I've found that people work much more effectively when you give them something to work towards. So at the end of November, I write a list of things that I'd like my remote team to accomplish before the holidays, and I let them know that if they can achieve them before time, they can start their holidays two days beforehand. Using an early holiday as a carrot has proven to be a great motivator in a month where my team usually struggles with motivation.
As a business that creates games, it’s safe to say that our love for all things gaming pushed us to rethink our employee engagement practices and how we could use games to make things a little more interesting. It’s no surprise that games are a fantastic way to relieve stress, build team morale and keep people engaged. But if you want to take it one step further, consider gamifying the work experience to add an element of fun. For example, you could create a leaderboard that tracks various metrics such as who responds quickest to customer inquiries or who generates the most sales leads. Each week, announce the winners on a team call or in an email and offer prizes like gift cards or extra vacation days. Not only will this make work more fun for your employees, but it will also help them feel more connected to their colleagues — even if they’re not within the same geographic location.
Having led remote teams for over 20 years, the most successful Holiday meetings, I've experienced are gamified, on zoom, with video, and have nothing to do with work. Engagement is critical for teamwork. But building a high-functioning team, instead of a group of individuals, requires Relatedness. So, we've done simple meetings, where everyone is asked to be on zoom video, and have a story about themselves, their family, their favorite pet, a hobby, sports, or something different that other team members might find interesting. We've found team members that went to the same high school, but now in different countries, and never knew it before. Or, team members who have similar passions, or hobbies. Those kinds of bonds help team members to understand each other a little better, creating more empathy and teamwork.
Our annual ugly holiday sweater championship is a bit of seasonal fun that also helps our team members bond so we can enter the new year as a stronger and more cohesive unit. We hold our championship via video conference so all our employees can participate, wherever they are in the world. The rules are simple. Everyone has to wear their ugliest holiday sweater, and we shine the spotlight on each member in turn for the appreciation of the rest of the team. Then we all vote for the winner who gets a bottle of fragrance for their prize. It's loads of fun and there’s always lots of laughs all round.
We’ve all had a little fun while deepening relationships across a remote team by hosting a holiday, Secret Santa-style gift exchange. Everyone loves receiving mail, especially as a gift from a thoughtful co-worker! The trick to making this fun rather than yet another holiday obligation is giving your team plenty of notice. With ample time to prepare, teammates can find out about their recipient’s interests, plan, buy or create, and mail their gifts well ahead of your set mailing deadline. Then, ask employees to wait to open their gifts until the big holiday reveal - a big unwrapping party over Zoom!
For the holiday season, we encourage our remote workers to give us a tour of their in-season decorations every year. It's an exciting time for everyone at work, especially our remote team, to get into the festive spirit in their home offices. What better way to show off their holiday decor than through a video conference call where everyone gets the chance to describe their favorite ornaments and trinkets? It's an exceptionally effective engagement strategy we do every year. Everyone is more than happy to exchange greetings and share their holiday experience with a cup of hot cocoa on the side.
We offer incentives for employees, like our customer service staff, who have to work at less-desirable hours during the holiday season. Doing so could inspire them to show up for work and carry out their tasks. One effective way to implement this is by giving cash bonuses at a flat rate. We become extra generous during these times, considering that employees must focus and work hard while everyone around them is in a holiday mood.
The holiday season is the busiest time of the year for our teams. While we still aim to carve out social time and foster connection and support among virtual team members, we also realize that a heavy workload plus family obligations means our remote teams have limited bandwidth during these months. Rather than structured team socials, we opt for low key team building exercises during this time. For example, a leader might post check-in questions or holiday-themed icebreaker prompts on a Slack channel, or ask teammates to share pictures of their pets dressed in their holiday best or their desks decked out for the holidays. Perhaps a team member asks the channel their favorite Christmas carols and makes a team playlist. If we do hold Zoom hangouts, these meetings are movie-watching, game-playing, or coloring sessions meant for unwinding rather than full-on engagement. Planning low-maintenance activities prevents teammates from getting needlessly stressed.
Though it might sound incredibly lame, last year we did a Santa Murder Mystery, and it was awesome. The team absolutely loved it. I was trying to come up with ways to keep the team engaged as we headed into the Christmas season, and I came up with a remote murder mystery. It worked much like a normal murder mystery party (if you’ve partaken in one), except it was remote. I secretly tagged one of our employees as the killer, and it was up to everyone else to figure out who "killed Santa." Every day for two weeks, from December 10th until Christmas Eve, I released one clue, which was intended to be cryptic and thought provoking. On Christmas Eve, everyone emailed me their guess as to who it was, and whoever got it right got a $300 Starbucks gift card. Though a small part of everyday operations, it kept everyone checked in during an otherwise “check out” time of year. People we’re sending around messages on Slack and getting a laugh out of it. I plan to do it again this year.
Social responsibility initiatives have been shown to improve employee engagement by over 8%, while also bringing down turnover rates. In our case where everyone is fully remote, each employee gets to pick a cause of their choice in their local community. They can make a short video that highlights this cause and why it matters to them. With their permission, we post these short clips on our Slack workspace, and also on the company website as well as its social media profiles to help raise support for their chosen cause. The company also makes $120 donation to each of the causes chosen by the employees in their names.
To keep remote teams engaged over the holiday season, give gifts which make remote work a more pleasant experience. Your team spend lots of their time hard at work, but won't always have the technical knowhow to make the most out of their workspace. With the right tools and equipment, there's no telling how much happier or productive they might be. That's where you come in. Anything which makes the remote work experience easier and more seamless will go a long way. Gifts like noise-cancelling headphones, a lap desk, or even a Spotify subscription are great examples. They can be used in and out of the workplace, time and time again, serving as a reminder of your tact and generosity. In my view, it's one of the best ways to show your appreciation over the holiday season.
This may sound like something Scrooge would do, but to keep a remote team engaged over the holidays I find it best to really lay down hard deadlines in the lead up to vacation. While we also do fun things as the holidays come near, we found most people don't want to waste valuable time doing holiday activities and would rather finish their work early so they can log off and tend to family holiday preparations. This makes total sense, since as a remote team we are all working from home instead of stuck in an office for mandatory hours. So, setting concrete project deadlines that are reasonable and wrap up the quarter are appreciated, allowing staff to keep their holiday stress free and without any lingering work projects to come back to after the holidays.
The holiday season can be a hectic time for most of us and there isn't that much time left over for fun activities usually. One way we have found to keep the team engaged however is to hold a small holiday season-themed quiz each day. Each morning we send out an email to all the team members with 5 or 6 questions to be answered, and the team has until the close of business to submit their responses. On Monday morning along with the questions, we send a list of the winners of the previous week's quizzes. Each daily winner receives a small value gift voucher to be used at an online store, the scores are accumulated through the week, and the weekly winner gets a larger value gift certificate. As a finale, on the last day before we break for the holiday, a prize is awarded to the person with the highest score over the month, but everyone who has taken part gets something.
As the holiday season approaches, this can be a great time to reflect on and acknowledge your remote team's achievements over the last year. Working remotely, your team can feel that their efforts are not fully appreciated at times, particularly through busy spells. Very often the day-to-day business of running the company takes over and as no one is present to acknowledge successes, they can be forgotten. To resolve this and keep the team engaged, it can be a good idea to take some time to talk to each employee individually to thank them for their efforts and congratulate them on all their successes. Then, bring the team together in a video call to discuss all that they have achieved and hand out thank-you gifts. Make certain to leave no one out. The highest achievers may deserve a little extra, but everyone has done their best and they all deserve a reward of some kind.
The holiday season usually brings along many unpleasant memories and emotions for people. Not to mention the weather and low temperatures are gloomy on their own. It's not uncommon for some employees to go into a state of depression during November to late January. However, mental and emotional health are both directly related to productivity. Clinically happier employees generate higher quality output within their roles. The problem with seasonal blues is that it causes some employees to slack off in their deadline submissions. It also decreases their workload tolerance. This is where employee coworking sessions come in: to huddle everyone together regularly so they feel accountable to complete their designated tasks. Many remote employees give up during holidays because isolation worsens sadness. Joining a virtual meeting room with other colleagues can motivate employees to push through their depression because they feel like they have a community to support them along the way.
The best thing I have found for engaging a fully remote team during the holidays is being organized. All throughout the year, a team responds well to good communication, but there is no time when that is more true than around the holidays. The simple truth is people want to know how they will be spending their holidays, and how they will see their loved ones and family members. Being as organized as possible and making this a system where people can discuss and request their time off can show the company is actively considering how to make it work. Not everything will be possible of course, but allowing people to know you are engaging them, and coming up with a 'holiday roster' at the end of October can mean people are clear and know where their time off comes in, and be able to plan their time accordingly. This will massively help the engagement of your team because they will feel listened to, and not be left wondering what is going to happen
Taking advantage of other people who slack off during the holidays helps keep me and my remote team motivated. If our competitors are taking it easy, then that provides us the opportunity to win their business. Obviously the holiday season is meant to be spent with family. However, if you can work from home and adjust your schedule accordingly, you can still be productive through the months of November and December.
Being clear about expectations is the most important thing when it comes to engaging a fully remote team during the holiday season. You need to be clear about what you need from them, and when you need it by. This way, everyone is on the same page and knows what is expected of them. Once you have set clear expectations, it is important to check in regularly to make sure that everyone is on track. This can be done via email, video call, or even just a quick chat.
During our super busy holiday season we give our team additional support in the form of stipends. For the entirety of Q4, team members receive $100 a month respectively to spend on takeout and social time with loved ones, and $50 a month for coffee. These allowances help offset the increase in workload and tend to workers' mental health during this stressful season. Our employees are grateful for these perks, and these benefits have helped us to attract and retain talent during our most taxing season.
Staying in touch with your remote team through video calls, instant messaging, email, and web conferencing platforms is the best way to engage them during the holiday season. When the entire team is working, bringing them together through a video call or video conference helps encourage group collaboration. You can also use different communication and collaboration tools like Google Hangouts, Slack, and Trello. Communication skills can be improved by allowing your remote team to discuss topics other than work during a video call. Therefore, due to the pressure of work, your employees are not able to communicate properly with each other during work. So, make time for outings or casual video calls to engage employees and feel excited to be a part of the team.