Bridge Building

Team Building for the New Reality

Want to know what Bridge Building is? Keep reading, because here we lay out all the details of this Team Building activity that's so trendy right now.

Very few people imagined all the changes Covid-19 would bring to the daily lives of millions of people around the world. In some way, we've all been caught off guard by these exceptional circumstances, which have demanded we react quickly to keep leading a "normal" life, or as close to it as possible.

In times of crisis like this one, it's necessary to draw on our best resources to find solutions to the difficulties we face, and the Covid-19 crisis has been no exception.

The challenges of remote work

In this new work context, the pandemic has largely imposed remote work, forcing every company and employee to adapt in order to carry out their duties as well as possible.

All these changes bring new challenges within work relationships and the environment in which they take place. Before Covid-19, the office or workplace was the nerve centre of how a company operated, the space where everything happened. That's where responsibilities were assigned, meetings held, and time shared with colleagues, building team spirit.

That whole operating structure has changed, and companies must adapt to keep their human teams committed, connected and productive. Not an easy task, given the current situation, the distance, the concerns and uncertainty around the virus and its impact on life, affecting most employees, naturally worried about the situation they're going through.

If there used to be a physical place where the various bonds needed to build a strong, productive work team developed, today that place is imaginary and abstract, without clear or defined limits, giving rise to a series of circumstances that, while not entirely new or unfamiliar to working life, present something new in terms of how they develop, are diagnosed and solved. This is how different everyday situations now lend themselves to confusion, disorder and disconnection, helping create a demotivating, unfriendly work environment for employees.

In some way, right now, employees find themselves facing the dilemma of being connected all the time while, at the same time, feeling isolated, confused and distanced from their work and colleagues.

In this new scenario, where physical space has disappeared and, with it, many of the rules and restrictions attributed to work, it's necessary to value and appreciate employees as a company's fundamental asset. More than ever, it's essential to invest in their training and wellbeing, fostering the professional and personal motivation and growth of each of them.

To grow your work team, the first step is investing in people. Promoting values such as discipline, self-care and autonomy becomes essential.

On the other hand, many companies have found themselves caught up in a trial-and-error work dynamic, trying to implement poorly planned or outright improvised remote-working models, often falling into situations of confusion and disorder, adding more stress and tension to their work teams.

Looking at the new challenges that have emerged and thinking about how we can face them, it's necessary to pause and analyse the nature of these changes and how they've affected the company. This way we can find tools to learn from and make the most of this situation.

In the midst of adversity, new skills and leaders emerge that let us develop new, better organisational structures — it's urgent to boost and strengthen this leadership and update our operating dynamics to fit the new context, as well as help employees adapt during this transition and change.

A new type of crisis

This crisis affects the entire global economic landscape equally — its duration is uncertain, and post-crisis business conditions will likely be very different from today's. This context presents us with a considerable change in scenario that must be tackled with fresh, bold ideas.

This is how creativity, proactivity and flexibility now carry added value.

Companies that knew how to react in time and reinvent themselves have managed to weather the pandemic better. A good example of this is a Spanish car brand that, right when the crisis was beginning in Spain, anticipated what might happen and switched its production from making cars to building mechanical ventilators, which let it keep its manufacturing plant open and its employees working, while also helping ease the supply shortages the country's health departments were experiencing. This was a doubly winning move, since, on one hand, they removed a major source of uncertainty for their employees by securing their jobs, and, on the other, they added value by bringing solidarity and empathy into the equation. For this company's employees, being able to contribute their work to overcoming this crisis was a powerful motivating factor.

Imaginative solutions are what's needed for the new landscape that had been emerging for a while but has now arrived to stay: a work model based on automation and technology.

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How can I help my team stay more connected, focused and united?

We find the answer to this question by paying attention to the new challenges the virus has revealed to us, and how we address their needs and work on solutions.

During this period of crisis, we've noticed, first of all, the need to strengthen employees' sense of belonging and commitment to the company. To achieve this, it's necessary to make employees feel supported, aware they're not alone, and part of a human group that shares their fears and doubts, but also, alongside them, holds hope and strength to move forward.

Creating safe, healthy work spaces has a positive impact on employee wellbeing, improving their performance and efficiency.

Thanks to this, employees develop a sense of wellbeing and security that lets them operate with greater confidence and authority in this new context. As a result, feelings of commitment and identification with the team and the brand emerge — an incredibly valuable trait for building united, efficient work teams.

Prepared employees

To operate well in this new scenario, employees must be prepared to respond in the best way to crisis situations, both externally, in their relationship with customers, and internally, in their interaction with their own colleagues. An operation's success depends on both of these aspects, and generally if one fails, the whole effort fails.

Company restructuring, changes in staff roles, or the need to take on new and varied responsibilities are everyday circumstances in today's work dynamics and need to be faced naturally and consistently to meet every upcoming challenge.

Building bridges of communication between a company's different areas or departments not only makes information flow more agile and efficient, it also helps create real, lasting bonds between colleagues that improve the work environment and strengthen employees' connection to the company.

It's proven that a friendly, healthy, welcoming work environment leads to happier, calmer employees who, in the long run, work more efficiently and achieve more ambitious goals.

Bridge Building: building bridges of communication

First, the new needs that have arisen in the context of the crisis must be identified. We'll notice that, after a while working remotely, new communication channels will spontaneously appear between different areas of the company, showing us where we should focus our work.

Once these communication needs are clear, we'll work on building the bridges so information flows and interpersonal relationships flourish healthily, promoting interaction, camaraderie and dialogue.

Online Team Building and Bridge Building

Team Building work today must take on the challenges this new context presents, which is why it's necessary to rethink how we run these activities, in order to offer effective responses to the specific problems companies face today.

Our Online Team Building activities were created to respond to these specific needs of the modern, technological world, basing their methodology on the tools technology and new ways of communicating and connecting bring to the workplace.

We invite you to get in touch with us and develop a plan tailored to your company and its needs, working remotely across different development areas to improve your company's work environment and grow your work team.