General

In this day and age, where most businesses are working remotely, it’s essential to maintain and improve communication in the team. It eliminates any issues brewing under the surface that no one may be aware of while also streamlining work processes. Most importantly, it sets clear goals, and everyone understands their role in projects.

Here are a few ways to improve communication with your team, whether they work in an office environment or from home.

1. Set up an open-door policy

Your employees and colleagues should feel comfortable contacting or speaking with you when they want to address a matter. Inform them that they can reach out whenever they need someone to talk to, especially when it involves their projects. If they don’t feel they can approach you, they may struggle to complete their tasks on time.

The challenge is ensuring that you’re available when they need you. We know how busy managers can become, especially when you have online meetings all day long. Instead of telling them you have no time for them, schedule an appointment to discuss the issue.

2. Have weekly team huddles

It’s helpful to have weekly team huddles to discuss strategic matters and address key performance indicators and milestones. If you’re handling several projects simultaneously, it is also a good opportunity to check if they’re on track for the deadlines.

It’s essential that you’re dedicated to the weekly meetings; otherwise, your employees won’t take it seriously. You should also put more emphasis on the “how” instead of the “why”– looking for solutions instead of excuses. Ensure that no one goes off-tangent so you can focus on the main discussion points.

3. Incorporate anonymous employee feedback portals

Another way to improve communication with staff is to let them submit anonymous feedback on work and the company. These are usually known as Staff Satisfaction Surveys. You can set what you want them to evaluate, but you should leave a section where they can leave comments about how they feel.

There are some platforms that make this process easier, such as Officevibe. This innovative platform helps employees engage with you and colleagues to overcome challenges. You can also arrange a one-on-one with each team member to discuss their feedback and resolve any issues.

4. Listen more, speak less

Communication works both ways, and sometimes employees just want to be heard. If you spend all of the time speaking, you won’t be able to hear all of the concerns properly. Listening closely also gives you time to assimilate and process what they’re saying before providing a response.

5. Organise team building activities

Finally, you can organise online team building activities for your staff. It opens the way for effective communication in order to solve problems. For example, the Virtual Escape Room requires everyone to work together to unravel clues so they can make it out of the enclosed environment. This can not only improve communication between your team members, but also sharpen their problem-solving skills as they discover what they can achieve as a team.

Organise fun team building games with Making Teams

If you are looking for a corporate team building company in Singapore that offers fun activities that improve communication among your team members, look no further than Making Teams. Our virtual games are specially designed to assist companies with building teamwork and rapport while working remotely. These games are fully customisable according to your specific requirements, so please feel free to reach out to us for more information.

Joining a new company can be daunting. On top of adjusting to new responsibilities, it can take some time for employees to warm up and bond with colleagues. With remote working arrangements becoming the norm, welcoming new hires into the team becomes even more challenging, especially since staff can’t interact face-to-face.

But just because your staff are working from home in Singapore, doesn’t mean you have to pause ice breaker activities! Simple corporate team-building exercises such as fun virtual games and events are an excellent way to welcome new team members and help everyone get to know one another.

In this article, we’ll dig into how you can make new staff members feel more at home while working from home and share exciting ice breaker ideas you can try!

Why is it important for new employees to fit into the company?

Regardless of working arrangements, effectively integrating new employees into the company is vital. A good fit can boost their morale, productivity and confidence, as they feel happier about their job environment and colleagues. It motivates them to commit to contributing to the company and increases job satisfaction all around for both new and existing staff.

What can you do to make employees feel welcome?

Here are a few ideas to ensure your new staff have a great experience in the first few weeks and make a smooth transition to their new role:

• Have a virtual onboarding lunch: Things don’t have to be formal when meeting the employee for the first time. Arrange an online lunch so you can discuss how the company works over a meal. You can even arrange to have a nice meal delivered to their home.
• Introduce the colleagues: Set up a meeting for all team members to meet the recruit. You should also encourage the team members to have regular discussions in the first month to check in with how they’re doing.
• Pair them with a mentor: It helps to have someone more experienced in the company guiding them along the way and showing them the ropes.
• Ensure documents and processes are well-organised: Nothing is more confusing than starting a new job with a company that’s disorganised. Ensure all the paperwork and standard operating procedures are in place, so the employee completely understands how things work.

How can you facilitate communication amongst new employees?

It’s often the case that new employees don’t feel comfortable speaking up and sharing ideas when they join a company. They may have a wealth of experience and knowledge, but they’re not sure if it’s welcome in the new environment. Your team needs to make them feel like they can communicate at any time.

One way to improve communication is to plan regular corporate team-building exercises throughout the year. It takes them out of the isolated remote working environment and encourages them to brainstorm new ways of doing things.

What type of bonding activities can you arrange?

If you’re wondering which type of activities to organise, why not engage a virtual team-building company like Making Teams? As Singapore’s top provider for online team-building events, we offer a vast range of fun virtual activities that serve as excellent ice breakers for new staff and remote teams. For example, you can send them on an online Treasure Hunt, or they can unleash their inner Sherlock Holmes and work together to complete a Murder Mystery game.

If your team is good at following clues, you can customise a virtual Escape Room that matches your company’s objectives or brand. For a more adventurous undertaking, you can send them on an Amazing Race online across several international destinations. No matter which activity you choose, your new employees are sure to have loads of fun!

Make new employees feel welcome with Making Teams

There’s so much you can do to make new employees feel at home, no matter where they work. In the long run, you’ll see improved communication, boosted staff morale and better performance. We have a host of virtual games you can have a look at for your team. Find out more about our virtual games and activities, and feel free to reach out to us for more information.

It’s almost that time of the year where companies start celebrating the holiday season. Christmas is an exciting time, and you’ll usually find them joining events before enjoying some time off. However, COVID-19 has made it inconvenient for people to physically meet at enclosed locations, which puts a damper on employee morale and spirit.

That’s where corporate team building in Singapore comes in. To maintain that bond between colleagues and retain communication, you can engage in virtual activities. We have a host of online games for the festive season your employees can engage in from the comfort of their homes!

The joy of gathering during the festive season

There’s something special about Christmas in Singapore, and COVID-19 almost ruined it for many families and employees in the country. However, we fought to maintain that festive spirit, even if it meant we couldn’t gather in public spaces anymore. We found inventive ways to stay in touch and share the joy, such as sending gifts via delivery or using technology to our advantage.

Still, not being able to see or embrace each other in gatherings has taken its toll on many of us. There was a special kind of comfort in greeting everyone with smiles and talking the night away that filled our hearts with warmth and let our worries fall away.

Recreating the same atmosphere virtually

Just because there are restrictions, it doesn’t mean we can’t recreate the same warmth in our hearts. You can engage with a team building company in Singapore for the festive season to bring back that joy and frivolity. There are plenty of activities you can engage in to make it feel like an office party again.

For instance, you can send food parcels when you arrange a virtual dinner and dance for your employees in Singapore. You can also plan games for them to play from the comfort of their home, such as a Christmas-themed Amazing Race. To create more excitement, you can even set up a lucky draw with attractive cash prizes!

What type of virtual Christmas games does Making Teams offer?

Our team building company in Singapore has several virtual Christmas games for your employees to enjoy. They will make their remote offices feel festive, and you can have members of their family join if they like. Here are a few activities we offer:

• Xmas Scavenger Hunt: After forming teams, employees will have limited time to find specific objects in their homes. You’ll need to select from the generic items on the list so that everyone can join, such as something red or round.
• Xmas Music Challenge: Your teams will listen to extracts from songs from popular music television shows to see if they can identify them.
• Xmas Sales Pitch: Every employee will have the opportunity to pitch a crazy idea or product to the team with only one minute to promote it. The objective is to make it as hilarious as possible.
• Xmas Zoom Picture: Contestants will receive a zoomed-in portion of an image while guessing what it could possibly be.
• Xmas Millionaires: A combination of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Wheel of Fortune, participants will press a virtual buzzer to answer questions to see who can accumulate the most points.

Build a strong bond with your employees

When it’s been a long stressful year with everyone working remotely from home, it’s a good idea to take some time off with corporate team building activities in Singapore. These virtual Christmas games are ideal for strengthening the bonds between your employees who may feel like they’ve lost touch with one another due to the default working from home arrangement.

Moreover, engaging in some fun is also a good way for employees to get away from work and enjoy themselves. This helps to uplift spirits and can do wonders to strengthen communication and trust among your team members.

Organise a fun Christmas party with Singapore Team Building’s games

Don’t let the pandemic put a damper on your team’s Christmas spirit! With these exciting virtual games, your team can still enjoy the holidays and soak in the festive spirit. Feel free to contact us if you want to know more about the activities we offer in Singapore.

In a time when remote work has become the norm, it can be challenging to encourage your staff to remain motivated and productive. Communication between teammates drops, especially when each member is working independently at home.

Online virtual team building is an activity you can introduce that will help boost morale and promote collaboration between colleagues. For example, you can send them on a Treasure Hunt, or they can solve a Murder Mystery. They’ll have so much fun; you’ll see how eager they are to get back to work the next day!

Why settle for standard cookie-cutter virtual team building games, though? Up the ante and customise them to make them more exciting and engaging for your team!

What are customised virtual games?

Here at Making Teams, we have two fully customisable virtual games — Amazing Race and Escape Room. While they both provide loads of excitement and a sense of adventure, you can incorporate any business elements you want them to focus on. For example, the theme can be centred around cybersecurity or make the employees aware of the consequences of fake news in social media.

The benefits of these customised online team building games are that they increase participation while also showcasing your company’s values. They can even be used as a training tool to impart valuable skills or motivate employees to concentrate on company goals.

How can they be customised for better team-building?

There are many ways in which corporate team-building games like our virtual Escape Room and Amazing Race can be customised to suit your organisation. From visual elements like logos and branding to custom challenges related to a particular industry or topic, our team endeavours to make your virtual game experience as unique as possible.

Customised virtual Escape Room

The premise of the virtual Escape Room remains the same as real-life games. Members are trapped in a virtual environment with only a few clues as to how they can exit the room. Where the customised online version differs is the main theme and objects that relate to your core business.

For instance, we designed a pirate-themed online escape room for a shipping company where members were virtually trapped inside a ship cabin. Escaping involved a fun series of objectives such as sending a distress call to Navy seals and decoding Morse code messages.

Customised virtual Amazing Race

The same energy goes into making customised Amazing Race games for your team. We can use locations of your corporate buildings, whether local or global, as destination points. You can also have the CEO or directors make special videos that relay the mission briefings or puzzles that reflect your team or organisation.

Take our collaboration with Great Eastern Life, an insurance company, as an example. We added custom challenges based on financial and insurance calculations, such as a currency conversion game set in Rome, a monopoly game in London, and a cryptocurrency game in San Francisco!

Why should you choose to customise virtual games?

Since customised online virtual team building games are tailored to fit your business, there’s a stronger sense of belonging and increased productivity when you add elements from your work into these games. It encourages them to use similar skills when working remotely, such as better communication and problem-solving.

If anything, it takes away the loneliness of working alone from home and hardly seeing colleagues while toiling away at mundane tasks every day. Online team-building games can help lift their spirits and relieve stress.

Organise fun team building games with Making Teams

If you’re keen to improve team morale and encourage members to work together, check our virtual team-building activities for more ideas. When you see how well they communicate and work towards the same goals afterwards, you’ll be thankful that you embarked on this journey with them. If you have any questions about our corporate bonding activities or how you can customise them for your business, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Before COVID-19 upended the world as we know it in 2020, many companies were engaging in team-building exercises as a way to improve workplace relationships, performance, and productivity. Annual year-end corporate Dinner & Dances were fun events employees looked forward to, a time to celebrate successful projects, let loose and welcome in the new year. However, when the pandemic forced businesses to shut their doors and enforce lockdowns, many of such activities could no longer take place.

While this may still be the case, there are solutions that can liven up the year-end atmosphere and recreate some of the fun dinner and dance events used to bring. With virtual team building games, we help you maintain that bond between co-workers, even though they don’t work in the same space anymore.

Why are corporate events necessary?

When the pandemic arose, many companies turned their focus to digital transformation and new processes to ensure that work continued remotely. During this time of change, colleagues no longer had the opportunity to sit together in a physical space and address critical business matters. It also became more challenging to monitor progress.

With corporate team building in Singapore falling by the wayside, there’s a struggle to maintain interpersonal skills that took years to cultivate. The foundation of trust that relied on workspace activities and innovative collaboration became harder to achieve.

That doesn’t mean you can’t approach a team building company in Singapore for assistance. It still remains an impactful way to unite your workforce and keep them focused on corporate goals.

How does a connected worker make for a better worker?

When you have employees that remain connected by a strong bond, they feel better motivated to handle challenging tasks ahead. You’ll see them work together as they brainstorm ideas, while any distance between them doesn’t foster alienation or conflict.

It can be challenging to keep workers closely connected and retain that high quality and productivity that’s facilitated in a physical workplace. Virtual team building is the solution to this problem, encouraging creativity among them and spurring them on towards improved communication between them.

Your most significant danger is when workers enjoy working alone and shut themselves off from the rest of the team. They sometimes forget that the competition is out there in the market and not between the workforce. While it can be sometimes healthy for them to compete, it can also lead to estrangement and the building of barriers.

Virtual or hybrid dinner and dance parties

One method that works for corporate team building in Singapore is the virtual dinner and dance party. You can engage with a company to arrange party packages delivered to their homes and streamed music as part of the online experience. Your team will feel like they’re attending a party together, no matter how far apart they really are.

To make it work, you engage with a team building company in Singapore like ours to make magic happen. You can decide on the theme of dinner and dance, whether Hollywood glam or a murder-detective, and how the dinner should be organised. It doesn’t matter where they’re located, as everything will be done online and they can attend from the safety of their homes.

Organise fun party games with Making Teams’ games

Making Teams has plenty of virtual party team building games you can engage in to make your members feel closer together. Popular ones are Halloween-themed races or holiday packages. Workers can take part in their own Amazing Race, or they can embark on a fantastic Treasure Hunt.

Since the digital space is so versatile, we’re also open to any virtual team building suggestions. We’ll gladly add them to our game product category page if there’s enough demand for the party category.

So, make sure you reach out to us to organise your corporate team building events in Singapore. Not only will everything run smoothly, but we’ll make sure to cater to your team’s needs for the magical day or evening. It will show them just how much you value them as employees and people contributing towards your company’s vision.

The last few years have seen an upsurge in companies sending their employees to work remotely from home. While it may have been necessary due to the pandemic, there has been a rise in technology and software to assist in making the change more successful.

One of the many issues that has arisen is the drop in communication, where many team members have to deal with miscommunication or feel distant and disengaged from their workplace. They sometimes misunderstand each other, which affects the work and remaining focused on the goals. Fortunately, there’s a way you can help them bridge that gap in the form of a murder mystery team building game.

What is a murder mystery game?

In essence, a murder mystery game is where teams work together to solve a homicide crime. Everyone has a role, but one of them is the actual murderer. There are several clues they’ll have to solve to uncover which one of them it is, which is why communication is key.

Usually, when played face-to-face, people meet at a physical location with a group of up to eight. There is also a limit to the number of people who can play, as there are a limited number of characters. When you play the murder mystery game online, you don’t have this limit. We have a maximum group size of 1000 players, with this group broken up into smaller groups of up to 10 team members since there’s greater capacity for more members.

How does it work virtually?

The murder mystery online version is slightly different to the in-person team-building approach. You’ll need to connect everyone to a communication platform, such as Zoom, Skype or Microsoft Teams. As the host, you’ll send the invite to everyone for the meeting, ensuring that they’re all available for the scheduled time.

Once everyone has characters assigned, the host explains how the murder mystery team building game will work online. Over three distinct rounds, your team will assume the personalities of their characters, as well as look for clues of who the murder is. In the third, and final, round, they will try to determine and accuse the person they believe is the murderer. When it begins, members can move to breakaway rooms on the chat platform to try and solve the mystery. You can all agree to have dinner as part of the event, while members can dress for the part if they wish.

How does it help to improve communication?

When your team plays the murder mystery game online, the only way they can solve the clues is by communicating. They’ll find innovative ways to decipher what’s happening, which will then encourage them to deal with tasks and problems with work in the same way. It’s also a fun way to take their minds off the stress of working remotely, and you might find they’ll work more closely together in the weeks that follow.

How does it help to improve problem-solving skills?

At its core, the murder mystery online game requires your team to solve a critical problem: who murdered the victim. They may not realise it during the event, but it’s helping them develop skills they can take into the workplace. While they won’t be working through a killing when it comes to corporate tasks, they can use similar methodologies with new inspiration and motivation to tackle daily goals.

Choose Making Teams to create stronger teams

If you’ve never hosted a murder mystery team building game before, we understand that it may feel intimidating doing so, especially as an employer. Fortunately, Making Teams can assist you by facilitating it on your behalf. We’ll also ensure that everyone receives the materials they need to play it online.

Should you decide that using murder as a theme isn’t the way to go, you can check out any of our other online virtual games. Feel free to contact us if you’re looking for any advice.