Office team bonding – keeping together by staying apart

I have colleagues who work interstate, but I also have peers who have done data-gathering for their PhD projects overseas and cannot get back into Adelaide at the moment. While certain areas in the country, and even places overseas are in lockdown, it is crucial to find ways to keep connected, stay positive, and create new strategies to keep productive at work.

We’re trying something different at work by scheduling in 10-minute yoga stretches twice a week. We’ll all do this virtually at the same time. None of us are serious yogis but we are all keen to try something different to keep us all connected while allowing for some practical time for self-care. All we are committing to is ten minutes each week and for now we’ve all just decided to do one from a link on You-Tube.

If any of you are in search for other team or group bonding ideas, here are a few others we have done over the past recent months to keep us all connected while not physically able to share the same office.

• Zoom-based trivia night
• Monday morning photo sharing with different themes each week – helps to be able to check in with everyone once a week. Some photo share ideas: baby photo, pet photo, photo of your morning beverage, and so on.
• Weekly cooking recipe challenge
• Weekly check-in by reporting on one research or writing challenge we’ve struggled with in the past week.