5 amazing rituals to bond remote teams
“60% of people reported being emotionally detached at work”
Working remotely is a trend that consolidated with the pandemic and it seems to be here to stay: by 2028, 73% of all departments will have remote workers, according to an Upwork survey. Now, companies have employees all over the world and managers wonder which team bonding activities for remote teams will help improve team morale and workflow.
Why? Well, Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2022 report found that, along with dissatisfaction, workers are experiencing staggering rates of both disengagement and unhappiness. Sixty percent of people reported being emotionally detached at work and 19% as being miserable. Only 33% reported feeling engaged.
At Ralia Retreats, we believe that deep connection is everything. And we also believe in using rituals to build bonds: rituals connect us with ourselves and others. So, we came up with these 5 rituals to bond remote teams and increase individual engagement.
Let’s see:
1- Meditation and breathwork make a remote team feel connected
It might get everyone smiling and looking zen on zoom, but meditation and breathwork are powerful tools for our daily life. They allow us to regulate our emotions, relieve stress, ground and connect to ourselves. So why not use them to make a remote team feel connected? Sharing a call to meditate and breathe together can be an impactful moment where employees leave work aside to connect with themselves and their coworkers.
Meditation will not only be a great team bonding ritual for your remote team, it will also increase workers’ wellbeing and productivity: a chemical manufacturing firm that provided meditation practice for employees saw their employees' productivity increase by 120%, according to Flexjobs. The best part? Sick days fell by 76%. Workers are healthier and happier when they meditate.
Unless there is a meditation guide on your team, you will need one in order to keep the practice coherent and effective. We highly recommend master meditation leader, Sarah Gallagher Bloom and her online programs that combine meditation, breathwork, chanting, and movement!
2- A business retreat, our favorite ritual to bond remote teams
Despite the technology resources that keep us virtually connected, we can all agree that nothing replaces face-to-face interaction: 81% of millennial employees find face-to-face interaction more effective, as reported by Forbes. Looking at your coworkers in the eye while you listen to them, sharing a laugh, and even a hug, are human interactions that help build trust and strengthen interpersonal connections among team members.
A business retreat is a perfect team bonding ritual for remote teams. It’s a great chance to get together outside of the workplace, take a break from the daily hustle, have quality time to focus on the business, celebrate wins, talk about future goals, relax, have fun, foster camaraderie, connect with nature, and recharge to achieve healthy success!
It is also a great value for workers: according to the Global Business Travel Association, most workers believe business travel impacts their general sense of job satisfaction. In North America, 79% of participants agreed with this statement, rising to 83% in Europe and up to 96% in Asia. Creativity also boosts during business retreats: a TravelPerk survey reported that 34% of employees experienced elevated creativity on corporate trips.
A business retreat will unify your remote team (at last!) and make their members feel connected. A retreat can take place anywhere, even in the city or online, however, there is a next-level of bonding that occurs in nature. At Ralia Retreats, we organize all-inclusive, luxury business retreats in nature in Costa Rica and Quebec. We provide activations, healthy food, coaching, and incredible natural environments for coworkers to connect and bond while getting some work done.
Human Design teacher and industry leader, Eden Carpenter and her remote team, are seen pictured here on their team bonding retreat in Costa Rica.
3- Weekly check-ins to bond and unify a remote team
When working remotely, we miss the grasp of our coworkers' emotional state. We don’t see their faces, we don’t cross paths during the coffee break, and meetings tend to be focused just on work.
Taking care of psychological safety when employees are working from home in this post-pandemic world might take walking the extra mile, but it’s definitely key for businesses: Gallup found that improving psychological safety can lead to a 27% reduction in turnover, 40% fewer safety incidents, and 12% more productivity.
Connection happens when we can let our guard down without fear, and building the right environment for that is necessary. Sometimes we feel in expansion and ready to celebrate the wins. Sometimes we struggle and our work performance is affected. Being able to express yourself, and having your team support no matter what, is crucial to building trust, improving workers’ wellbeing, and getting better results.
Organizing a weekly meeting to check in and having everybody answer a simple question like “where is your mind today?” can be an effective team bonding ritual for a remote team. It can give us awareness of how our coworkers are doing, and make a remote team feel connected. Then, setting intentions for the week will provide common goals to unify a remote team.
But we know teams are busier than ever and over-booked for online meetings. So, we love the platform Voxer for check-ins. Voxer is a voice and text app that is so intuitive to use that it can make individuals feel like they are in a real time in-person meeting. The best use of Voxer for teams is to categorize group discussions in topics such as “weekly check-in” or “daily inspirational thought”. This bucketing of conversations allows for safe spaces and focused conversations which leads to greater results.
4- Celebrating wins and recovering from losses as a ritual to bond your remote team
“Try our learn and burn technique!”
Sometimes, the daily work rhythm doesn’t let us stop to celebrate success, or analyze what went wrong when things didn’t come out as expected. Often, if this happens, it only takes place in the office, leaving remote workers altogether disconnected from the win.
Making the time to recognize efforts and review failures as a team -with all of its members- it’s not only a great team bonding ritual for remote teams, it’s a must: according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2022 report, the first cause of dissatisfaction with the job experience is characterized as “unfair treatment at work” – the lack of a culture that emphasizes respect, community, and contribution acknowledgment.
To celebrate wins, each member can share something they are grateful for with the team. Gratitude is associated with greater happiness and stronger relationships. Everybody needs to feel valued. What better way than being valued by the members of your team? The sharing can happen in a check-in (ritual #3)!
On the other hand, when things didn’t come up as expected, try our learn and burn technique! The team can analyze what could have been done differently, and write down the mistakes that were made. Then, each member can burn their paper as an exorcism (without forgetting the lesson learned!). We believe that this ritual will unify your remote team.
5- A shared playlist will bond and inspire your remote team
Music is power. A recent Spotify survey shows that 61% of respondents listen to music at work to boost their productivity and happiness. And it works: 90% of workers perform better and 88% produce more accurate work when using music as a productivity tool.
Creating a playlist together as a team can be a great exercise to know each other better and connect through music, which makes it a great team bonding ritual for remote teams. Then, you can all listen to it while you work, and share the same environment even when being in different places. Music will certainly make a remote team feel connected.
Sound rituals are powerful and being used by more and more people to alter physical states. Puravida Vibrations, Lau, is pictured here offering a soundbath ceremony to our retreat guests.
Our lives have changed after the pandemic, and so did work. It’s up to us to adapt to this new reality and take advantage of its positive sides, without overlooking important factors like workers' wellbeing and team bonding. Try these rituals to bond your remote team and see it flourish!
In fact, if you made it to the end of this article and you have a remote team to bond we would like to give you a fun challenge to win at remote team bonding with our 6th (and more secretive) ritual: Giving inspiration, meaningful objects, or transformational experiences. If your team successfully completes one of our team bonding rituals 1-5 and shares the story with us, we will send your team a surprise gift of one of these 3. Jump over to the contact us page to find out the different ways to share your story.
