Decentralization of the workplace
The process of decentralization of the workplace has been gaining steam over the last few decades. Globalization has introduced the concept of distributed offices and co-located teams. But with the advent of coworking spaces, it quickly evolved into highly distributed teams as companies were not afraid of opening up smaller locations. Today we are witnessing a paradigm shift in the corporate culture, where technology stalwarts like Facebook, Twitter and Square are offering perpetual flexible work-from-home policies and companies like Shopify are frontrunning the trend of going with completely virtual offices. (source).
Future: Work from anywhere
In this new landscape, a Dispersed Team could either be
- A Distributed team, where people are geographically scattered, or
- A Remote team, where the employees are co-located but prefer to work from home.
As indicated by various surveys, including the one from Gallup, remote teams are going to get increasingly common. Teams will have no choice but to start embracing the work from anywhere culture.
Keeping the company culture alive
Leaders that have embraced dispersed teams are struggling to find opportunities for employees to build connections within the team and remove the sense of isolation.
Creating these meaningful opportunities to build a cohesive company culture is hard work. As a team leader you first must put together an agenda, then find content and finally socialize the idea within the team. This may seem like a daunting task and you may reach out to an external company to host an event for you. Hiring someone else to organize an event for you can be cost prohibitive and you may end up spending thousands of dollars perevent, resulting in these events only being a semi-annual or an annual affair.
How to organize quick & easy events to elevate company culture
The shift to remote work can exacerbate worker loneliness (*source), establishing and creating a supportive community and innovative ways for employees to engage with each other can help alleviate the feeling of isolation. . For the members of dispersed teams to feel connected with one another, opportunities to exercise these connections should be frequent. Team building events today are like excursions – a yearly affair. Team events should be thought of like exercises; done more frequently with a goal of building ‘muscle memory’.
Most event organizing platforms today are complicated, only partially on-line, and wrought with logistical issues where multiple platforms are needed to maintain quality audio/video synchronicity.
With Hermis, we cut through all that noise and give you a one-stop platform that allows for self-hosted, easy event creation, coordination and execution for everyone, while creating fun and memorable experiences for all. Hermis is bringing back the Fun Factor in the new virtual workplace!
List of popular activities
- Trivia: Choose from an existing pack or create your own to engage your team
- Bingo : A party game of chance and quickness
- Bucket List: Share your bucket list of things you want to do or experience in your lifetime
- Charades : Mime your way to get your team to guess
- Picture day: Share an image that explains life outside of work today. A tiny sneak-peek into you outside of a colleague.
- What have you been eating: Share images of what new culinary skills you cultivated during the change of work environment
- Pictionary : Great for showing off rudimentary sketching skills
- A look at the future: Share a magazine and get your teammates to highlight articles that could be related to your company in the future
- Are you smarter than a 5th grader : Jog your memory to recollect topics you learned as a child
Organizing a virtual event [made easy with Hermis]
Hermis is designed to handle all the nuances around organizing and conducting these different types of events. Host an event simply by clicking on a button. With many built-in activities to choose from, the job of organizing an event just became a whole lot simpler. And with the customization support, make it look and feel like your own party.
What’s the solution for team building then
A single place for team events. A place where you have:
1. One-click event creation
2. Use existing content or create your own!
3. Have an integrated experience
Significant shifts are happening in the workplace. Platforms like Hermis, allow you to encourage engagement and keep company culture alive with a one-stop destination for all team building needs.
