Slaying the dragon of remote culture

The Remote Work Challenge

Remote work has completely upended how teams connect and collaborate—posing a daunting obstacle to engagement. For agencies, where creative and technical talent tend to be quirkier than your typical corporate employee, the challenge is even steeper. Rising turnover (an industry average of 30%, yikes), disengagement, and loss of creative chemistry are more common than we'd all care to admit.

Soft skills have suffered, effective communication often requires intermediaries, and mental health is at an all-time low due to loneliness and burnout. Plus, without regularly-available spaces for play, like the office ping-pong table, there's a rarity of opportunities for teammates to step back from their work, gather inspiration, and develop joyful camaraderie.

The Failure of Traditional Team Building

To make matters worse, the term 'team building' makes everyone cringe (including your HR leaders, believe it or not), conjuring imagery of unnatural socialization and forced fun—made all the more undesirable in a remote environment. Trust falls aren't quite as inspiring when you're tipping backwards in your home office chair.

Common remote events (like virtual escape rooms, 'happy' hours, and office trivia) are falling flat as they become overused. Not to mention, these activities tend to cater to specific personality types (especially extroverts), failing to recognize or improve team synergy, instead further embedding existing dynamics.

The Pitfalls of In-Person Retreats

Many agencies have resorted to in-person retreats, which are generally well-received—but scheduling conflicts, exorbitant travel and hosting costs, and extensive planning can make these events inconvenient for everyone involved.

Even when successfully executed, the impact of a one-off retreat tends to dissipate quickly, failing to create lasting bonds or ongoing engagement. People Operations leaders are frustrated with feelings of disconnection, uncertainty, and the seeming futility of their efforts.

The Need for a New Solution

In the midst of a tough financial year for many agencies, the need for a plug-and-play solution for attracting, galvanizing, and retaining top talent in tight-knit teams is more relevant than ever.

So, we got to wondering: what if there were a program that achieved real, long-term results, creating in-person-like memories and veritable chemistry without the expense or inconvenience of retreats—functioning as a culture perk, employee benefit, and learning and development training all-in-one?

An Unexpected Journey: Enter Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a collaborative storytelling experience where players embark on epic adventures in a shared imaginary world, using dice to simulate risk and fate.

Slaying dragons and storming castles, adventurers engage in creative problem-solving, strategic thinking, and trust-building through communication as they craft memorable characters, conjure compelling narratives, and bravely explore fantastical lands of their own creation. The game empowers synergy and collaboration, providing a no-stakes practice space for soft skills and ideal team dynamics.

The Power of Immersive Experiences

If you've played, then you know: these immersive experiences generate real, dream-like memories that forge genuine connections and lasting bonds. It encourages a break from the mundane and an embrace of the fantastical and unknown, with inclusive design that allows everyone the chance to shine while unleashing their childlike creativity. The universally goofy stories told by the group also even the playing field of sense of humor—a common barrier to connection and chemistry.

Reimagining the Format: QuestWorks

At QuestWorks, we transformed D&D into a live-facilitated team-bonding experience, completely beginner-friendly and fully-improvised based on player input. Players role-play as fantasy versions of themselves at work, taking our unique strengths assessment that determines their 'Hero Type' and abilities in-game.

Unlike assessments such as the Enneagram or DiSC®, the 'Hero System' offers actionable insights that are fun, practical, and easy to remember and implement in day-to-day work, while offering the opportunity for each individual to develop their own strengths and areas for improvement, as well.

Legendary Benefits

Sounds pretty wild, right? It seems like a fringe solution—a fun diversion without measurable results. But our beta phase proved the opposite: our format has led to remarkable improvements in team bonding, creativity, and overall synergy.

Agencies like Focus Lab, Yeti LLC, and Convince & Convert have reported up to a 300% increase in team bond, amplified their synergy by 133%, and boosted comfort with positive conflict by up to 100%; all achieved in just four 1-hour sessions. Based on our conservative calculations and typical results, we estimate an average 7x ROI for teams that engage in biweekly sessions for a year.

The Adventure Never Ends

Most agencies treat team building efforts as a bare-minimum practice—organizing 1-4 events per year and hoping for the best. But, as with any other maintenance and optimization activity, like going to the gym or visiting a therapist, real results take shape over long-term periods of regular effort. And just like other benefits you may offer your employees to maintain their wellbeing, D&D is a way to keep morale high, creativity stimulated, and camaraderie alive.

D&D is uniquely suited to an ongoing format. Groups often join together to play as strangers and become best friends over the course of their adventures. So, the applications for increasing loyalty and reducing turnover become obvious.

Beyond the Numbers—The Real Magic

Above and beyond the tangible benefits, the intangible ones—like inside jokes on Slack, a palpable sense of camaraderie, ongoing personal development, and collective pride in working somewhere cool enough to offer a perk like D&D—are what can transform a remote workplace into a powerhouse and foster award-winning work.

The Hero System also provides managers with valuable tools to better understand and lead their teams. By recognizing the diverse strengths and motivators of each team member, managers can allocate tasks more effectively, resolve conflicts with greater insight, and foster an environment where everyone feels valued and empowered.

Team building usually makes people roll their eyes—maybe we should try rolling the dice instead. If you'll pardon the puns, the proof's in the potion: teams that slay together, stay together.

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