When teams perform as a team, production drastically increases. A series of Stanford University studies show that when individuals performing silo tasks are treated as a team, their motivation and persistence increases. Managers can help to boost the sense of being a part of a team by assisting the employees to bond and build team camaraderie.
Even a ten-minute conversation can boost productivity as much as ten minutes of brain activities (source). Managers can help teams get to know each other better by taking a few minutes during team meetings to ask a getting-to-know-you question and allowing each team member a chance to answer it. Here are some tremendous getting-to-know-you questions for remote employees.
Professional Get-To-Know-You Questions
Help team members get to know each other by asking career questions. Sometimes colleagues can work with someone for years and still not know how or why they both chose to work at the same company.
- What was your first job?
- What’s your best productivity hack?
- Where do you want to be in 20 years?
- How did you come to choose your current career and employer?
- What was your favorite job? (don’t include current position)
- If you could do anything besides what you are doing now, what would you do?
- What is your best professional decision up to now?
- Who has been your most influential mentor?
Introductory Questions
These questions will help your teams to learn little facts about each other and build common ground. They are casual yet can provide insight into staff and their preferences.
- Aside from reading or watching tv, what is your favorite activity?
- Are you a morning person or a night owl?
- What season do you enjoy the most? Why?
- Do you consider yourself an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert?
- What’s your favorite thing to do if you have 10 minutes of free time?
- What’s your favorite food?
- What historical person is your biggest hero?
- What’s your favorite holiday?
Ice Breaker Questions
Icebreaker questions help teams get to know each other better. This can quickly be done virtually. Remote workers often don’t have the time or circumstances to get to know others around the water cooler or in the lunchroom. These questions help!
- Have you ever done anything mischievous? What was it?
- Do you have a nickname? What is it?
- What is your weirdest trait or habit?
- How many brothers or sisters did you have? Where did you fall in that?
- What is the oldest pair of shoes in your closet?
- Do you like cold drinks or hot beverages?
- What sense (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) would you keep if you could only keep one?
- What is something odd, weird, or funny that no one knows about you?
Funny Introductory Questions
Shared laughter is one of the greatest tools for team bonding. Try these unique questions, which have the possibility for employees to get a little funny in their answers!
- What was the weirdest compliment you ever received? What was it?
- If you could only eat at one restaurant for the rest of your life, which one would it be?
- Do you prefer fame or money? Why?
- What’s the longest you’ve gone without sleep, and why?
- What is your favorite outfit? Is it because of comfort or looks?
- Is there something you can’t live without? What is it?
Use surveys to post introductory questions and get the responses of your teams. Then read the results to your team during a meeting.
Outside of Work Getting-To-Know-You Questions
Learn more about your staff and their life outside of work. These questions are designed to help you understand your employees outside of work and their talents and gifts.
- What’s your favorite way to spend a day off
- What’s one of your hobbies, and how did you get into it?
- How do you like to spend your weekends or holidays?
- What is the most expensive thing you bought for yourself?
- What was the last thing/book you read
- Are you more into books or video games?
- Do you collect anything?
- What’s something you’ve accomplished that you are proud of?
- What’s a skill you’ve mastered?
Introspective Getting-To-Know-You Questions
Introverts often prefer to know colleagues, friends, and associates on a more personal, more profound level. These questions are designed to help foster a deeper connection by asking questions that require introspection.
- What is the thing that makes your best friend “best”?
- What is the most boring activity to you?
- What personality traits are you most proud of?
- What is your definition of success?
- What is something you thought you loved but found out you didn’t?
- What makes you feel at peace?
- What do you hope never changes?
- What is your best habit?
- What do you find most annoying?
Memory Lane Questions
These questions are designed to help team members learn a little more about their colleagues before joining teams. And many of your older employees may enjoy the trip down memory lane, while younger workers can learn about the past and share a more recent history.
- What is the one moment of your life you’d want to relive?
- What’s the best thing that happened to you last week?
- How was your life different one year ago?
- What’s your favorite family tradition?
- What is your funniest childhood memory?
- What’s the most significant/most impactful lesson you learned from a mistake?
- What is your biggest accomplishment up to now?
- What was the best vacation you ever took? Why?
- What’s the tallest building you’ve been to the top of?
- Who was your first crush?
Recognize Remote Employees to Help Increase Engagement Development
Dream and Goals Getting-To-Know-You Questions
Setting goals and sharing dreams can create a bond between teams that lasts through stresses, deadlines, and workplace challenges.
- What are your top 3 things on your bucket list?
- Do you live by any advice or motto?
- What skill would you like to master?
- What’s one thing that can instantly make your day better?
- If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
- If money was no object, what would you do?
Creative Introductory Questions
Try these questions for a fun twist on introductory questions. They will inspire your employee’s imaginations and test their creativity to answer!
If you had a time machine, where would you visit?
If you had superpowers, how would you use them?
Would you rather visit a place with dinosaurs or dragons?
What is something you wish was real but isn’t?
If you could rename your parents according to their personalities, what would their names be?
Do you usually admire the hero or the villain the most? Why?
What mystery do you wish you knew the answer to?
If you had to choose between losing all your teeth or your hair, which would it be and why?
Conclusion
Taking a few minutes at the beginning of team conferences can help remote workers feel more connected to the team and feel a greater sense of belonging. Now, during an unprecedented time for remote employees, it’s critical to take the time for staff to feel connected and seen by their colleagues.
About Thanks
Thanks is a leading provider of a recognition-based platform that increases communication, builds teamwork, and makes recognition a part of company culture. Fast, easy and simple Thanks makes it easy to bring data-driven employee recognition to your entire organization. O.C. Tanner purchased the Thanks platform in 2019 to fulfill the recognition needs of smaller businesses.
Thanks customers benefit from the same decades of research in employee motivation and company culture that O.C. Tanner enterprise clients enjoy, but in a product that is geared for fast, easy and simple deployment. Whether you’re starting a recognition program or improving and expanding on what you already have, Thanks has everything you need to engage your people with effective, scalable recognition.