15 Great Ideas to Make Remote Working Fun

With many workforces working from home, contact centres have been looking for ways to engage their teams and invigorate morale.

So, what can contact centres do to inspire their teams?

We asked this question to our readers and they sent in the following ideas, which have worked wonders in raising team morale.

1. Biscuit Breaks

To help engagement we’ve had a “Biscuit Break” in our virtual meetings where advisors can have a coffee and relaxed chat, and can present and talk about their favourite biscuit and whether they would dunk it!

Thanks to Theresa

2. Mug Shots

A fun activity that went down well was “Mug Shots”. This involved the team bringing in their favourite mug and telling everyone a story about why it’s important to them.

Another similar mug-related game that your team may also like. It starts by designating one person as being in charge of the event for the entire company or team.

Each participant sends a picture of their favourite coffee or tea mug over to the person in charge. Then that person posts all the photos in a random Slack channel or email thread.

Team members must guess which mug belongs to which team member, and the person who guesses the most correctly wins!

Thanks to Theresa and Karen

3. Explore the World

You can now take virtual museum tours. So why not share the link with your team and ask them to spend some time taking a virtual tour of a world-rated museum.

Help them take in the virtual tour by asking the team questions, like:

• What was your favourite art piece and why do you like it?
• List something new you learned.
• Do you now have the desire to visit the museum in person?

The questions and call-outs are endless. You could even turn it into a contest by asking questions about things in the museum and rewarding the museum.

Museums that offer virtual tours, include:

• The Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California
• Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France
• The British Museum in London, England

4. Lip Sync Battles

Never underestimate the bonding power of employees collectively making fools of themselves, and ideas that work on this principle are great if you have a team full of extroverts.

So consider hosting a virtual dance-off or lip sync battle to help your team let loose. You can do this live via a video conference, or you can have employees pre-record videos.

Turn it into a contest with voting and a prize, and you’ll have yourself a winning employee-engagement activity.

For more fun games to play with remote workers, read our article: The Best Motivational Games for Employees and Remote Workers

5. The Special Occasion Handbook

Create an online handbook of remote engagement ideas for leaders to implement. It could also be themed by month.

For example, in October you could have a dress-up extravaganza, a workplace decoration competition and have a spooky quiz, all in the run-up to Halloween.

Having these ideas around holidays is great, to get everyone involved in the fun, festive spirit and you can also send pictures throughout the day, compile them and share during following team meetings.

Thanks to Karen

6. Buzz Days

In current times, finances for companies can be difficult. But rewarding or recognizing employees is still as important as ever.

We often run “buzz days” where we will set short sharp targets… and their “prize” is 15 minutes of owed time.

We often run “buzz days” where we will set short sharp targets – i.e. the first agent to receive three perfect CSAT scores from customers – and their “prize” is 15 minutes of owed time.

This is not only rewarding to the employee to get to leave early on, say, a Friday, but is also of no actual cost to the company.

The employee can either take that 15 minutes that week or they can bank it and build it up over time to leave even earlier. It goes down very well with our teams!

Thanks to Carly

7. Wellness Sessions

Take the time to focus on the mental health of workers. Employees need an escape, especially during testing times.

Offering coping strategies for people that are struggling has been helpful and it’s great to share these in special wellness sessions, which advisors can happily drop in and out of.

I also try to find a way to make them smile – whether that’s with a funny picture, a meme or something similar – because I believe that laughter is the best medicine.

Also, I send emails weekly/monthly that focus on mindfulness and mental health, but also give the team the sense that they are not alone.

Thanks to Crystal

For more great advice on this topic, read our article: Employee Well-Being: How to Reduce Contact Centre Stress

8. Create a Part of Our Culture (POC) Board

As a follow-up to our virtual meetings and check-ins, we write our goals down on cards – whether individual or team – on how we can continue to improve.

The leader keeps track of our progress on cards throughout the year – to recognize and reward advisors for hitting their targets.

The cards are on display in the team leader’s workroom and agents are given a timeframe in which they need to be completed.

When the cards are acted on and completed we move them to the POC= Part of Culture board and the leader keeps track of our progress on cards throughout the year – to recognize and reward advisors for hitting their targets.

Thanks to Heather

9. Call Listening Sessions

This one is more about learning, but it can also be a fun bonding experience!

I put together a training programme using actual call recordings (from either those who had approved or those who had left the company). I did not include the names and made sure I had all of the appropriate permissions.

Those participating in the training worked together, in separate virtual groups, to evaluate the calls (good, bad and mediocre).

I did this with groups of new and tenured employees. We had very good discussions. It gave them great examples and opened their eyes to how things can be perceived by the customers.

It was very well received, and many said they now had a better understanding of the value of the review.  It also gave me the opportunity to see what was important to them.

Thanks to Cindy

10. Word Clouds

I have my teams build Word Clouds as a remote training activity. It’s great for getting teams thinking together.

Word Clouds are sets of words that relate to a topic, which are presented in a fun, visually pleasing way. The words that are most relevant to the topic are often given most prominence.

Word Clouds are sets of words that relate to a topic, which are presented in a fun, visually pleasing way.

This exercise is great for linking the overall objectives to areas of improvement using positive language.

For example, if we give teams the topic of “work engagement”, we can tell – by the words that they come up with – the best ways to engage the team, whether that’s with work-related games, more focus on development or collaboration opportunities.

Thanks to Paul

More Fun Activities for Remote Teams

While these are our top ten activities for remote workers, there were lots more great ideas sent in by our readers of contact centre professionals.

These extra fun ideas include:

11. A Daily Share – Inspire each other by asking members to take turns sharing a thought-provoking or fun quote, meme, video, poem, etc. Assign one member to share per day and ask them to explain what their selection means to them.
12. #WFHsuperheroes – Run a #WFHsuperheroes campaign for employees as well as family members supporting work-from-home (WFH). Push out on social media and send cards and chocolates to the nominated employees / family members.
13. Football Season – Send in selfies of you wearing a jersey of your favourite team, while you can also set up a fantasy football league between individuals or different teams.
14. Share a Newsletter – Share a bi-weekly newsletter with interesting tips on cooking, exercise, books, tv shows, that helps everyone stay connected. Each team member takes a turn writing it, which also gives us all a chance to get to know each other even better!
15. Weekly Slideshow – Have a weekly slideshow that is sent out to the contact centre that includes upcoming birthdays, “meet your peer” with a write-up about three people in the contact centre, self-care tips, company news and much more.

For more remote working advice, read our articles:

• Remote Staff Engagement: 9 Strategies to Make Your Team Smile
• 15 Contact Centre Homeworking Problems and How to Overcome Them
• How Do You Stay Motivated and Productive Working From Home?

Author: Robyn Coppell