Team building through the eyes of an employee hired at the height of the pandemic

My name’s Alexis, I’m 26, a die-hard Robin Williams fan, and I looove playing games! I can barely find room for the 63-odd board games decorating the living room of my small Paris flat…

Since March 2020, I’ve worked as a decidedly versatile designer at the gamification agency Arcane Expérience. I create innovative corporate games and make sure their production runs smoothly. If I said “decidedly versatile” two lines ago, it’s because the health crisis made agility absolutely essential! Inventing convincing digital solutions suited to ever-changing working conditions. Supporting clients who want to strengthen team cohesion and tackle their HR challenges remotely. Managing suppliers from my kitchen table…

Looking back on the past year, I still can’t quite believe it! What strange affliction had come over my bosses in March 2020 when they offered me a permanent contract, right at the start of a crisis that would shake the entire world? 

It could all have been a disaster. One very plausible script would have starred absent clients and a company sinking fast, unable to bounce back after its in-person events came to a sudden halt. Happily, our story — and our clients’ — took a far more positive turn!

In the lines that follow, I take a realistic and optimistic look at digital team building. I’ll go back over the successes and the failures of the new formats we’ve rolled out over the past year.

Designing digital team building: a necessity?

Digital team building was one of the first things I thought about when I joined the agency. With escape rooms closed and the first lockdown under way, we obviously had to react. Digital looked like the best way to answer our clients’ team cohesion challenges. But would those clients follow us?

In May 2020, we launched our first digital game, based on one of our flagship formats: the murder mystery. We designed this playful solution to keep our clients’ teams connected from a distance. Working in teams, players have to crack an online investigation. A professional actor welcomes them on Zoom and draws them into the world. At the end of the game, teams are ranked according to the conclusions they submit.

Simply copying and pasting our existing games into a digital format was unthinkable for me. We wanted to make full use of what the web and video conferencing tools can do. More than that, we leaned on the constraints of remote play to build game mechanics that matched the objectives.

In any company project, each member is assigned a specific task or mission. But the bigger picture often gets lost along the way. The challenge is then to find the right way to communicate in order to reach the shared goal. This online game works on exactly the same principle. To solve a puzzle, players each hold individual clues without knowing how the puzzle works. Everyone has to find a way to pass their clues to their teammates through a screen, sometimes without being able to speak. Only once they’ve pooled that information can they see the puzzle as a whole.

Digital allowed us to invent new approaches to communication for our clients — approaches that would be impossible in person!

Clients who were reluctant about digital at first

The first few weeks after we launched that first digital game — designed to build cohesion and group dynamics — were harder going than with our previous games. In the summer of 2020, clients were reluctant to put their employees behind a screen. Many were hoping for a swift return to in-person events and planned to wait for that moment to run their team building. And with good reason: attention levels online simply aren’t the same as in the room. Our priority was therefore to design a format that was simple and engaging for every employee.

Even so, the first feedback from those who took the digital plunge was extremely positive. After the summer break, demand rose sharply. People in France were increasingly accepting that a return to normal wasn’t around the corner — and even that normal itself needed rethinking. Today, our client retention rate for team building exceeds all our expectations. Between January and April 2021, more than 50% of our clients ran at least 2 digital team building sessions !

The format proved so popular that we had to create 2 new virtual experiences in the space of 3 months. The first, Quiz Master, is an offbeat quiz hosted like a TV game show. The aim: genuine interaction between all participants in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. The second, The Last Show, is a new online murder mystery in the same vein as our first digital game. It let us fine-tune the game mechanics even further and serve our clients better.

The undeniable benefits of digital team building

In the three weeks before Christmas 2020, I supported more than twenty clients and close to 500 players in running remote team building activities. It has to be said that setting up a digital activity is far simpler than an in-person event, for the agency and the client alike. No restaurant to book, no signage to print, no meeting point to communicate. Just one invitation email with the video conference link and a few details about how the game will unfold.

Used to a certain way of organising our in-person events, we were tempted when building our first digital game to set a fixed number of player teams in advance. It quickly proved more of a chore than anything else, given how much participant numbers varied. Some players dropped out at the last minute, forcing us to redo our team lists. To strengthen the team and create real group dynamics, players need to be able to count on their colleagues being there. So we had to rethink the process. After several tests, preparation is now much lighter. Today, our hosts build the teams live during the event, based on the number of participants connected. Working together is much easier that way!

Increasingly independent players

Digital being what it is, I was warned early on that not every player would be comfortable with technology. Our solutions had to be simple and as user-friendly as possible. At first we were tempted to give players as much information as we could to guide them. But after a proper bedding-in period, we cut back the host’s briefing at the start of the event, having noticed that players picked up the rules intuitively as they explored the game. There’s an analogy with video games, which over the years have dropped the rulebooks from their boxes in favour of learning in-game.

I’ve also seen employees become considerably more self-sufficient as remote working has become the norm. During our activities, participants call on the hosts less and less, before or during play, for “technical” problems (unplugged mic, webcam off, and so on) or for puzzles they’re stuck on. The success rate of teams playing Crime et l’Écrivain — by which I mean completing the whole game within the time allowed — has gone from 60% à 95% in 6 months! A fine performance from the teams.

 

An optimistic verdict on digital team building

I’d happily say more about my impressions and my work creating and running innovative digital events. These last 12 months haven’t been easy for anyone. Learning a job in the middle of its own transformation, at an uncertain time for my company and our clients, was particularly demanding. And yet the gamble has paid off for everyone. Our clients prove it through their growing loyalty and the concrete results we’re seeing. Digital has undoubtedly opened up new horizons. Team building has become all the more important at a distance. In the end, I feel this crisis has given more meaning to what we do — and that play still has a great deal to teach us!

My 12 tips for building a team online

Ready to take on the challenge of remote team cohesion? Here are my 12 tips for building a team online.

1. Clarify how teams are made up

Many teams are in fact groups. Teams share a common goal they can only reach together. Groups may share certain interests, but with far less interdependence. You can often tell a team from a group by its size: a team is more likely to be 5 people than 9, and certainly not 25.

If there are 25, you may be looking at a team of teams, in which case there are different levels of objectives. But working permanently with 25 people on team development is neither enjoyable nor sensible — online or live. The art of online team development therefore lies in sizing the groups correctly. And you need a clear conversation with the manager about whether or not they want to be part of the team, for the sake of better cohesion within it.

2. Keep teams small

In our experience, online working teams should be smaller than the ones we’re used to in person.

The reason: it’s harder to keep an eye on everyone in a video conference. Every extra person risks adding confusion, as screen space is limited remotely. Interpersonal signals are also harder to read. That increases the need for communication. A more intimate team is therefore preferable for creating a sense of cohesion.

For some activities, however, meeting as a larger group works perfectly well: the wider setting is ideal for getting to know each other in plenary, for keynotes and inspiration sessions, creative processes and swarm intelligence. All of this can work very well online, sometimes better than in person. Because what feels confusing in the room is far clearer here.

 

3. Build trust and cohesion between members

It’s hard to trust a video tile. Trust has an emotional component and a cognitive one. Emotional trust means I trust each member. For example, I trust that someone won’t laugh at me or take advantage of me. Cognitive trust means I trust the other person’s competence and reliability. Both matter in online team development. Good relationships between the people in the team are essential, which is why you should open up plenty of space for getting to know one another — that’s what creates a genuine sense of belonging and real connection. Mutual support is key at this stage. Every employee should encourage the next, show consideration, and be backed by management.

4. Clarify your own role — and don’t do everything yourself

According to our role matrix, team developers play four different roles: facilitation, coaching, consulting and training. When the brief is being clarified, it’s the consultant who’s needed — including for designing the sessions and setting participant numbers.

In the team-building phase, you act as trainer and facilitator in an activating role. In the intervention phase itself, however, the emphasis shifts away from training and towards facilitation and coaching: the point now is to stimulate the team’s thinking and performance. The topics can be tougher, dealing with conflicts of varying seriousness, for example.

The trainer and coach roles in particular can be hard to combine, because the facilitator and coach rely on the team’s own problem-solving powers and stay in the background, while the trainer also takes on an activating role.

So in a team development process, the same people may not be — and need not be — active in every phase, partly so the team can feel the difference. Team spirit thrives when the working atmosphere is calm and settled.

5. Work as a team and in pairs

Online workshops benefit from trainer pairs even more than live seminars do. There are several reasons for this. First, it takes far more concentration and attention to pick up on the moods and needs of video conference participants. Second, using the chat alongside direct on-screen communication offers huge potential. And variety matters online: it’s easier to stay attentive when it isn’t always the same person leading.

We strongly recommend a second moderator for groups of 8 or more. For larger groups, there should be one facilitator per 6 to 7 people, who can also join the various breakout sessions.

In our experience, people sometimes find it harder to open up online than in person. Conflicts, meanwhile, aren’t as quickly visible. A second person can also observe interpersonal dynamics more closely and seek out one-to-one conversations, for example.

 

6. Build onboarding into team development

More and more new employees have never met their colleagues in person. So bringing your teams together early matters enormously in this situation. This is where HR leaders are challenged to adapt their previous approaches, because integration into teams and working groups needs to be increasingly structured. Nurturing that dynamic will lift both productivity and team activity.

For the trust factor, you need sound microstructures and a concept that includes team building as a basic element. Culture matters more here than it does live, where you absorb the culture in no time — no words needed, quiet observation is enough. That isn’t possible here. It calls for creative ideas such as a “culture report” or paired training, where the newcomer simply shadows a longer-serving colleague for a day and, say, sits in quietly on meetings or follows the discussions.

 

Alexis Roumier, Project Manager at Arcane Experience