Are you looking for interesting and valuable new ways to increase team morale at your company? This pandemic has changed a lot of things, and one of those things is how we work, so it’s understandable that your team needs some help with motivation. This has been a tough time for everyone.
Work and life have become intertwined as many people are balancing the responsibilities of being a mom, dad, homeschool teacher, and remote worker. Without intentionality in our teams and how we manage them, these changed circumstances can quickly lead to discouragement, overwhelm, and burnout.
In this post, we’ll share actionable ways to increase team morale during the pandemic. Your employees’ wellness and your company’s overall health will be all the better for it.
1)Make Wellness Resources Easily Accessible
The first way you can increase team morale during this pandemic is to make wellness resources available. This not only communicates to your team that you value their wellness and want them to be healthy (which is already a morale-booster) but helps them to take the steps to be well.
So, what resources should you make available to your team? This can be as simple as sending out links to articles and different wellness tools. Or, you can take it a step further and organize a team meditation or yoga class (which can help your team bond as well)!
Making wellness resources easily accessible for your team helps them to manage stress and gives them a place to land so that they can just be.
But if the idea of organizing a team meditation or yoga class is overwhelming to you, keep in mind that you don’t have to be the one to do it! You can bring in outside resources to help make this a reality.
2) Be Adaptable to Embrace Current Circumstances
Making it a point to be adaptable in the (remote) workplace can help to boost your team’s morale, as they’ll realize it’s OK to be human.
To be adaptable means you’re able to deal with challenges calmly, quickly, and efficiently. It also means that you’re willing to change the way you work, think, and behave to rise and face the circumstances that meet you.
Life is a series of changes, so practicing this skill will produce benefits that long outlive the pandemic, but it can especially help right now. While juggling many hats at home (and processing world events), everyone is just trying to do their best.
Make sure your employees know that it’s OK that their lives are carrying on in the background of their work. Practically, that looks like normalizing kids that may pop into Zoom meetings, or shuffling around schedules and meetings so that employees can manage both their work responsibilities and the ones they have at home.
Creating space and allowing this humanness will help your employees to find balance. It will give them the confidence they need to manage everything that’s on their plate, without falling into burnout or overwhelm.
3) Organize Designated Check-ins With Employees
The next way you can help boost team spirits during the pandemic is to organize designated check-ins. This could be one person who checks in with team members, or it could even be an accountability system where people check-in with each other.
The one rule for these check-ins is that the discussions should not be focused on work. The goal is to foster conversations that have nothing to do with work. This allows teammates to connect humanly, and to share openly about how they’re doing.
Creating and holding space for your team to share how their doing is a really powerful way for managers to show that they care.
Many things are happening in the background of employees’ lives that we can’t always see in our regular Zoom meetings. So, make sure that you’re checking in with people, instead of just assuming that they’re OK.
4) Organize a Virtual Bonding Session (That Isn’t Related to Work)
The next way you can help boost your team morale is to organize virtual bonding sessions (that aren’t related to work).
Without the water-cooler conversations, coffee breaks, or lunch breaks that might happen in a physical office, there aren’t a lot of opportunities for teammates to bond unless it’s intentionally planned. So, it’s crucial to your team’s morale to create meet-ups that aren’t related to work or just another Zoom meeting.
This doesn’t need to be complicated—keep it simple. To help get you started, we’ve included a list of ideas you could try:
Play virtual office bingo
Host a fun training or class (we can help with this!)
Create a virtual celebration for the month’s birthdays and work anniversaries
Host a virtual happy hour
Regardless of what you do, these bonding sessions should have a purpose that’s focused on well-being, rather than work. This will ensure that your employees feel seen, heard, and respected.
Send A Care Package to Your Team
5) Send everyone on your team a care package! This will give them something tangible to hold when everything else work-related can seem like it’s happening in a vacuum.
This care package doesn’t have to be something lavish. It could be as simple as sending a grub hub gift voucher, snacks, a notebook, or a water bottle. (We can also help with this, email hello@dexterodes.com)
If you want to go the extra mile, you could tie the virtual bonding session (book a free call with our team to get a custom proposal) to the care package you send out.
For example, you could send a water bottle and a yoga mat for the yoga session you’re hosting, or you could send out a snack box for a virtual happy hour.
Your Team’s Morale Is Essential to Your Business’ Health
Team morale is essential to maintain while working remotely, especially during a pandemic. By following these tips to increase team morale during the pandemic, your entire team (and business) will be better for it.
Let us know if you implement these tips, and how it went for you once you do. And if you’d like help with implementing some of these tips, book a quick call with us! We’d love to make it as easy as possible for you to prioritize your team’s wellness.
This post was written by Erin Baez. Erin Baez is a freelance writer who enjoys helping others to improve their health and wellness through the content she writes. In her spare time, she likes to play board games, do yoga, and read comics.
