Most of us can give examples of team building in the physical environment, but what does team building look like in the virtual environment? Join us to hear Dr. Samantha Hedgspeth talking with Dr. Khatina Brunson, an Information Technology professional, to learn about virtual team development. Dr. Brunson has over 25 years in IT is currently a Customer Success Manager in addition to performing adjunct responsibilities for multiple universities.
Most of us can give examples of team building in the physical environment, but what does team building look like in the virtual environment? Join us to hear Dr. Samantha Hedgspeth talking with Dr. Khatina Brunson, an Information Technology professional, to learn about virtual team development. Dr. Brunson has over 25 years in IT is currently a Customer Success Manager in addition to performing adjunct responsibilities for multiple universities.
CAVO Ep32
00:02
Welcome to the Center for the advancement of virtual organizations podcast. Today our topic is virtual team building constructs for cohesion. I'm Samantha hedge path. And our guest is catina Brunson, she is adjunct professor with North Central University as a dissertation chair, and committee member. In addition, she is also a customer success manager with blue prism out of Austin, Texas. catina. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us and talk about virtual team activities. Please say hello to our listening audience.
00:43
Hello, everyone. I'm really excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
00:47
Great. Let's begin, in your opinion, catina. What is team building? And why is it so important?
00:54
I like to think of team building as any effort designed to strengthen the personal bonds between members of the same team, there is a standard professional relationship that's automatic between people that have to work together. But by nature, that's a pretty shallow relationship. And there's nothing wrong with that. But some teams desire to have more meaningful connections. That's where team building can help. When people get to know each other better. On a more personal level, it just inherently makes the work relationship stronger as well. team building helps humanize each other. Rather than saying a team member as just a fellow coworker, you may come to think of them as a friend, or at the very least and associate.
01:37
Excellent, excellent. I really love that, that you put strengthening personal bonds at the core of team building. So how does team building in the virtual environment differ from team building in the physical workplace?
01:53
Well, the primary difference is that virtual team building is by necessity a bit more structured. In person, you could have a potluck or a holiday party, for example, where people can come and go as they please, within a set window of time. For virtual team building, the timing really needs to be set for a fixed time period, in order to get the most meaningful participation. That time period also would not be as long. In person team building activities can easily have a window of anywhere from two to four hours depending on the nature of the event. But with virtual meetings, it's best to limit those to an hour, or no more than 90 minutes because people begin to get fatigued after too much time sitting stationary in front of their computer screen. Physical team building is also more freeform, there doesn't necessarily need to be an agenda when you're there in person.
Because people can have spontaneous conversations or break off into small clusters in a way that just is not feasible for virtual team building activities. So keeping in mind that there can't be several, many conversations going on at the same time, we have to figure out a way to make sure that everyone in the virtual environment is engaged, and has an opportunity to participate in the single threaded conversation that's happening within the virtual call. And then, you know, there are smaller things that you have to consider with virtual team building activities that just are not a thing in person, for instance, making it mandatory to have cameras on during the activity, or reminding everyone to be good stewards of the mute button.
These are just weird little idiosyncrasies that are necessarily a part of virtual team building that are non existent in the physical workplace. Wow, I did. And it seems like you have thought through this thoroughly. So what are some of your favorite examples of virtual team building activities.
03:57
So I like to think of it in terms of you know, smaller teams versus larger teams, because it does change the nature of what you're doing. For smaller teams. One example that I really like is a virtual happy hour. So everyone comes to the meeting with a drink that they've made themselves, and they can either have spirits, or it could be non alcoholic, of course, whatever they choose, and the primary ground will should be no talk about school or work. For teams that aren't very close yet. It might be fun to also plan some silly icebreaker activities just to keep things from getting too awkward, so that the conversation flows and you're not having long periods of time where there just isn't any conversation happening.
Another idea that I think is really fun, is crazy hair day, that one speaks for itself. But to add an extra element of fun, the team leader can maybe offer up a small prize, such as a gift card or maybe even some paid time off. If that's what Then their power, and then the other team members can comment and vote on the winner during the call. Some other examples would be dressed up activities like ugly Christmas sweaters around the holidays, or costumes around Halloween. The idea is something that can be seen easily within the typical video window for most video conferencing apps. Now for those last two, I just want to caution organizers to be cognizant of the timing for such an event.
In case you have a team where your members have lots of external video facing calls on the same day, we don't want them to have any undue stress about their appearance, if they're having on an you know, weird costume or an ugly sweater, we don't want them to feel any kind of way about that for non team members. So we just want to be cognizant of the timing there. And then for larger teams, it is a bit different, because there are more people on the call. So you have to take some special consideration there to the size of the audience. I like the idea of virtual holiday parties. And that is similar to the happy hour, but it's on a larger scale, we do still want to make sure that we keep the topics away from work or business to keep things light. But depending on the size of the team, it may not be possible to have an open conversation if there are many, many people on the line.
So in a case like that, we would need to get creative with some structured games like maybe bingo or trivia, to keep folks engaged and having fun. I've even seen some teams go as far as hosting a virtual talent show, with the stars of the show being other members of the team. Of course, this would work for an even larger audience, such as an entire department, for example. Now that does take more advanced planning, but the payoff is an extremely enjoyable event for everyone who's able to attend.
07:02
And I think all of those are excellent ideas. And I've actually even participated in a zoom where the activity they had us go into timed rooms. So and then that we were we were able to break out and go into rooms, chit chat, chit chat, and then it automatically timed us back into the larger group, which was a lot of fun, a lot of fun.
07:28
That is a great point, using breakout rooms in zoom is an excellent way to break out larger groups into smaller, more intimate groups of people so that those individual conversations can occur.
07:40
Exactly. And so everyone can go and get their little project together. And when we come back into the larger group, everybody can do their talent. Once they've discussed it, there's so many creative ways that we can all build that cohesion in the virtual space. So what are the greatest challenges in the virtual team building that you've experienced?
08:05
I think getting full participation from the team can be a challenge, personalities differ. And some people just are not comfortable in those more social settings that team building activities often adopt. And those types of individuals may opt out of the team building exercise if it's not mandatory, and then you lose something when not everyone participates. So I think it is really important to make sure that everyone is encouraged to attend, and know that they're welcome to attend. Because the whole point of team building is for all of the team members or as many as possible members of the team to be a part of the activity and to gain something from it.
08:46
Yeah, yeah. And I think for virtual activities, it does require heightened intelligences for the team leads because to your point, yeah, I forgot all about that there are people that are kind of, you know, a recluse, and they'll withdraw if it's not mandatory. Excellent point. catina. So is team building more important in the virtual environment? Is that what I'm hearing?
09:13
Well, you know, I actually think it is just as important whether it's a virtual environment or an in person environment, no matter the format of how teams work together. The fact is that the structure of the team itself does not change. These are still a group of people that you're collaborating with. So in all cases, it's important to have something outside of the default team setting to allow and encourage members to get to know one another better.
09:43
So how often should the team leader or manager schedule team building activities? And do you recommend that these activities be standalone or events, or in some way incorporated in each meeting?
09:55
I believe that a combination of both is ideal. Some things like The crazy hair day, for example that I mentioned earlier, can be part of a typical team meeting that is condensed, reserving time at the start to comment on the crazy hair, and leaving time at the end to vote on and congratulate the winner. Others, like the virtual happy hour should be standalone meetings, preferably on a recurring basis, such as monthly or quarterly, where the only thing you're doing in that call is having the happy hour and the social aspect of the call. And then of course, the even bigger events such as the virtual holiday parties would be an annual event.
10:35
Great, great. And so if you could just share with us what are some of you've covered some benefits, but if you could share with us more benefits from a virtual team building activity?
10:47
Absolutely. I think in a nutshell, virtual team building helps alleviate that sense of isolation, that can be common among team members that aren't meeting in person or they aren't meeting on a regular basis. The bottom line is the virtual work that we're that we're all more accustomed to doing these days can be very lonely, you are often you know, in you're in a room by yourself staring at a computer screen, and your interactions with others may or may not be at the level that you are accustomed to. So it is possible that team members begin to feel isolated even though they're quote unquote, going to work every day. And so having virtual team building activities, just allows us the opportunity to all come together for an express purpose outside of work or outside of the purpose of that team. It allows us to see a different side of our team members in a more casual and relaxed interaction that just doesn't occur organically in a virtual working environment. And as I mentioned before, making that personal connection with your team members helps to strengthen the working relationship by default. It's just human nature.
12:07
Yes, that is great emotional intelligence catina. So as we close out, are there any other additional bits of wisdom or best practices you'd like to share with our listening audience,
12:20
I would just like to say that we should all keep in mind that virtual environments are very different from the in person working environment that many of us are accustomed to. As I said before, it's easy to get lonely, it's easy to get fatigued, somehow being in front of the computer for eight hours just feels longer than being in the office in person for eight hours.
So keeping that in mind and knowing that your team members may be struggling with the format of how work is being done today. carving out some time to relax, interact with each other, and get to know one another better through virtual team building is just good practice for the members of your team, for their relationships that are built, and for the mental health of everyone involved.
13:09
Excellent. This has been a very good discussion on how we can build cohesion amongst our virtual teams. catina Thank you so much for joining us in support of the Center for the advancement of virtual organizations. We greatly appreciate your insights and know that our listeners will benefit from your experience.
13:33
It was absolutely My pleasure. Thank you so much for ha