Finding ways for remote teams to bond can be a real challenge. So much so that it’s often neglected by leadership.

However, it’s incredibly important to make team bonding a priority. It makes employees feel more engaged and increases morale. This goes for any company, but it’s especially true for remote companies where employees have little to no opportunity to meet in person.

We at Process Street had the chance to meet all together for the first time in 2022. The bonds we made on a three-day retreat were stronger than the ones we made after years of Zoom meetings. And those bonds have changed how we work together. 

In this post, I’m walking you through what team building is, how to do it successfully, and how we at Process Street were able to fly our team to Portugal for a team bonding retreat.

• What is team bonding?
• Why is team bonding important?
• Challenges of team bonding
• Bonding activities for remote teams
• Process Street’s Porto retreat
• What the retreat did for our company
• Start team bonding activities today

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, the world completely changed for a period of time. While it’s a time most of us would happily forget, many of the shifts that came about are becoming permanent staples in our society moving forward, particularly with work.

When Covid shut everything down, suddenly those who work in offices found themselves having to adjust to working from home. Some hated it and couldn’t wait to get back to the office, and others loved it, wanting it to become their normal, even post-pandemic. 

While remote work peaked in 2020, working from home and hybrid working are still at much higher rates than they were pre-pandemic, and there’s no sign that will change anytime soon.

This sudden increase in remote work has given us the opportunity to measure how remote work compares to onsite work in terms of environmental impact. In a time where the fate of the planet rests on this generation’s shoulders, we need to find as many ways as possible to reduce CO2 emissions.

However, despite popular belief, is working remotely actually better for the planet than working in an office?

In this article, I will attempt to answer that question. We will cover:

• Environmental impacts of the workplace
• How remote work changes things
• What about a hybrid model?
• So what is the solution?

When I think of reverse mentoring, I think of summers with my grandparents as a teenager.

In 2011 they had recently replaced their dial-up with this neat little thing called “whiff-ee,” as my granddad pronounced it. But, as my grandparents grew up in the 1930s and 40s, they didn’t really understand how to use it. Thankfully, they had teenage tech support living in their guestroom for five weeks to help them with all their tech problems and to teach them how to connect all their devices.

I think many people have similar thoughts about reverse mentoring as I do. We think of the kids helping their grandparents with their smartphones and internet connections, setting them up with the simplest possible systems, but it is much more. 

As a younger Millennial/older Generation Z (seriously, no one knows where to put the kids born between 1995 and 1999), my generation has now entered the workforce, and our approach to working is different than that of the generations before us. 

34% of Generation Z believe opportunities for advancement are more important than their salary. If a significant portion of  Generation Z is less money motivated, how do you convince them to stay with your organization long-term?

Here are a few other problems you may often think of: the War for Talent, the Great Resignation, and an increase in older workers choosing early retirement. The answer to these problems is reverse mentoring. Please allow Process Street to explain how it works:

• What is reverse mentoring?
• How to use reverse mentoring
• The benefits of reverse mentoring
• The challenges of reverse mentoring