COVID-19 the aftermath: How to bring your team back together

The virus has left a lot of companies in difficult situations, with employees working from home and missing out on face-to-face meetings – I think most of us would agree; communication has suffered!

However hard you strive to keep the usual camaraderie and team spirit going, it’s not easy when you don’t meet in person on a regular basis. The past few months of crisis, changes and uncertainty have undoubtedly dented employee morale. People are reporting feeling disengaged, stressed and disconnected from their peers.

There has also been the continual threat of being laid off.

The Covid-19 outbreak has been extremely disruptive for businesses and their employees. For many companies, it’s been a case of turning their workforce into all-remote teams. What makes it more difficult is the fact that there isn’t a clear timeline for when things might get back to normal.

How can you reunite your team?

As businesses continue to take stock of the situation, with many gradually reopening, leaders are looking for ways to bond their team again. Currently, there are many discussions taking place among companies all over the UK to find a way of overcoming the challenges they face.

While it may feel like bringing your team back together is easier said than done in a pandemic, it’s important to have goals to help regain some semblance of normality. One proven way is by hosting in-person meetings to help boost morale and motivate your team to get the business back on track.

When you manage to get every member of the team together, it immediately opens the door to collaboration and new ideas. This can be especially useful to your company when you’ve been unable to have regular meetings for months and your team has spent a lot of time working from home.

A full team meeting will enable you to fill everyone in on what’s been happening, bringing the delegates up to speed on company business and the role that your team plays in moving forward. It’s a chance to remind everyone of the company’s goals and how you can help achieve them in the allocated timescale.

How can meetings reduce the impact of Covid-19?

Relating to the current Covid-19 situation, team meetings can go a long way to achieving a greater understanding of how your company can flourish, despite the pandemic. The best way to tackle such a major challenge is to meet it head-on and develop new strategies.

Use a full team meeting to reignite a positive environment for your employees. Attendees can share their feedback with managers, leading to a healthy debate on what seems to be working, what isn’t and how everyone feels in terms of morale in light of the current crisis.

Setting some achievable goals can energise and inspire your team into feeling more positive again. Brainstorm some ideas, whether it’s for clients’ campaigns, company strategies or just a general exchange of opinions on the way you’re working through the pandemic.

It’s easy to become blinkered if you’ve been working from home, without the in-person human interaction that is so important at work. Meeting in person provides a better way of understanding what everyone else in the team is working on.

Celebrate your successes together and tackle new challenges as a team, rather than feeling isolated and as if you’re working on your own.

How do you choose the best meeting room?

There are several reasons why using a meeting room outside the business can benefit your company, particularly at this time. First, a professional meeting venue will have the relevant Covid-19 protocols in place to enhance the safety of everyone present.

Whether it’s deep cleaning the premises, regular hand sanitising, or social distancing, you can rest assured that a meetings venue will have adhered to the latest government guidelines. When you book a venue through &Meetings, we will double your meeting room size for free to ensure you can meet social distancing requirements!

Secondly, hosting your meeting at a different venue will add to the sense of occasion for attendees, especially if it’s the first time you’ve all met in person in some time. It will make it more of an event than a meeting, boosting morale from the outset.

Finally, if you’re part of a large team, especially if members are from several regions who may be in different tiers of lockdown at present, a professional meeting room will have the necessary technology to combine video conferencing as well.

Some business leaders believe hybrid meetings are the way forward, at least for the foreseeable future, enabling as many people as possible to meet safely in person, but also accommodating delegates who simply can’t be there in person for whatever reason.

Let’s get this show back on the road!

If your goal is to bring your team back together after a hugely disrupted year, book now with &Meetings to take advantage of our wide range of high-quality meeting rooms. All our venues are COVID-secure, with transparent screens to enhance social distancing.