remote employees feel valued by taking their feedback about the current situations. It helps in measuring the engagement levels of remote workers.

It also helps cement the fact that you still care about what your employees’ opinions are. Doing so will increase their job satisfaction levels and help you avoid some crucial mistakes. To ensure that the feedback is accurate, take the help of pulse survey tools such as Vantage Pulse.

Vantage Pulse allows your employees to give their opinions through a concise and easy survey questionnaire format. It is also accessible on multiple devices and platforms, which will make it easier for your employees to participate. Establishing between remote teams goes far beyond simple virtual team-building activities.

To drive engagement in remote workers, it is essential to encourage good communication practices. That means it excludes a wealth of key factors, such as:. They may simply be content because they feel secure in their position and are happy with their paycheck. However, there are no guarantees that the changes you make will have a positive impact on performance — in fact, they may even have the opposite effect.

There are specific, tangible benefits to building a more engaged workforce, such as preventing turnover from disengaged employees. Even if the only benefit of improving employee engagement was lower attrition, it would still be worth your attention.

Once you factor in all those other benefits — reduced absenteeism , higher productivity, increased profits, it becomes impossible to ignore. Wondering how to improve employee engagement? Before you start, you first need to understand the underlying factors that separate engaged workforces from disengaged ones. However, engaged employees typically share the following characteristics:. There are plenty of other factors that attribute to employees feeling engaged.

Building a culture of recognizing and rewarding positive behaviors and high-quality work is a key step to driving workforce engagement. Direct managers have an immediate impact on employees and are one of the primary resources for developing engaged employees. People managers at all levels of your organization should be encouraged to provide more regular feedback to direct reports, offering actionable advice where necessary, and applauding good work when the results justify it.

However, different types of feedback can be more meaningful for different employees. If you never bothered with the icebreaking or intimate side of onboarding for your remote employees , now is the perfect time to make them feel a part of the team.

To make things interesting, you can have everyone choose from a list of pre-determined questions to break the ice. This could be especially fun if a team member has just moved into a new home, after the home inspection phase. This could be anything — an awesome gadget, a precious item, an interesting story, or a sick skill that they never got the chance to show off.

While the concept is to have fun, you can make things more interesting by having a small panel of judges. Turn this into an online workplace X Factor and announce a winner at the end i. To make the employees feel like their voices are heard, leaders need to have one-on-one meetings with them — whether they work in-house or remotely.

Aside from providing feedback, the remote team members should get the opportunity to share their concerns and opinions. A good, productive way to keep oneself occupied is to watch and finish any company-mandated training. On top of your native training material, consider purchasing and providing access to other relevant training courses, as well. July 20, No Comments.

Game Night Game nights have proliferated during the pandemic and for good reason—they are a simple, inexpensive and fun way to connect with others safely. Tips for Optimum Online Interactions. Sidra Tareen. Kim Oppelt. Ike Bennion. Share Tweet Share. We use cookies on our website to improve your experience.

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– Zoom staff engagement ideas – zoom staff engagement ideas:

 

Virtual murder mystery days are the perfect solution to raise remote workers out of their usual stupor and enable them to participate in something that needs their wit, decision-making skills, and social skills. We really love the virtual murder mystery challenges that SnackNation has put out. We recommend that you take inspiration from there and host your own virtual murder mystery night. Solving puzzles together can be monumental in promoting communication, better bonding, and developing the ability to think of the bigger picture.

This particular virtual employee engagement idea will make a lot of difference to the satisfaction levels among remote workers. Even while working remotely, people need to know that they and their contributions matter to the organization. Without getting recognized for the extra efforts they’re putting in, your remote workforce is more likely to get detached and disengaged.

Or ask the whole team to clap during virtual meetings when someone reaches an amazing milestone. For rewards, you can opt for remote-friendly options such as electronic gift cards , reward points, etc. A big part of the “normal” works schedule is the water cooler conversations we have with our peers. Water cooler conversations are the casual talk and bonding that enables us to connect and empathize with one another.

It forms a big part of any company’s culture. To ensure that the disconnectedness between remote team members doesn’t increase further, seek ways for employees to have ” virtual water cooler conversations. Ask the HR teams to implement some virtual clubs. Ensure that people get the chance to take the time to chat with their team members about their day-to-day activities. Invest in a good team communication app, like Slack, for people to talk about random things.

Start new rituals like asking people to share their own version of the “photo of the day” and have conversations around it. For remote workers, days can be mundane, with one day blending into the other. Thus, themed days are always a great form of distraction. Themed days also allow you to be as creative as possible. As the world transitions towards a remote work culture, the number of meetings being conducted has risen dramatically. This is mostly due to companies trying to compensate for the lack of face-face conversations that used to be a part of the regular work-life.

Such discussions also have a terrible track record of negatively affecting engagement. Most virtual meetings can instead be replaced with a team-wide email. For important virtual conferences, remember to keep a set time. Also, ensure that only the vital people there in the discussion.

The work pressure of the new remote employees is higher than ever. Such practices will eventually lead to burnout and make your employees feel disgruntled, stressed, and anxious.

It is crucial to provide regular breaks to promote mental health and well-being among remote employees. Frequent breaks are vital to rejuvenate and boost one’s self.

That, in itself, is perhaps one of the best virtual employee engagement ideas to engage the people working from home. Or to congratulate them on a job well done? Give them the day off. Remote employees want to have a day off with no responsibilities, meetings, or conference calls to worry about. It can be the day to get a full day’s sleep. Catch up on their favorite movies. Or to simply bond with their kids. It might be a virtual concert, virtual stand-up show, or even an insightful seminar.

These WFH engagement activities can be vital in allowing remote employees to rewind and relax during a tough week. A lot of managers or leaders feel the need to micromanage their remote workers. It is because they perceive that without micromanaging , nothing will ever get done. Like regular workers, people should have the option of working with autonomy and feel trusted. Micromanaging remote workers will only make them feel alienated and result in morale and productivity loss.

Setting specific and measurable goals for every remote worker will promote transparency and eliminate the need to micromanage everything. While physical health was the greatest worry of , mental health also took a downhill turn. Working remotely can be challenging for any person. Anxiety and stress about the world’s happenings can impact a person and their ability to perform well.

Unless a remote employee is mentally well, any form of WFH employee engagement activities will not work effectively. You can also invite your team members to schedule news and family check-ins throughout the day. Go for outdoor walks during meetings with your team to encourage physical movement throughout the day. Use Zoom from your phones and give each other virtual tours of our neighborhoods. But if your kid has a severe case of FOMO fear of missing out , give them a chance to participate once in a while.

It gives them a break from the boredom, makes them feel involved, and creates space for connectedness for our families. Here are a few examples of employee engagement survey questions :. Blog Articles. With the right tactics, you can easily boost those engagement levels. Virtual Coffee Breaks Who says proximity matters when it comes to coffee breaks? Ask your team members to brew mean cups of joe or make any other drink they want. Then, get them all onboard a video conferencing tool and start chit-chatting.

Our Client Success Team always finds creative ways to interact together — Like Zoom ice-cream dates 2. Introduce Them to Your In-House Employees If you never bothered with the icebreaking or intimate side of onboarding for your remote employees , now is the perfect time to make them feel a part of the team. Then, ask them to formally introduce themselves to their fellow co-workers. Introduce flexibility: Since no two employees are alike, create a process for employees to time-shift their working hours to accommodate their unique situations, preferences, and needs.

Use My Virtual Mission to create a virtual fitness challenge and track movement through steps, biking, and other metrics together. Therapy is often a staple for mental health services, but coaching offers a whole new perspective on well-being. Foster charitable giving. Research shows that people gain a powerful boost of dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin all at once when contributing to meaningful causes.

You can set up a single charity, rotating one, or let people pick their own with a charitable giving stipend. Begin every meeting with a five-minute game, icebreaker question, riddle, or some other element of fun. Facilitate richer connections and fun at the same time. Start the week off strong or end it strong by sending out a fun trivia quiz.

Check out Water Cooler Trivia to automate trivia and send to your virtual team at the same time each week. Create a virtual space for people to teach their colleagues about something they may not know related to their roles, such as: what goes into stakeholder management, HTML for beginners, how paid media works, or more.

Murder a little too dark? Check out these virtual escape room options for a fun, team building activity! Hire a stand-up comedian. If laughter is the best medicine, then help people fulfill their prescription by hiring a comedian to host your next virtual happy hour.

Check out Laugh. Events to book a comic. Host a fancy happy hour. Invite employees to change out of their sweats and into an outfit of their choice for a Zoom cocktail party. Host a virtual Secret Santa. Invite those who wish to participate to fill out a form and include their address.

Take it a step further and set-up a Zoom for people to open their gifts together and connect over the spirit of giving. Celebrate your people. Congratulate them for surviving and for all their hard work by gifting them a perk stipend to spend on the gift they want.

Or send them a SnackMagic snack treat. If you haven’t already done so, have your company’s mission and values outlined and easily accessible so everyone understands why the company exists, as well as the behavior that rewarded. Offer relevant and meaningful perks.

 

– Zoom staff engagement ideas – zoom staff engagement ideas:

 

Doing this on an iPad? Share the join code with your students and then have them switch to the Nearpod app while leaving the Zoom app open in the background so they can hear your voice while following along. Of course, one of the best parts of using a tool like Nearpod is all the extra features like Virtual field trips, 3D models, Microsoft Sway, collaborative boards and more. Silence can be awkward in the classroom. Using a countdown timer either on a slide, video or on a tool like ClassroomScreen.

As I will mention on my next point, students need breaks from lengthy instruction throughout their day whether they be on a screen or not. If you are hosting a minute lesson online, build in a 5 minute break for students to stretch or get a glass of water to keep their brain active.

Taking breaks throughout a lengthy lesson are important whether it be for a reflective pause or just an opportunity to stretch. Using tools like GoNoodle, teachers can lead a virtual dance party in their remote classroom to get the kids up and moving.

There are a wide variety of analog strategies you could use with your students by using paper and pencil. One might be sharing a math problem on your screen while students work out the results. Then, countdown and have them reveal their answers to their cameras at the same time. A big struggle with online learning via video is keeping students focus and attention, especially to the finer details.

The premise would be that the teacher or student has an object out of camera view and then has to describe the object. You could do this with all sorts of other ideas from historical figures to using descriptive words in another language.

Taking that directed drawing from 14 to the next level by doing a Monster drawing. This helps kids both with descriptive words but also with listening and translating.

In the end, have students show their creations on the screen to see who got closest to the description. This activity could be used in other areas as well such as re-creating a story character or describing a graph in math. Students can still do long-term projects either individually or in groups even though they final results may be different than what was done traditionally in the classroom.

Using online project management and productivity tools like Trello , MeisterTask or ClickUp can help students struggling with organization and timelines. Coupling those tools with video meeting check-ins can help kids learn how to collaborate and complete a project online over a length of time. BreakoutEDU has always been one of my favorite ways to engage students of all ages by creating a series of clues and challenges that the students have to uncover.

The great thing about their platform is they have already done most of the heavy lifting in creating the BreakOuts for you based on subject and age level. In this game, students privately message the teacher some facts about themselves and then the teacher reveals the clues.

Students then write down their guesses as to who the person is based on the clues. Other adaptations could be students sending clues about historical figures, book characters, etc.

Using the Flippity. Flippity actually lets you send out the cards via link or QR code as kids can fill in their cards digitally. Amongst some of the other Flippity. A great way to review information for a unit or novel study, you can fill in the back-end answers using a Google spreadsheet and then share your screen with the game board.

Students can play individually, or you could pre-assign teams and then send them to breakout rooms to discuss what they think the answer might be. This is a similar concept where you start the story and have random students add the next line. By doing it randomly rather than in a specific order, you cause all students to be thinking of a response rather than just waiting until their turn.

Mix it up with story recaps or historical fiction to see what they come up with. This web-based application has you draw out a shape as close as you can while the AI guesses what it might be. When you see an object that is close to what you are drawing, you select it to place into your drawing.

Flashcards can be pretty boring, especially if you are just using them yourself to practice terms, definitions or maybe even a foreign language. Now that we are remote, it becomes even more challenging to find a partner or group to practice with. Using tools like Fishbowl and Quizlet Live can be leveraged to create fun and energizing ways to have kids practice their terms either as a group or in breakout rooms. One of the hidden nuggets I always love showing teachers is the Polygraph feature contained within the free, web-based math app called Desmos.

As you can upload any image, the mystery item could be a person, place, thing, word, math problem, etc. Then student B has to ask yes or no questions and decide which items they can eliminate.

Learn more about Just a Darn Fun Event. Photographers take a self-portrait every day for years, and then combine the pictures into a time-lapse video. While you can find more immediate group activities over Zoom, the end product of this exercise is a cool memento. Like many video conferencing platforms, Zoom has a whiteboard feature. Many professionals use this setting for collaboration and brainstorming, and you can also play whiteboard games. You can use the whiteboard to play games like Hangman, Tic-Tac-Toe, and Pictionary, or you can make up your own games too.

In physical offices, coworkers chat in break rooms while snacking on leftover conference sandwiches, boxes of Girl Scout cookies, and slabs of birthday cake. Dispersed employees miss out on the communal snacks and the accompanying conversations. You can build rapport among your remote team members by hosting snack times during Zoom meetings.

Simply block off 10 to 20 minutes during the workday and send teammates a Zoom invite. Once all attendees join the call, you can chat and enjoy a treat together.

You can also do a virtual lunch meeting. Dress up days are one of our favorite themes for Zoom meetings. These activities take very little time, and make Zoom calls more fun. To hold a dress up day with your team, simply decide on a theme, and allow your team to arrive at the meeting in costume. You can delight the bookworms and kids-at-heart on your team by staging an adult story-time.

First, your group will pick a text. Next, your group takes turns reading the work out loud. A great way to ensure remote employee engagement is to ask your teams for feedback. You can achieve that through online employee engagement surveys or through one-on-one video calls. And if it gets enough votes from everyone else, throw it in the list. Regular telecommuters might not have this problem, but your in-house employees who are accustomed to an office environment, might have difficulty adjusting to the WFH routine.

Your employees will love you for helping them build up their home offices from scratch or spice up existing ones. To prevent that from happening, the best thing to do is to offer positive feedback and recognize your employees for all the great work that they do. Therefore, to turn it into an easy process, consider opting for a modern HR software with built-in performance management and employee feedback tools.

Keep in mind though, that collaborative work between and within teams is also important. Set clear times where all team members should be available to collaborate or discuss projects, and make sure your leadership team is on board with any proposed schedule. Fellow co-workers can applaud one another for their hard work, make suggestions, and offer their two-cents.

You could also run you-are-awesome in an email thread or on other shared platforms. Peers can give shout-outs to peers, managers to direct reports, direct reports to managers, and any other combination. Cross department shout-outs are awesome too. If you are a manager then you can spearhead the channel by sharing shout-outs on a consistent schedule.

Your team members will quickly jump on the shout-out bandwagon, and the channel will become self sustaining. You could also nominate a virtual employee of the month. Important: As a manager or leader you will probably get fewer shout-outs then your team. This is normal and okay! Here are more ideas for fun Slack channels. One of our most popular remote employee engagement activities during work from home is 1 on 1 video connections we call Mister Rogers Calls. The name is a fun spin on the purpose of the calls, which is to get to know your remote work neighbors.

Functionally, each week an app randomly matches two people on our remote team. The team members then schedule a call for sometime during the week. Here is a list of topic ideas for virtual coffee chats. Online Office Games is a fun way to boost engagement with your virtual team.

This is a hosted activity, where we invite you and your colleagues onto a video call to play a series of fun games and challenges. You can think of it as an virtual Olympics, minus the sports and with more trivia and communication games. Online Office Games is 90 minutes, and held over a secure Zoom line that we provide. One of the nice things about working with a provider to run your event is that it is very hands-off and you can participate too; which is great for team bonding.

Lean more about Online Office Games. One of the best virtual employee engagement activities is International Monster Hunter. This facilitated game is like a mashup of Scooby Doo and Carmen Sandiego. Your team will form squads, become amateur-sleuths, and track unusual creatures from around the world. This activity is effective for remote employee engagement because it requires teamwork, and is built around a fun framework.

Learn more about International Monster Hunter. I am notorious for several things, including Chipotle consumption, living out of a small backpack, and an ardent belief in the power of house plants. If you like house plants too, then you and your remote team can collectively build a Seedling Community Garden. The gardening activity is like a work from home version of public school science experiments where you grow a seedling in a paper cup.

To start, everyone gets a cup of dirt, and then starts planting leftover seeds from apples, watermelon and similar. Avocados are fun, and if you wait 5 — 10 years then you may have an avocado tree that can save you dozens of dollars a month on avocados. Mangoes are really hard to grow into trees, so good luck with that. Finally, take pictures of your seedlings and post to a team message board with cheerful messages of encouragement for the other desk-farmers.

You can grow something beautiful together. Hackathons are a common event type in the tech industry. Some organizations also hold internal hackathons where teams work on solutions to problems that the organization is trying to overcome.

You can re-purpose the best aspects of hackathons for virtual employee engagement by running a Mini Virtual Hackathon. If you have tech savvy employees, then your mini hackathon can run with similar mechanics to the real world equivalents. If you want to include employees with more general skill sets or from other departments then you can use Google Sheets or similar for your development platform.

Solving business problems together can be a powerful remote employee engagement factor, and you can also do something more more focused on fun.

Pro tip: We recommend limiting your mini hackathon to 90 minutes max, which is a good time limit for balancing engagement and attention. Picture and prizes recommended, but not required; you can fun your mini hackathon without spending money on anything other than labor. Learn more about virtual hackathons and workplace competitions. About five years ago, Ted Talks took the world by storm.

Led by Ted, the people of the world became enamored with data, body language, great leadership and other topics. For this remote engagement activity, recruit your team members to give their own Ted-Style Talks.

You can continue on until all team members have given a talk. These talks are also a great way to encourage collaborative learning for your team.

Nothing quite brings people together like a campfire, and nothing quite brings remote teams together like a virtual campfire. You can run your own virtual campfires too. And here is a list of fun games to play on Zoom.

 
 

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