Working from home for a prolonged period of time can be stressful, especially during these uncertain times and not knowing how much longer the situation will continue on.
To help your employees feel more at ease and connected with each other, there are lots of measures for HR to show support and make this time feel less alone.
1. If you haven't already, set up a #workingfromhome Slack channel
In this channel, encourage people to share pictures of their home set-up, their pets or one unique item in their home. You can also coordinate online board games to play during lunch break, share fun little activities or challenges, and recipes.
2. Set up virtual coffee clubs
Virtual coffee clubs can be a fun way to have a quick chat and get face time with each other. Schedule reminders in everyone's calendar or Slack and think of fun names for the individual rooms.
3. Create Spotify playlists
Have different people create Spotify lists for everyone to listen to each day. This creates a sense of community and gives everyone topics to talk about and artists to bond over.
4. Send office chairs to people's houses
Working from bed or the couch is manageable for a short period of time, but not sustainable for several weeks. Courier office chairs to people's houses for anyone struggling with posture or back pain to help get them more comfortable.
5. Introduce daily fitness challenges
Step count is significantly lower for everyone these days. To motivate people to get moving, create fun, daily fitness challenges for everyone to get involved.
6. Virtual Yoga sessions
Organise yoga sessions via Google Hangouts or Zoom. You can either watch a Yoga video and share your screen or take turns leading weekly yoga sessions for a good way to build your community and get active before the workday starts.
7. Memes!
To keep things light, host meme sharing contests on different topics and pick a winner to receive a special shoutout during the weekly all hands team meeting.
There's lots of ways to keep team spirit and morale high while being separated and fun, easy to implement games and challenges are great to strengthen team bonds and further build and strengthen company culture.
