How to bring more bonding relationship to one another while working virtual home office other than virtual events

Due to the pandemic, almost a year employees have been working virtually and supporting home offices. The topic of the relationship between one another seems to be weakening day by day. Apart from virtual events, what more ideas can we adopt to strategize in bonding relationships with one another and across departments, especially now since digitally they are not connecting as well as they used to in the office place or at their desks?

Dear Kgalok,

There are merits and demerits of working from home or working virtually. However, what is observed is that many employees complain that their work time has increased as they have started working from home. Therefore, the first thing that needs to be looked into is how much time do they spend in front of the screen? If it is more than eight hours, then no employee would like to spend a little more time establishing a personal connection of any kind. The employees' preferences will always be for their family.

Against this backdrop, I recommend allocating a certain 1-2 hours per week for non-work discussion or engagement. The second suggestion is to have a weekend get-together at some mall or any other place. However, with the surge of the second wave of COVID-19, this option is not advisable.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Dear K.G. Alok,

Please refer to the mentioned link: [https://hayaprojects.blogspot.com/2021/02/how-can-you-maintain-company-culture.html](https://hayaprojects.blogspot.com/2021/02/how-can-you-maintain-company-culture.html).

Zyn

[https://hayaprojects.blogspot.com/](https://hayaprojects.blogspot.com/)
[www.haya.co.in](www.haya.co.in)

Employee engagement has been a challenge for the HR team while functioning virtually. While working from the office, functioning from one platform assisted in building a bond as there was no communication gap. On the flip side, while functioning virtually, an employee isolates himself/herself with assigned tasks leaving less room to communicate. The only measure to deal with such a situation is HR software or employee engagement software. An HR can plan activities online, assign projects that require cross-team collaboration to develop the bond. As an HR professional, I have utilized features such as moodbots, chatbots, and badges to increase communication. Badges awarded to each other motivate them to invest more effort in building a relationship.