Working remotely can provide a lot of flexibility; however, it can also become very hard for workers to connect as a team. It is common for remote employees to work together effectively on various tasks without talking informally, which is not the case in a shared workplace.
This is where virtual fun activities for team building can play their role. The right activities will allow people to interact in a manner that goes beyond work discussions and help to build their relationship as a team.
It is important to note that not all meetings should be turned into some kind of game. Teams can include some short and fun activities at suitable times and hold some long sessions as well.
Remote workers do not get the benefit of spontaneous discussions, breaks, and informal meetings. In the long run, this may result in a transactional nature of relationships within teams.
Good team-building activities allow people to establish contacts outside of the framework of specific job functions. In addition, they can facilitate discussion between colleagues who have never worked with each other.
Such activities can be especially helpful for integrating new hires into a company. It is much easier to get to know new colleagues while participating in an informal game or discussion than during a formal introduction.
Nevertheless, participation in such activities should be optional. There are people who are uncomfortable when they are required to speak up. Therefore, teams should offer different types of activities.
Not every activity necessarily requires a dedicated team-building session. Short 5-minute games for virtual meetings can be easily integrated into your regular conference calls.
Every participant states three things about himself or herself, of which two are true while one is a lie. The task is to guess which thing is a lie. It is easy and does not require any preparation.
Participants are offered two options and should make a choice immediately. The questions may go from "coffee or tea?" to "beach or mountains?" For big teams, participants can respond through a chat or reactions, making it more interesting.
One participant shows the object he or she is holding on camera and gives the other team members a chance to guess what it is. This game is especially good as an opening exercise.
Participants have to state how they feel today/this week or what their current energy level is using only one word. It sounds simple but can be very fun to play.
Create a couple of quick questions about films, sports, geography, food, technology, or general knowledge, giving people a few seconds to answer them either in a chat or verbally.
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For those teams who have some more time to spare, more prolonged virtual team-building activities and games will bring even greater interaction.
Send employees a list of items to find at home, which may include anything from something blue to a book from childhood, a photograph of their childhood, and a strange object in the kitchen. Give them a time limit and allow everybody to come back to the meeting with their findings.
Divide the employees into small groups and organize a few rounds of trivia. Include general knowledge questions along with questions about your firm or industry.
Make sure you keep it fun regardless of how comfortable people are with games.
The escape room in a virtual format requires solving puzzles and clues together from the team members. This is especially good for the teams that work together often and need a more organized form of interaction.
The task is for all the employees to bring something special and interesting to talk about. It allows them to discuss something personal and to present it without a lot of preparation, like in the case of a presentation.
Arrange a session during which all the employees will prepare some drink or snack at the same time and chat. Or all the employees can bring their drinks and spend 20-30 minutes talking.
Not all the activities have to include competition. The virtual fun activities can provide just an opportunity to have relaxed interaction between colleagues.
Find some online games that will be accessible and understandable easily and play them together. This will make the game session fun without making the employees conscious about competition.
Encourage employees to present a small section of their workspace and to talk about something special about it. This is a fast way to get acquainted with the personalities and workspaces of your colleagues.
Provide the team with a theme ("something which makes you smile," "a view from your weekends," etc.). Employees may upload their photos during the meeting or in a team chat.
Request everybody to add one song to the collective playlist and explain their choice. This will give participants a simple topic for discussion.
Choose something that can be watched independently by all participants. After watching, arrange a discussion. It's better to make the event optional and accessible for all team members.
Team building can also be related to those skills that employees need in their work.
One employee begins a story with a sentence, and each of them should follow by adding another sentence. So the group creates a unique story.
Assign teams a hypothetical problem and ask them to come up with solutions within the allocated time frame. This could be coming up with plans for the hypothetical event, creating products, or resolving a work scenario.
Use an online whiteboard for the employees to draw as others try to guess the word. Use straightforward themes and engage all employees in the activity.
Gather fun facts about the employees in advance and create a quiz out of them. For instance, you may have your team guess whose hobby is the weirdest or who has been to the most countries.
Use a virtual board for your employees to place pictures or words that will help achieve team goals. This activity combines creativity and discussion of common goals.
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The most suitable team-building activities for remote teams will differ based on the team size, culture, schedule, and personality traits.
Think about the following when selecting an activity:
It is also important to ask your workers what they like. It is improbable that a team-building activity will create a connection if all the participants are silently waiting for it to end.
Remote teams don’t have to organize complicated activities in order to improve their relationships. In fact, a short quiz, friendly discussion, collaboration activity, and even virtual games can offer you a chance to establish closer relationships.
By combining virtual team-building activities and games as well as fun virtual activities, companies can create a strong remote culture in which people will work better together.
It’s simple—just know your team, make sure all activities are inclusive, and focus on building real connections.
There isn't one particular timetable that suits all teams. Small exercises can be conducted occasionally during normal meetings, while big team-building exercises can be conducted once a month or quarter. It depends on employee interest and workload.
Trivia, scavenger hunts, virtual escape rooms, polls, quizzes, and breakout room challenges are some of the activities that would suit big remote teams. Employees can be divided into smaller groups to make them more comfortable and interactive.
Choose simple activities that do not involve sharing very personal information. It shouldn't be very participatory or mandatory, but it should be explained properly and allow the employees to participate via chat or any other medium whenever necessary.
They can be very effective if they are well-suited to the company culture and are done consistently. These activities should encourage interaction among employees instead of making it just a recreational activity.
Most of the virtual fun activities involve no extra costs, such as trivia, two truths and a lie, photo challenges, show and tell, virtual scavenger hunt, playlist exchange, and storytelling.
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