Five Creative Ways to Boost Team Morale Whilst Working Remotely

With the current restrictions brought on by COVID-19, employers, senior management and team leaders are having to think outside the box with regards to ways to boost the morale of their staff. With lockdown 2.0 in full swing, the usual team lunch or team drinks aren’t able to go ahead as they normally would, particularly in the lead up to Christmas. We've seen a number of different and imaginative ways that employers are treating their staff and helping them to feel valued and part of a team whilst working remotely. Having seen and heard some of the inventive things people are doing, we wanted to share our top five in case you, or your boss, are looking to spread a little joy during these uncertain times! 

Care Packages

During the first lockdown, I decided to put together a care package for the Lily Shippen team, which we they were not expecting! When they received it, they all messaged to say how much they loved the surprise and how much it had made their week. As some of my team were due to go on holiday over Easter, I included a bottle of spray tan and a tanning mitt to make them feel and look sun-kissed, as well as a facemask, bar of chocolate, daily journal, motivational book and some branded post-it notes. All the items were packaged in a re-usable box with our logo on the front.

Care packages seem to be a popular and well-received choice for a lot of employers, and we have seen a number of people from different companies posting their care packages across social media and LinkedIn. The good thing about care packages is that you can tailor them to suit your budget and your employees, carefully choosing what you want to include into the boxes. We used a brilliant company called Hatters Promotional Merchandise, who were able to package the items into boxes with our branding on the top. This could be a thoughtful way to put a smile on your team’s face! 

Come Dine With Me

Another way to spread a bit of cheer within your team and, again, something we have seen a lot of on social media, is based around everyone’s favourite thing – food! People generally love eating and trying different dishes, however, when our favourite restaurants and bars are closed, it’s easy to get set in your ways with your mealtimes and have a lack of inspiration when it comes to meal ideas. In order to mix things up and try something a bit different during lockdown, why not send a food package out to your team and ask them to send you pictures of their completed dish? This doesn’t have to break the bank and we have seen some cheap and cheerful ideas on social media. One company sent their staff the ingredients to make a homemade pizza including pizza dough, passata for the tomato base, ready grated cheese, ham and pepperoni (for non-veggies), some soft drinks and two small bottles of wine. You could easily do this with the ingredients to make a pasta dish too! 

Another idea, which won’t cost you, as an employer, any money, is to think of your favourite restaurant (this could be somewhere you and your team usually go to celebrate) or just a well known chain or restaurant close to your office and ask your team or employees to recreate a dish from the menu. Why not do this late on a Friday afternoon and ask your team to prepare the dish, bring their favourite drink and you can all sit and enjoy a meal and a drink together virtually!  

Fitness Challenges

Something a little healthier than food packages which companies are getting involved with is to set their teams fitness challenges. This can be anything from walking or running a marathon between a team, to a weekly virtual fitness workout where all employees can join in. You could even ask a different person each week to host it and wear their favourite Mr Motivator style outfit! This does not have to be anything really fitness intense but will hopefully allow your team to have a laugh (at their own and their team's expense) whilst keeping fit and healthy at the same time – what’s not to like?!

Fancy Dress Happy Hour

Another fun way to boost morale during lockdown is to schedule a happy hour every week. To make it a little more interesting why not incorporate a fancy dress theme each week, with the best dressed receiving a prize? We have seen loads of great ideas like a races theme, a 90s theme and a movies theme. Again, this doesn’t necessarily have to cost you or your company any money but is something that everyone can get involved in and something which should hopefully bring some laughter and light-heartedness to your week. Plus, when paired with your favourite tipple, you can’t go wrong!  

Weekly Competitions

We've also seen a lot of companies getting their staff involved in weekly competitions to boost morale. This could be a weekly virtual pub quiz, where you split your company or team into smaller sub-teams and each week a different sub-team takes it in turn to host the quiz. Each sub-team will need to collaborate to put the quiz together and answer the quiz questions each week. This will help to encourage communication and also act as a team bonding exercise. Another idea, if you have a lot of staff who have children, would be to implement weekly competitions which involve their children too. Why not look at a family Fifa or drawing competition to get the children involved or even try a family friendly quiz every other week on a Friday afternoon? This will add a bit of fun to both your staff and their kids' weeks!  

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash.