For a year now, a lot of employees have been forced into home office by the Covid restrictions. Even those who were initially enthusiastic about the opportunity – which has now become more of a burden – already feel tired of their new “office.”
What can people do to make working from home more comfortable for their colleagues?
The change of environment that remote work has introduced due to the pandemic has messed with the lives of countless employees overnight. And though we have become accustomed to this situation over the last year, some of us are already crying and reminiscing about the happy days spent in the office.
Within the company, informal interactions and the resulting lack of motivation, has certainly had an impact in many workplaces over the past year.
For example, in the beginning it was fun to work in a tracksuit, but over time it became as annoying as the tinny microphones during online meetings. Unfortunately we can’t do anything about it. We can only try and tolerate these circumstances, whilst trying to find the best we that can bring out of it.
New Opportunities and Digitalization
When one door closes, a window opens! In remote work this window of ours was digitalization and technology. Wherever possible, a digital working environment was created, which made it easier to keep in touch.
Zoom emerged a massive winner, managing to quadruple its stock price. Funnily enough, shares of an Indian company with a similar name were selling like hot cakes in the first months of the pandemic. Microsoft-owned, and previously withering, Skype has risen from the dust. And the whole world became familiar with a side-project, called Google Classroom.
Though we’re about to colonize Mars, we’ve still got to learn how to wash our hands properly, and not to cough at each other if possible – all from Youtube or TikTok videos, depending on your generation. We learnt what FFP means, tried a lot of different types of masks: Superheroes, Gucci, and FCK Covid. But in the end we found our way back to the basics, the tried and trusted medical masks. And now, as Spring approaches, our anxiety begins to rise like the number of Covid mutations, as another lockdown is around the corner, just like the good old home office.
However, in the world there’s always the possibility to change, adapt, or mutate just like the virus. Meaning that there’s always a solution if our colleagues or the boss is missing. And this solution is called a virtual escape room and can certainly be used with any jobs condemned to the home office. In 2020, the team buildings that have been most needed were postponed. In response to demand, online team building opportunities took the helm and threw a life jacket to employees at home, drowning in a lack of motivation and boring social experiences.
Online Escape Rooms
In the same way that escape rooms have been slowly replacing the drinking team building games, these online team building opportunities have become popular during the year of the pandemic. They have evolved to the point where the largest companies – which are already known for working remotely – were able to recognize this possibility. And not by accident. Online escape rooms and team building can offer the extra motivation and that extra push that can help keep the team together. Teams who have probably not met for a year and are trying to survive, hopefully, these last waves of the pandemic.
