How about organizing a collective bargaining agreement for team building instead?
Games can fix remote team building
61–70 of 70 posts
Re: Games can fix remote team building
#62I try to do this with my team at least once a month for a couple hours. Some games we've enjoyed: Among Us: https://innersloth.itch.io/among-us Telephone Pictionary: https://rocketcrab.com/game/drawphone Codenames: https://codenames.game/
Is it mandatory? If you assume a staff member has x hours available each week for work, is this coming out of x (at the expense of company business) or is it coming out of 168-x (and thus reducing the staff member's time for sleep, shower, cooking, family, et c)?
I do them as part of work hours, and while not mandatory I do strongly encourage everyone to participate. I think the increased team cohesion is well worth 2 hours a month of "lost" productivity.
Re: Games can fix remote team building
#63I've built such strong relationships through games, with people I've never met, that I can't agree more with that. The limit is that games will have the same effects as other "offsite" activities. Some people will be into it and it'll work for them, but others will just not be interested (whatever their reasons). For example the first picture of the article shows basketball. That could be seen as a great team buildin…
Unfortunately there are no silver bullets. Maybe this is a good use for the "shotgun approach", then. Basketball for people who want it, games for people who want it, etc. If you want people join team building events, I don't think the right approach is to mandate one thing, but to give people choices & let people own their team building experience. I also think the flip side of this is that management also has to un…
definitely, but then you also miss the opportunity to build relationships between someone who loves basketball and someone who does not. So everything is a trade off :)
Re: Games can fix remote team building
#64I always felt that most "enforced-fun-games" were excellent at team building. Being "asked to cross an imaginary river" etc is a great way to unite the humble employees in their universal loathing of their woefully mis-guided management. Always had a niggling feeling that the 'bad games' couldn't be that bad by accident. ("Look, everybody hates everybody - could we push some more hate towards us, so they at least tal…
Ask the CEO a question as a prize? Can I forefit my winnings? Maybe it's me but I can't think of any question that would produce an answer of information I didn't know and actually want to know. From any CEO. What would you ask Musk? Or your own CEO if you had the chance?
I would ask, how he can sleep at night knowing that women earn significantly less than their male counterparts. Or how he would explain around 100% difference in salaries for the exact same job depending on the person.
Re: Games can fix remote team building
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ask the CEO a question as a prize? Can I forefit my winnings? Maybe it's me but I can't think of any question that would produce an answer of information I didn't know and actually want to know. From any CEO. What would you ask Musk? Or your own CEO if you had the chance?
I would ask, how he can sleep at night knowing that women earn significantly less than their male counterparts. Or how he would explain around 100% difference in salaries for the exact same job depending on the person.
Asking that question after winning an employee game wouldn't give you much insight. He or she would say they are working towards some goal and ask you to join the committee on women's pay.
If you asked HR they will probably give you more of an honest answer. We are trying to pay people as little as possible.
Re: Games can fix remote team building
#66I always felt that most "enforced-fun-games" were excellent at team building. Being "asked to cross an imaginary river" etc is a great way to unite the humble employees in their universal loathing of their woefully mis-guided management. Always had a niggling feeling that the 'bad games' couldn't be that bad by accident. ("Look, everybody hates everybody - could we push some more hate towards us, so they at least tal…
Ask the CEO a question as a prize? Can I forefit my winnings? Maybe it's me but I can't think of any question that would produce an answer of information I didn't know and actually want to know. From any CEO. What would you ask Musk? Or your own CEO if you had the chance?
How about something like “How can I get from here to _____?”. Asking for the CEO’s perspective on moving up in your career.
They might not be good advice, or they might not have insight in to you as an employee (though I would challenge them to get that first as part of the question), but you just might uncover some unknown unknowns and open some doors.
Re: Games can fix remote team building
#67There's a subset of employees who really like games. Many places I've worked, those employees stay long after hours pulling out board games, video games, etc. But there's another (probably larger?) subset of employees who like casual conversation, coffee, drinking, little 5 minute chats in the kitchen, and who have little to no interest in games. I don't think the proposal is going to do much for this subset.
The point is to provide a light filler activity than can be set aside when necessary, plus a rich communication medium that uses virtual objects and space.
Re: Games can fix remote team building
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing is you don’t want HR catching wind of things. It’s not that people rat on each other. But people are known to blurt things out when prompted (someone divulges a “secret” and often the other person divulges a “secret” in return. It’s just conversation.)
I don't think anything that we said was a fireable offense (or HR would need to fire the whole group). We might get an official reprimand for some of the dissing, though.
Sometimes they fire whoever they think the ringleader is.
Kind of like when unions are forming, if you get rid of the leader then the rest of the employees, who were pro union a moment ago, might quiet back down and fall in line.
Re: Games can fix remote team building
#69I'm firmly of the belief that if there is genuine social interaction to be had, it will be had for the most part. Forcing social interaction (corporate mandated fun) is just another tool to tie employees to an employer to make it more difficult/less desirable for them to leave for better opportunities.
> I'm firmly of the belief that if there is genuine social interaction to be had, it will be had for the most part. I'd agree with you any day except the current ones. Given recent events, do you not Counter Strike Fridays might bring some much needed social interaction? Yes, making them mandatory would be stupid, but what company makes socializing events mandatory?
Not mandatory, of course, but lots of managers love to peer pressure employees into these sorts of social events by frowning heavily on people who miss them.
Re: Games can fix remote team building
#70I always felt that most "enforced-fun-games" were excellent at team building. Being "asked to cross an imaginary river" etc is a great way to unite the humble employees in their universal loathing of their woefully mis-guided management. Always had a niggling feeling that the 'bad games' couldn't be that bad by accident. ("Look, everybody hates everybody - could we push some more hate towards us, so they at least tal…
Ask the CEO a question as a prize? Can I forefit my winnings? Maybe it's me but I can't think of any question that would produce an answer of information I didn't know and actually want to know. From any CEO. What would you ask Musk? Or your own CEO if you had the chance?
“What keeps you up at night”. The answers to that are usually pretty honest in my experience.