The benefits of virtual events for team building

The modern-day company doesn’t work as it used to. With the digital era (technological revolution) has come a new desire to branch out across borders. Staff members don’t need to be in the office to make a valuable contribution to a team. In fact, the very definition of a ‘team’ has evolved — teams within an organisation no longer need to be in the same office, or even the same country.

So where has this left team building and more so virtual team building? Luckily, there are still plenty of ways for you to bring your team closer together, increase motivation, and become stronger as a unit. In this article, we look at why online events can be the ideal solution for team building and offer some ideas for virtual team building activities.

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The Benefits of Virtual Events for Team Building

Interaction

If a group of employees are not interacting on a regular basis, it is hard to call them a team at all. With rich webcasting capabilities and the option of audio and video chat, digital event platforms mean that there is no excuse for not communicating on a regular basis – whether that is during specific team building events, weekly team meetings, or one-to-one meetings. Interaction through virtual events increases our familiarity with each other, and this can only be a good thing for the team.

Reward and Recognise

With the virtual event technology now available, we can ensure that employees get that all important ‘pat on the back’, wherever they are located. It is possible to set up team building activities which offer healthy competition between team members and ensure that every employee is recognised for their achievements on a regular basis.

Engender Unity

If we don’t do things together, how can we become stronger? Digital events offer a way of engaging team members in various locations in group activities. While this might not seem to have an immediate business benefit, in the long run, it can be even more essential that a widely spread team operates as a group. Participating in events provides a way of developing this all-important bond online.

Ideas For Online Team Building Events

So once you are set up with the right virtual events platform – such as that offered by ivent – what kinds of activities can you use for team building?

Reward Programmes

There are plenty of programmes that let you regularly recognise employee achievements while also providing opportunities for fun, team-building activities online. You can use these regular virtual events to reward and recognise outstanding work. Platforms, such as Bonusly, make it easy to award points to your employees which they can "cash out" for rewards, from cinema tickets to shopping vouchers.

Celebrate!

If your organisation is located across multiple countries, celebrating national and religious holidays from each region through virtual events is a great way to bring employees together (and show respect for the diversity within your organisation). Show your overseas colleagues that you’ve made an effort by wearing costumes or putting up decorations on video calls. It’s a fun way to highlight that, even if you’re not in the same place, you’re still one team.

Get Fit

There are now a range of trackers which allow personal fitness programmes to be followed online. You can incorporate these apps into your periodical virtual events, allowing you to see team members progress. You could set each other challenges at the start of the week, and on Friday sit down as a team to see who succeeded… or failed. It is all in the name of good fun, health, and getting to know each other via virtual team building. You could also organise a virtual run or walk with your team and digitally track the results on a map to show the total combined distance you've travelled.

Share Your Success!

If you are a target-orientated sales team, how about you get together via a virtual event and celebrate your business wins? All it takes is five or ten minutes on your virtual events platform, and you can use the occasion as an opportunity to take a break, catch up with your team members, and say "well done!"

Improving Online Corporate Communications

When it comes to developing teams and maintaining motivation within an organisation, online events are a great solution. Whether staff are working from the same office, or are spread out across the globe, accessing the same events digitally helps to bring people closer together to share and collaborate (as well as to test your platforms capabilities and features).

With powerful functionality including live chat, video chat and audio conversation, as well as social media integration, event metrics, live support and a whole lot more, all accessed through a bespoke online platform, solutions from ivent come feature-packed. Online learning platforms provide an efficient and engaging way to deliver staff training as and when is needed.

Our online corporate communications tools are tailored to help improve employee, stakeholder and client engagement, provide access to information to those who need it and offer new ways to work together.