With working from home guidance still in place, many teams are struggling to get back into the swing of things, often moving from their bedroom to their computer without many steps in between. It’s therefore not a surprise that two thirds of employees feel disconnected from their team. 

To help breathe new life into your working routine and beat the January blues, leading team building platform Kaido has shared their top tips on how to boost team wellbeing this year: 

Get some air

Staying inside all day is not good for anyone! Take yourself outside - from going for a 15 minute walk to just sitting outside with a cup of tea, get yourself outside and enjoy the fresh air. If you’re struggling to find a gap in a wall of back to back meetings, why don’t you turn some into walking meetings, dialing in on your phone and getting your step count in at the same time! 

Schedule a lunch - and stick to it

When you’re working at home, it’s so easy to just eat at your desk while scrolling through emails, but we all need time away to recharge and reset our energy levels. Block out a time in your diary and commit to taking that time as lunch. You can even use this time to reconnect with people in your team you don’t get to speak to as much by putting in a team lunch where you can all down tools and reconnect, recreating those casual conversations you’d normally have in the office. 

Host a team event

Help counteract the blues by hosting a team wide activity that breaks up the monotony of the day.  A fresh, fun team building event can reboot that essential buzz, especially one that gets onsite and remote workers talking, moving and contributing to a common goal. Rather than standalone activities that deliver fleeting results, use the experience to boost positive behaviours – such as supportiveness and shared accountability – that help your hybrid team thrive in the long term. At Kaido, we’ve seen the impact of this, with over 60 per cent of workers saying they feel more connected after completing one of our team-building challenges.

Embrace interruptions, set boundaries

For interactions with colleagues that are not time sensitive, it can be of value to your time and productivity to switch off notifications for a short while to help regain focus and control of your workload. As important as it is to continue prioritising building relationships with your team, it is also vital to set boundaries and make sure you take time to focus to allow you to deal with the task at hand. Though being always contactable can be great for quick responses, it is also important to relieve yourself from the pressures of always being switched on. 

It can be easy to forget you’re part of a team when you’re working from home, but use Blue Monday as an opportunity to introduce some new steps into the working day that will give you back that sense of joy at work and remember - taking a step back will only help provide more clarity and headspace.