How do you create connections within a team where colleagues regularly work from home?

These days, we all recognise this, right? The sometimes empty spaces in the office, shared desks by remote employees, and an empty office on Fridays. As an HR manager, you might feel the distance between colleagues who work from home even more. To bridge that gap, it is important to look at something that every employee, regardless of location and position, has every day: breaks.

Tasty Togetherness in the office or virtually

Whatever position the colleague to your left or right has, one thing is certain: they all have breaks. Those precious moments of the day when we can relax and catch up are among the best ways to connect with your team. But how do we do that when we are in different locations? That's actually quite simple! Encourage employees to have lunch together even if they work in different locations. Just set up a video call, grab your sandwiches, and chat together while you eat. For example, organise a virtual lunch meeting at a set time or day during the week where colleagues can catch up while enjoying their favourite dishes. Whether you socialise together at the table or via a remote video conference, sharing a meal creates a sense of togetherness.

If several colleagues happen to live in the same city, it is just as fun to meet up in real life. A cosy lunch at a local café can do wonders for team spirit. By presenting this idea to your team, they can agree on a time and place together, but you can also designate a special day for this. For example, if several colleagues live in the same city, you could offer these colleagues an extra half-hour break on Tuesdays to meet up in town or at someone's home. By extending the break to an hour, each colleague has time to get to the agreed location, have lunch and be back home on time.

You could also apply this to home workers in the area around the office. You could agree to have lunch together in the office one day a week without these employees having to work in the office.

Walking connection: Physical and online

You have probably seen more colleagues around you taking walks in recent years. Both in the office during shared walking breaks and home workers who put themselves on absenteeism for a while because they are walking around the neighborhood. A great way to encourage connection between homeworkers is to exercise together. For example, suggest a certain distance to walk during lunch breaks, with each walk contributing to achieving that goal. This could be a virtual endpoint, such as climbing a virtual mountain peak or reaching an imaginary finish line. This way, employees not only feel connected to each other but also motivated to stay active, which in turn contributes to their vitality.

In addition, colleagues who work from home often use the opportunity to take care of private matters during their breaks or at other times. This could be a dentist appointment, picking up a child, or delivering a parcel. They are also on the move during moments like these, which should be seen positively. By allowing home workers to add these kinds of moments to the virtual distance goal as well, they are going to feel freer to share these kinds of private moments. Colleagues will thus get a better idea of the lives of other home-working colleagues and may become more aware of their schedules. When an employee can proudly add his or her 15 kilometers cycled by picking up a child, for example, there can be more recognition, and new topics of conversation can surface.

When we talk about sports fans, some colleagues are bound to come to mind. Perhaps many colleagues who work from home do not know about each other that there is a fellow sports fan on the team. Put them in touch with each other by organising a joint workout session. You can organise this yourself by scheduling a set day or time, or let a fanatic take on this organisation himself and organise it from within the team.

Cooking sessions & culinary connections

Do you have a team with colleagues working from home in different countries? Then you probably also have to deal with time differences or different cultures. While working from home, each employee can choose to have lunch at a different time. A non-time-related way to connect colleagues with different lunch times is to share meals and recipes. A fun way to create a connection between these employees is to develop a recipe book together. Enthuse colleagues to put a little more time and energy into a good healthy lunch at home and share it. For example, favourite dishes can be brought together in a designed recipe book sent to each employee at home.

You could organise a joint lunch day every month where one chosen recipe is in the spotlight. This can be done in the office, where, for example, you make this one recipe together for all employees or ask if everyone would like to work out this recipe at home and take the meal. Of course, this can also be done virtually, where you let everyone make the same chosen recipe from home and also, for example, eat together during a virtual lunch. To bring out the chef in your colleagues, you can organise a joint cooking session in the office or virtually once a month, where you try a recipe from the recipe book. Together, the team can try a new recipe step by step via a video call. This way, you can enjoy each other's culinary delights and get to know your colleagues. During the cooking sessions, the person who developed the recipe can explain the chosen ingredients and spices or share a personal story that goes with this recipe.

As an HR practitioner, it makes sense that you would prefer to connect all employees, both home workers and office warriors, regardless of where they work. By implementing smart and creative initiatives during breaks, such as; joint lunch, exercise, and cooking, you can strengthen team spirit and promote employee vitality.

Want to start a connected vitality initiative with your colleagues and home workers? Schedule an appointment with one of us, and let's have a digital cup of coffee soon.