12 Ways to Reward Distributed Teams
The past 2 months of lockdown have been hard on all of us. Many companies who would never have appreciated remote work are now accepting distributed teams. With higher productivity rates and a more comfortable environment, some would argue ‘work from home’ protocols are better — and here to stay. Besides figuring out how to set up a great home office, one of the big downsides of working from home is celebrations and social activities. This includes rewards for great work, new team members joining/leaving, and companies hitting or surpassing sales targets. Celebrations are an important part of team culture and engagement and should continue, especially now when everything seems so doom and gloom. Having managed a remote engineering team for a greater part of two years in my career, I came up with the following suggestions:
Group work out
If your team is craving connection and is willing to get fit, try a group workout. Many gyms and fitness studios have gone online and are offering free classes. You can also just do a morning yoga or a 3pm stretch to get the blood flowing.
Fitness for the already almost fit
Food delivery
Team lunches used to be a thing, and they still can be. If your team is comfortable, buy each person a lunch or dinner and send it to their address. Many delivery services are now offering safer ways to deliver food with social distance. And you’ll be supporting local businesses at the same time.
Ritual (which just announced its support for local restaurants)
Company swag
This is a hit or miss. Some employees love it, others not so much. A great reward for employee success during this time could be to provide much needed merchandise on behalf of the company. It sounds crazy but there have been businesses that have sent employees disinfectant, gloves and even toilet paper as a positive gesture.
Hand written notes
Nothings beats a good ol’ fashioned hand written notes from a team or your superiors. This costs nothing by time and some snail mail costs, but very minor in terms of pricing. It could go a long way to show your employees that you care.
Subscription service
There a many subscription services you don’t think about and just enjoy. Netflix, Disney, HBO, Spotify, and Sirius Xm come to mind. Even Amazon Prime. Purchasing these for your staff is a cheap and effective way to make sure they have something to do in their leisure time.
Online gaming
With everyone staying at home, online gaming has taken off. This includes Animal Crossing, Fortnite and a plethora of others. With many people unable to go stores, buying employees Steam gift cards or PS4 credits is a great way to reward them for their work. Theres a good chance if they are young professionals, they are playing some sort of online game. Maybe even together as a company.
Online puzzle
Escape rooms have gone virtual. Jump on a video call an solve some challenging puzzles together. One of my favourites is listed below.
Online board games
Many startups usually have a shelf full of board games. Those games have been going online for years and now you can find almost any board game on the internet. Check it out and challenge your teams to Catan, Coup, Monopoly and others.
Gift cards
The closest thing to cold hard cash. Buying gift cards for employees is a helpful way of supporting them during this time. The more universal the gift card, the better. Amazon, Visa Prepaid and more can empower employees to spend on what they need most.
Video montage
A bit cheesy but it works. Put together a quick video montage of employees singing happy birthday, congratulating the team, or just cheering for success. Share it with the company and if done well, should generate lots of laughs!
Online comedy
Comedy is a great way to bring the team together and share some laughs. While many comedians have tried comedy over Zoom, there are two online comics that stand out. Nowhere Comedy uses virtual bouncers and has managed to convert the webinar format into a live online comedy audience with Zoom. It’s definitely worth a shot. You can also check out Rally.video which hosts weekly comedy night and includes an online bar before and after. Both these venues let you hear the audience laughter and let the comedian do a bit of crowd work.
Virtual happy hour
Online meetings can get boring fast. How about spending some time connecting after the meeting. Grab a drink and come together to hang out. You could do this on your existing video tool, but that’s probably too rigid. Check out Rally.video which lets multiple small groups chat while still feeling like you’re part of a larger crowd.
That’s all I got but if you have any other tips, feel free to comment below!
Full disclosure: The last two ideas reference Rally which is a startup I am working on now. More details to come!
