Is your remote team feeling the lockdown blues? While we can see the light at the end of this pandemic, your team’s work socials will have to be held online for some time yet.
But that’s not to say an online social cannot be a source of fun for your team, it’s important to be creative and think of ways to help people feel engaged, happy, and fulfilled when working from home. In this article we explore the following ways your team can get the most value out of attending your virtual gatherings:
- Reconnecting with your industry through online conferences
- Organising natural gatherings with a virtual event platform
- Celebrating unconventional events to boost team morale
Natural communication is everything when it comes to running a successful social for your team. Read on as we help you find a digital medium that more than makes up for the lack of face-to-face contact.
Attend an online conference to reconnect with your industry
Live conferences are a great way to sharpen your skills and learn from like-minded professionals, but they’re also a fantastic social opportunity for your team to immerse themselves in your industry and breath fresh enthusiasm into their work.
However, with pandemic closing doors on the events industry, online conferences are a suitable alternative your team can attend together — albeit virtually — and rekindle the inspiration that makes them thrive in their role.
Many of the biggest industry conferences have made a successful transition onto a digital platform, meaning there are plenty of inspirational events to attend with your team. Here are a few ideas:
- One Tech World 2021: a digital version of the leading women in tech conference, which uses a state-of-the-art conferencing platform to discover emerging technologies.
- BrightonSEO: a search marketing conference where you can attend talks, take part in online training courses, and learn about all things SEO.
- Social Media Week: a free four-week conference with over 100 hours of live-streamed content to immerse yourself in the latest trends on social media.
While virtual conferences don’t quite make up for the feeling of being there in person, they’re certainly a compelling way to re-engage your team with the work they do so well.
Organise natural gatherings with a virtual event platform
While video conferencing software like Zoom is a staple of lockdown living, both for work and our personal lives, it’s likely many members of your team are experiencing fatigue after socialising this way for over a year.
Why? Because, though these tools enable communication, they feel restricting and are a far sight away from making up for the natural feeling many of your team are missing.
Gatherings are hard to get right when working remotely as your online social can easily slip into the tedious world of organised fun, making your team feel forced to be there, rather than genuinely enjoying everyone’s company.
But there is a solution to make your social gathering feel more natural…
Using an interactive virtual event platform is a great way of helping to host virtual events that make your team feel immersed and fulfilled — this is because you can gamify the meetup and reclaim a little extra freedom by:
- Creating a virtual environment: a digital world your team can move about in.
- Jumping into conversations: a natural way to socialise and not speak over people.
Establishing a more organic framework to socialise online means you can set your team up to feel more engaged, happy, and fulfilled with whatever event you have planned.
Celebrate unconventional events to boost team morale
This past year or so has given your remote team little chance to celebrate and get together — so why not go the extra mile when a more unconventional event rolls around?
Although many teams rally together on Zoom to sing an awkward, out-of-sync happy birthday or merry Christmas, far fewer think outside the box when it comes to organising an online social.
There are lots of holidays that fly under the radar, which could make for a fun virtual gathering. Here are just a few:
- Drink Wine Day: an annual event that takes place in February.
- National Taco Day: a day to indulge in Tacos during October.
- World Immunisation Week: a week to promote the prevention of diseases.
There are also opportunities like Volunteers’ Week — a recognition of work volunteers — where your team can celebrate those who have helped their community through hardship throughout the pandemic and beyond.
Work socials are an important part of managing an engaged, happy, and fulfilled team. From reigniting industry connections through online conferences to organising a natural feeling gathering and finding plenty of good excuses to celebrate — these are the best ways to run a successful online social for your team.
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