Enter: virtual fun Friday activities.
Don’t dismiss the notion of these simple activities just yet — when done right, they can do wonders for engagement.
Here’s why you should prepare fun Friday games and activities for your team (and 7 ideas to use as inspiration):
One major downside of remote work? It’s hard to form close bonds with colleagues.
Statistics state that 67% of employees who work from home feel disconnected from their workmates.
That’s understandable when their interactions are usually dependent on working on a common project, but things don’t—and shouldn’t—have to stay that way. Especially since disengaged employees are less productive and may produce lower quality output.
With something as simple as fun Friday games, your team can develop a better bond and work better together. It can be awkward at first for them to interact outside of meetings, but since most Filipinos value camaraderie, your team will become closer in no time.
Money is undeniably important, but offering a competitive salary isn’t an assurance that your employees will stay longer. Company culture plays a big role in retention, too.
While building a fun and healthy work culture is easier when everyone is in the office, virtual fun Friday activities help you create strong bonds even when your team is halfway across the world. These activities are an excellent way for your team to get to know each other better and can give them something to look forward to every week.
Along with continuous professional development, weekly games and activities will motivate employees to stick around long-term.
Put productivity and loyalty together, and what do you get? A recipe for success.
When your employees are happy and engaged, you can delegate higher-level tasks to them AND hire more people to join the team.
On the other hand, your company will have a tough time gaining more clients or expanding your service offerings if you keep losing employees. Many projects will have to be put on hold while your remaining workers take on extra tasks, like onboarding new hires.
Already have a water cooler channel for your team? Consider creating a separate one just for sharing weekend plans.
For one thing, it lets your team get to know each other better. For another, it helps them feel more confident about speaking up during 1:1s or meetings—which is something that many Filipino VAs struggle with.
To encourage them to share, you can kick things off by asking what they’ll be doing or revealing your own plans. Eventually, they’ll feel comfortable enough to initiate a discussion.
Saying Filipinos enjoy karaoke is an understatement. It’s completely normal in the Philippines to hear people belting out songs till the wee hours of the night, even on random weekdays.
That’s why one of the fun Friday activities you should consider is virtual karaoke night. Karaoke helps your team let off some steam and is the perfect way to end a stressful week.
If you plan on joining virtual karaoke night every now and then, prepare to be blown away—most Filipinos are crazy good at singing. We bet even the quietest member of your team won’t be able to resist singing a song or two.
To save time, have your team send their songs to the DJ ahead through Slack or email. Encourage them to share YouTube links to make the DJ’s job easier as well.
This is a no-brainer for so many reasons.
First off, who doesn’t love movies? Filipinos sure do. They’re not a picky bunch, either. Most of them have no problem watching sappy romance flicks, cheesy comedies, or superhero blockbusters.
Plus, thanks to technology like Teleparty, it’s never been easier to watch something on Netflix at the exact same time as folks a million miles away.
Another neat Teleparty feature is its chat box. Your team can share their unfiltered reactions as the movie goes on, which can be quite hilarious if they’re watching horror movies.
Switch on the “Only I have control” setting to prevent anyone from accidentally skipping to a later scene.
Easy, you can ask one member with a subscription to share their screen on Discord or Google Meet. Let members with no subscription go to the meeting room and voila—everyone can watch.
If you want to put your team’s creativity and thinking caps to the test, go for a few rounds of skribbl.io. This is basically like Pictionary, only it’s done online and is much more challenging (in a good way).
Have your team go on Zoom, Google Meet, or Discord while playing the game. Your Filipino team can be a very competitive bunch, so their reactions will be really fun to hear.
Gartic Phone is like skribbl.io — on steroids. Besides allowing more players to join, it also has different games to keep your team occupied.
The basic game works by having player one write a sentence and then having player two draw it. The next person will have to guess the sentence based on that drawing while the player after draws the third player’s interpretation of the sentence, and so on.
We’ll leave you to explore the rest of the games on your own, but each one is guaranteed to generate A LOT of belly laughs and fond memories. You can also witness Filipinos’ unique brand of humor should you decide to sit in for a game.
Like skribbl.io, this doesn’t actually require your team to meet on Zoom or whatnot. But we definitely recommend it for maximum entertainment.
This activity is much chiller than most of the fun Friday activities on this list, but it’s just as good for team morale.
It’s also a nice change of pace and can promote organic conversations. It's easy to organize, too. Just decide when to meet, send calendar invites, and let the team gather via video call. (It’s up to you to determine whether they should all be on cam or at least unmuted.)
As for the food itself, you have two options. One, you can either have your team pick and order their individual meals. Or two, you have a theme and assign some members to order for everyone. You can have a new group in charge every team lunch.
Whatever option you go for, the best practice is to cover the meal. Your Filipino team will appreciate it!
In the game Spyfall, there’s a person who isn’t who they say they are, aka the Spy. The goal is to discover who that person is, or in the case of the Spy, to successfully go undetected.
Sounds familiar? Well, that’s because the game is pretty similar to the hit game Among Us.
The main difference between the two is that Spyfall requires more communication and creativity from your team—making it one of the best ideas for fun Friday.
All work and no play does not a successful company make.
If you want your remote team to be happy campers, virtual fun Friday activities are the way to go. Every activity we mentioned above will help them feel more at home with one another, increase their productivity, and give them the motivation to stay.
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