Five Ways to Celebrate With Your Remote Team

We have all felt the weight of the pandemic. While many places are opening back up the way we work will likely never be the same again. As the world was forced into quarantine, we found ways to continue working remotely. Depending on the businesses, many of us will continue to work remotely after the pandemic has subsided or perhaps some hybrid of home and office work.

For the time being, most of us are still part of remote teams. Working remotely has deprived us of professional human contact, but our teams still need to stay in touch, kept engaged and celebrated to stay productive.

When good things happen and they go unnoticed, it can leave a bad taste in the mouth. It can make us feel our work is unimportant or impactful. Getting acknowledged and celebrating achievements can go a long way in boosting productivity and keeping a team happy.

Here are 5 ways to celebrate your team:

One - Send a little treat

Mail something edible to your team. It can be as simple as a bag of nice candy or as elaborate as a champagne filled gummy bear. You can send a gift basket to an individual to show your appreciation for their efforts or something smaller to the entire team. Getting something physical in the mail as an acknowledgement can be an awesome surprise when your locked up in your home.

Two - Start a celebration fund

Set aside a reasonable amount of money each month for a future celebration. When your team pulls off a big target, open the und up, allocate an equal amount of money from the celebration fund for each team member to freely spend on any product they want. Have each team member bring their prize to share at the next virtual meeting. It’s a fun bonding experience and it can be interesting to see what everyone picks.

Three - Celebrate strange and unusual holidays

Most employees won’t be working during Christmas or Thanksgiving. People usually spend these holidays with their families, but there are stranger, lesser known holidays that can be wacky and fun for your team. There are tons of pop culture holidays you can celebrate with your team. Here are a few: 

• National Clean Your Desk Day (January 13)
• National Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day (January 27)
• National Paranormal Day (May 3)
• World Animal Day (October 4)
• Do a Grouch A Favor Day (February 16)
• Be Kind to Humankind Week (Last week of August)
• Fight Procrastination Day (September 6)
• National Puppy Day (March 23)
• Scavenger Hunt Day (May 24)
• Donut Day (June 2)
• Relaxation Day (August 27)
• Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19)

These offbeat holidays are a great way to have a good time with your team and bring them together.

Four - Put together a highlight reel.

This activity can draw participation from the entire team. You can poll or survey each team member for highlights from a specific time period of success. Use a Google Form and get highlights from your team. Some prompts are:

• Biggest Accomplishment
• Funniest Moment
• Best Lessons Learned
• Hardest Day
• Team Bonding Stories
• Future Hopes and Plans

You can take their answers and compile a slideshow or virtual presentation to create more engagement and team connection. 

Five - Virtual Escape Rooms

Escape rooms were huge prior to the pandemic. There is a reason so many corporate events were held in escape rooms. They create a team atmosphere while testing intellects and escape rooms are a ton of fun.

Depending on where your team is, there might not be a physical escape room you can go to. There are several virtual options. You can find free virtual escape rooms and paid one’s all over the internet. Here is a list of virtual escape rooms I found online.

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