Teambuilding: A Great Way to Foster a Positive Remote Work Culture

In addition to our travel business and our online experiences, we at Arigato Travel have launched a new brand! Arigato Team Building!

As we all know, our way of life has changed quite rapidly within the last few years. Due to the pandemic, many jobs transitioned into remote work, and for a wide variety of reasons, this shift to remote appears to be here to stay (at least in some fashion). While some teams are returning to the office, others are planning to keep working from home, and some are even planning to move forward with a hybrid approach. Whatever the case may be, it is more important now than ever before to make sure we put in extra effort to maintain positive relationships with our work friends. Team building activities and shared virtual experiences can be fantastic ways to maintain and even improve these relationships across remote and international workplaces.

One of the most important benefits of these types of shared experiences and exercises is the development of a sense of community. When a workplace is entirely remote or spread out internationally, more concerted effort is required to foster a positive culture and community — but the benefits are more than worth it! Even the most introverted of people benefit from socialization and establishing meaningful relationships. Positive work relationships have also been found to increase motivation at work because if you care about your coworkers, you’re more likely to put in the effort to help them and make everyone’s job easier! Investing in these communities can also help you find meaning and purpose in your work which can lead to increased job satisfaction and quality of life as well.

A major benefit of online experiences and team building activities that doesn’t get brought up often is their ability to connect global teams with ease. Many companies these days have offices all over the world in various countries which makes it much more difficult for people to interact with their coworkers in a meaningful way. However, with the improvement of technology and the development of online team building activities, even if you have offices in Singapore, Indonesia, the US, Canada, and Europe, your workers can connect and have a fun time together.

So now that we’ve mentioned what team building activities accomplish, let’s discuss how they do this. We’ll start with the most obvious, tangible benefit. Team Building activities promote interdepartmental communication and can be a way to help you familiarize yourself with people you don’t normally have the chance to communicate with. With team building exercises, smaller teams are often formed to have a bit of friendly competition with each other. These teams can be randomly drawn which promotes teamwork between people who don’t often interact or can be made up of preexisting teams which can strengthen existing communication. The competitions, whether they be puzzles or trivia, allow team members to better understand one another as they show how everyone communicates in a  non-work environment. Oftentimes, they also allow people to express their creativity in a more public, easily noticeable fashion. In some cases, managers may even see a side of their employees they’ve never seen before, come to understand their strengths and weaknesses better, and as a result become more effective leaders. 

In addition to creating opportunities for communication and showing off one’s skills, trivia knowledge, and leadership capabilities, team building activities have been shown to increase morale, confidence levels, and even motivation. Putting on fun events like these for the workplace shows that leaders care about their team and often fosters a better environment at work as well. Treating employees well and demonstrating care for their wellbeing, enjoyment, and appropriate representation benefits everyone in the long run. It can give employees a confidence boost and a sense of belonging with their team members, leading them to feel better about what they’re doing and who they’re working with and, in turn, want to put in more effort overall. 

We here at Arigato Travel have seen firsthand how fun good team building activities can be, as well as how instrumental they can be to fostering relationships and a positive work environment across an international, fully-remote team. We’ve found them to be so effective and fun that we’ve started to offer experiences of our own (and surprisingly, they’re just as fun to put together and host as they are to participate in!) The experiences that we offer can take on several different forms. The first is our Sushi Chef Murder Mystery, where you can solve puzzles and play games to uncover clues about different characters suspected to have killed a head sushi chef. As you play, you’ll learn a lot about Japanese culture and some fun facts about the Edo period of Japan as well!

While the Murder Mystery experience was created specifically for teambuilding activities, we also repurpose a lot of our other tours and experiences for corporate events. Online tours such as our Green Teatime, Wine & Cheese Tasting, DIY Cocktail Making, and Mt. Fuji experiences are all fantastic options for team building activities! On top of these which are available year-round, we also offer some great seasonal tours such as our Online Hanami (Cherry Blossom-viewing) and Holiday tours. In case you require something more tailor-made for your needs, we’re happy to create custom tours for you (and have done so for teams of 10-200 in the past)! We love the challenge of adding a team building element to our existing tours so if any of these interest you, please consider booking a team building experience on our website!

 

Feature Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

 

Interested in organizing a fun and interactive online Team Building event for your team! Contact us at info@arigatoteambuilding.com

 

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