I always felt that most "enforced-fun-games" were excellent at team building. Being "asked to cross an imaginary river" etc is a great way to unite the humble employees in their universal loathing of their woefully mis-guided management. Always had a niggling feeling that the 'bad games' couldn't be that bad by accident.
("Look, everybody hates everybody - could we push some more hate towards us, so they at least talk to each other?")<p>Or there are the "split into small groups to do a task" tasks, which are usually won by teams where one person 'just does it', whilst the rest are bickering around how to break down the task and assign r&r.
Again, not sure if this is the point, but you very rapidly notice which of your colleagues are both loud and useless.<p>Oh and final whine, 'the prizes'
There doesn't need to be one - but if there is, could it please be something that's actually wanted? Branded merch, $100 Apple voucher, ask the CEO a question etc...<p>..actually, I wouldn't mind asking if his bonus is an f'in polo shirt.
There's a subset of employees who really like games. Many places I've worked, those employees stay long after hours pulling out board games, video games, etc.<p>But there's another (probably larger?) subset of employees who like casual conversation, coffee, drinking, little 5 minute chats in the kitchen, and who have little to no interest in games. I don't think the proposal is going to do much for this subset.
I'm firmly of the belief that if there is genuine social interaction to be had, it will be had for the most part.<p>Forcing social interaction (corporate mandated fun) is just another tool to tie employees to an employer to make it more difficult/less desirable for them to leave for better opportunities.
I've built such strong relationships through games, with people I've never met, that I can't agree more with that.<p>The limit is that games will have the same effects as other "offsite" activities. Some people will be into it and it'll work for them, but others will just not be interested (whatever their reasons).<p>For example the first picture of the article shows basketball. That could be seen as a great team building exercise (for non-remote teams) but some people just don't like basketball or sports.<p>Unfortunately there are no silver bullets.
I try to do this with my team at least once a month for a couple hours. Some games we've enjoyed:<p>Among Us: <a href="https://innersloth.itch.io/among-us" rel="nofollow">https://innersloth.itch.io/among-us</a><p>Telephone Pictionary: <a href="https://rocketcrab.com/game/drawphone" rel="nofollow">https://rocketcrab.com/game/drawphone</a><p>Codenames: <a href="https://codenames.game/" rel="nofollow">https://codenames.game/</a>
Counter-point: I hear from a lot of women that I work with that too much video game talk makes them feel excluded. And many of the die hard gamers I work with don’t want to play casual games. Video games aren’t appealing to everyone, so carefully choosing the right games for your team would be very important.<p>I’ve been making time for more one-on-ones and mentoring, which has been going well for my team.
Whenever I hear about 'Gamify-ing work' or anything similar I think of the movie Brazil.<p>I like to imagine that those exercise bikes/puzzles are an example of this morphed into something horrible.
We work in a small, seven person company. And with a small company, we assumed working remote would be fine for us.<p>We found that everyone has become quite a bit more miserable. The outgoing people are spinning their wheels furiously, and the introverted employees got in these really bad mental funks.<p>I think we often forget that for a LOT of people out there, work is the primary source of friendships and human relationships.<p>We started setting aside time specifically to do something fun once a month and even as corny as it is, it really helps.
We've made a bunch of new hires since transitioning to remote. We tried many things to help new employees feel a part of the team.<p>A few months ago we started playing Among Us twice a week for 30 minutes in an optional happy hour. It has been a ton of fun, and has made a huge difference. You can't force people to socialize, but if you give them something fun to do, it happens organically.
I've always joked that company software lags behind game development by 10-30 years. One time, in a rather silly mood, I ponder this weird idea to add a game to the employee toolkit. I imagined it to grow just like all in-house developed software and ideally make a caricature of the business process. Then I remember how many people I met and hung out with in online games like Diablo 2. One would stand in town and chat about the game, life the universe and everything. The silly idea didn't seem all that silly anymore.
A subset of my team (~8/20) plays One Night Ultimate Werewolf (<a href="https://netgames.io/games/onu-werewolf/" rel="nofollow">https://netgames.io/games/onu-werewolf/</a>) each Thursday afternoon. We've found that it's a very good fit for a video call, and gives a good balance of cooperation and competition.<p>It's not mandatory, but it's fun for the people who attend and I think it does bring us a bit closer together.
Maybe a naive question but has it been proved that teams of friends are more productive than teams of coworkers who simply respect each other and enjoy working together?
I can confirm it is true. Often when meeting new teams i get Summon The JSON decks with me. It is great to just hang out a little bit, play and talk. It takes away the steam from official team formulation.<p>I am strong believer that such creating human relationships between teammates solves a lot of trouble down the road.
I want to strongly recommend the game Wavelength (there is an app and several online knock offs: <a href="https://longwave.web.app/" rel="nofollow">https://longwave.web.app/</a>)<p>It's very casual and doubles as a wonderful conversation starter.
I absolutely refuse to take part in these kind of primitive experiences. If life has gotten to this dire point, spare the team members time and do a course on management as it is likely you need it.
not surprised games bring bond happiness and laughter which can cure cancer, but the problem is a lot of games have fragile net code, you sometimes have to rely on the "big" online multiplayer games cuz a lot of indie / small games prob won't work or can be frustrating to work with. I was looking for a multiplayer game to play with my little brother who's in China, I have a 1000+ steam library and Portal 2 is the only one I found that's playable through the wire.