Signallamp Health’s Avatars and Remote Team Building

The pandemic changed how many businesses across the country operate, accelerating the transition to remote or hybrid work environments. Now, more than 25% of the American workforce is remote. Like it or not, remote teams — with both their advantages and challenges — are here to stay [1].

The team at Signallamp Health is no stranger to remote work. Even before the pandemic, most of our team was fully-remote. And now, our talented employees provide support, chronic care management, and remote patient monitoring from practically every state in the US.

You might think that the distance of remote work could inhibit team cohesion, communication, and collaboration. But that’s anything but the case here. We’ve been intentional and proactive about finding creative ways to foster a strong company culture that supports our employees, and ultimately, our patients.

Some of our most recent ideas are ones our employees loved — and we think you will, too.

The Challenges of Remote Work

Managing remote teams has added a level of difficulty to the already challenging task of forging a cohesive team, creating a sense of community, and facilitating communication. Common challenges might include:

Lack of face-to-face supervision
Lack of clear expectations
Low productivity
Employees operating in different time zones
Lack of communication
Lack of team unity
Social isolation

Each one of these issues could threaten the integrity of a remote care team. But combined, they could also have a significant impact on the quality of patient care provided by remote healthcare organizations, especially when employees feel stressed and isolated.

At Signallamp Health, we have sought to prioritize company culture and collaboration so that employees feel supported, valued, and connected — wherever they may be living and working.

When that happens, when remote employees are more engaged and productive, we believe patients will experience better care outcomes.

The Signallamp Health Avatar Builder

One of our recent initiatives to build company culture and boost team engagement was the launch of our Avatar Builder exercise. The purpose of this was to create a fun and creative activity that would allow our team members to showcase their unique personalities and build a sense of community among our remote staff.

It was a resounding success, with every member eagerly participating and then modeling their custom avatars.

This internal tool allows employees to custom-design a virtual avatar as though they were an animated Signallamp character. The builder provides an array of character customizations, including:

Hair style
Facial hair
Skin tone
Outfit type and color
Accessories
Eye color
Pose
Background

*Some examples of Signallamp’s Avatar Creator in action.*

Each one of our nurses was encouraged to take their time creating an avatar to fully express their personality, identity, and individuality while showcasing their creativity. And they had a blast designing their virtual selves and then showing them off to the rest of the team.

Once all of the avatars were present and accounted for, everyone agreed to make their avatar their Microsoft Outlook/Teams profile picture, which added an element of fun, personality, and playfulness to the work environment — for both the internal team and anyone who might interact with them.

Avatar Builders and New Hires

The overwhelmingly positive response from various members of the Signallamp Health team prompted our team to implement this fun activity in other areas of the company.

And for new hires, we will now incorporate the Avatar Builder exercise into the onboarding process. By encouraging new team members to create their own unique Signallamp character, we can immediately make them feel welcomed to the team and tied into the company culture as well as the larger Signallamp Health community.

It provides an easy ice-breaker and conversational launching point existing employees can use to learn more about their new teammates.

Other Remote Team Building Exercises

Looking for other creative ways like the Avatar Builder to bond your remote team?

Here are a few fun activities you can try:

Virtual team games and trivia events
Virtual coffee breaks or happy hours
Online book clubs
Creating a virtual break room where employees can chat
Remote working location home tours allá “Cribs”
Reward and recognition events
Daily snapshot where each employee posts a random picture from their day
Remote workshops and classes
Virtual workout sessions
Live remote coworking and collaboration

If you want to foster a sense of community, try some of these activities out to see what works best for your team.

Signallamp Health: Championing Care for Patients & Nurses

Remote work is here to stay. In many ways, the easy and natural team building that comes with water cooler talk or simply coexisting within the same space is fading out. Seeing the writing on the wall, companies must now be proactive and purposeful about forging employee camaraderie.

At Signallamp Health, we recognize the importance of creating a strong company culture and facilitating team-building activities, especially since our teams don’t share an office space. Our goal is to make everyone feel valued and supported — no matter where they work.

The Avatar Builder was just one of the many ways we strive to create a strong company culture by investing in our talented employees.

Sources

[1] Forbes. Remote Work Is Here To Stay And Will Increase Into 2023, Experts Say. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2022/02/01/remote-work-is-here-to-stay-and-will-increase-into-2023-experts-say/?sh=54a1605b20a6