The Best Team Building Activities For Remote Teams

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The games and challenges include virtual team trivia and “Can You Hear Me Now? A team retreat can be a trip to an escape room, a small weekend in a central area, or it can be a large team building event that all the employees get to embark on. Donut pairs team members to get them talking every 1-4 weeks. These virtual meetings can last anywhere from minutes and the aim is to get employees talking to each other on a one-on-one basis through non-work related conversations.

The planking challenge went viral a few years ago, and why not do it within your office. Here we’ve curated a list of the tools & apps that will help you do all of your virtual team building. Virtual team building is the process of engaging remote teams in an online format to deepen bonds within the team. If you think you can simply “wing it” with remote team building, you’re going to have a bad time.

If the results are interesting/surprising, have your teammates explain – It’ll get people laughing and learning more about each other. Our brand content team runs a casual book club where the only parameter is that the books we choose must have nothing to do with our jobs. We use a Slack app called Polly to vote on book selections and when to meet over Zoom to talk about it. You’ll use Giphy.com or Google Images to find a .gif that fits with the theme for that round and attach that gif to a card.

Q: How Do I Get Started With A Virtual Team Building Activity In 2022?

Miro has a plethora of different layouts that will fit any team’s needs and preferences. If you’re like us, you probably spent a lot of hours of Zoom these days. Here are some fun games you can play over Zoom with your team. For example, one week the challenge could be ‘the best photo of a pet’ or the ‘nicest looking plant in their garden’. These kinds of tools help you measure over time how your team is feeling and make sure that everyone is happy with how things are going. It’s an easy way to keep an eye for any potential staff retention problems and gives you useful data.

• However, the reality of the modern workplace is that remote work is likely here to stay.
• But little problems have a way of growing larger while you’re not looking, and eventually, you’ve got a crisis on your hands.
• Prior to starting the game, the team moderator can determine the number of clues that each team will get.
• It brought us together across geographies – working together as teams and having a lot of fun.
• Once everyone creates their own user manual, be sure to share it with your team and have it accessible for everyone to look over.
• Flight of the Navigator is one of the better movies that came out of 1986, and today plays double duty in the realm of online team building games.

Use Lucidchart to visualize data, ideas, and processes in real time. Team members will love the intuitive interface and versatile sharing options. This icebreaker game is another simple way to learn more about your co-workers.

Virtual Scavenger Hunt

But every team building activity focuses on a certain aspect of teamwork. And you should select activities based on your current needs. That means the first step is paying attention to your team and discovering where they need help.

It was simple and easy, but gave us all a moment of fun and a gateway into learning more about each other. Simply choose a theme, like your favorite item in your workspace, and have everyone do a quick explanation of their item. With so many people working from home, the serendipity of getting to know each other in and outside of the office is less likely. For example, consider treating your virtual staff to online cooking classes,online mixology classesoronline coffee classes. Or put a fun spin on a virtual happy hour withvirtual wine tastingsandvirtual whiskey tastings, where you see who is most knowledgeable about the topic. No matter what activities your team enjoys, there’s bound to be a fun online option they can play from home.

The best way to connect remote teams is to help them feel seen and heard, literally, and in ways that directly address the challenges of a dispersed workforce. We collected a list of activities used by real teams at Atlassian that can help virtual teams get to know each other as people and colleagues. Here are some of the common questions we see about virtual team building.

Those who are uncomfortable showing their full home do not have to but can just show their work space. On top of this depending on if your team lives in different cities they can show videos or pictures of their favorite places. When your team is international or coming from varying backgrounds you need the opportunity to learn each other’s professional preferences. That is why creating a “personal user manual” is great, it is effective to create work guidelines with your team.

Their events are perfectly paced and will connect your group of 5 to 5000+ in completely new and innovative ways. While working from home, these channels can be a fun way to bond and learn of similar interests, hobbies, and to brag about cute pets, kids and home cooking. You’ll learn about how politics and legality comes into play with piecing, bombing, tagging and creating stunning murals. First, you’ll learn the history of graffiti’s hip hop roots in New York in the late 1960’s, and how the art form has gone international since then. And activities, you are able to better understand each employee’s strengths and weaknesses. Your team will work together to build, decorate and donate bikes to a local children’s charity.

As it has already been said, it’s normal for workers to not have trust in each other if they have always worked remotely. However, it doesn’t mean you can’t still try to unify the team and promote camaraderie, trust and collaboration. Most of the time, music is the best topic to bond over and it is a good way to get to know another person.

Having each of your team members share something about their lives also builds meaningful connections. Trivia is a fun and engaging app which offers a suite of games, quizzes and puzzles to https://globalcloudteam.com/ get your peers excited before a big day at work or while working remotely at your home. Trivia introduces real time quizzes and games which strengthens the camaraderie among your teammates.

Be sure that player one does not mute the rest of the people in the video conference so he/she can still hear the others in the meeting. Its goal is to build stronger and happier teams through appreciation and positive commentary. Team added How to Hire a Remote Team gamification to maximize the fun, from leaderboard scores to achievement levels. Fantastic for any larger video conferences and great for enterprise companies. The downside is that the bigger the group using Webex, the more it costs.

Helpful Software And Tools For Virtual Teams

There are ways to build a strong culture despite the distance. In real-world scenarios, it can take days, weeks, or months to solve these problems because implementing the solutions takes a long time. The benefit of tabletop exercises is that you can compress the solutions into minutes and focus on decision-making strategies and considering different courses of action. But during the meeting, have one person say or do something that’s totally out of left field.

This is sure to be a great night, including icebreakers, mingling, general revelry… and a devious murder! It’s up to your group to work together to interrogate suspects, solve puzzles, and find clues to identify the criminal before they can strike again. Stay connected with your co-workers while working miles apart. Formstack’s workplace productivity platform helps over 25,000+ organizations digitize what matters, automate workflows, and fix processes—all without code. Forms Power your data collection with versatile online forms that don’t require any coding to set up.

First, create a tricky and challenging scenario related to your team’s role. These facts will then be compiled in a document that’s shared with each individual in the team. Make these objects as obscure and challenging as possible so that your team members are forced to really use critical thinking and planning. Exercise requires team members to virtually open their homes to one another like in House Hunters or MTV Cribs. Additionally, getting on video call is even better for team chemistry.

Build Your Company Culture

Flight of the Navigator is one of the better movies that came out of 1986, and today plays double duty in the realm of online team building games. Typing speed races are a free online team building activity that you can start right now. To begin, take a typing test using typingtest.com or similar.

It’s powerful enough to fully engage creative types, yet fun and simple enough to coax satisfying results from anyone. Virtual team building activities & events have the power to transform your remote team members, making them feel connected, engaged, appreciated, and happier at work. Slack apps for virtual teams are fun extensions that can be used to help build remote employee culture and engagement. Since employees likely use Slack every day, the platform provides an ideal touchpoint for other programs and initiatives you want to try. Range provides remote teams with the functionality they need to stay strong and effective together. Easily host virtual check-ins and standups and ask your co-workers questions designed by teamwork experts to help everyone feel connected.

Go through the whole group week by week and it gives a great insight into their team’s background especially if you are an international team. After every presentation, you can also add a Q and A section to allow the team to learn more about a city. Choose a weekly “question master” and have them come up with two creative questions to ask each of your team members. In a work environment, you do not always get the opportunity to get to know one another. “Did you know” is a great way to see how well your team knows each other in a personal and work setting. This activity is good for fairly newly formed teams, when they don’t know each other that well and need to get better acquainted.

Q: What Are Some Virtual Team Building Challenges?

Slack has become the premier virtual office for companies and remote workers across the world. Use Slack to create dedicated group channels for office chat. As you build out your virtual team-building strategy, keep in mind inclusivity. How are you making the activities accessible for your teammates? If you manage a global team, are the time zones accommodating? There are proven ways to work successfully from home, and we don’t see why virtual team-building activities should be any different.

Virtual Cooking Classes

We help you learn essential business skills to reach your full potential. Learn effectively via bite-sized video tutorials taught by award-winning instructors. Keep in mind that after-work activities should be voluntary, as many employees will need to spend time with their families. Consider whether you want to reward and recognize employees on an individual basis or as teams. The best managers know that one of the ways to keep employees engaged and motivated is to recognize and reward good work.

A great way to encourage people to participate in the care package is to include a company stipend or reimbursements. Ask each one of your team members to provide some of their favorite items that they can package up—for example, coffee, candy, beauty products, or a book. Choose a virtual hug, handshake, really whatever symbolic virtual greeting you would like to spread to your team.

Communication With Remote Workers Is Key During Crisis Management

When remote workers are craving more autonomy, a virtual team building activity can help them gain trust from their managers and peers. An easy way to make virtual meetings fun is to include icebreaker questions or games. For example, you could do a quick prompt like “which Disney character would you most like to be your BFF? In addition to strong leadership, one of the most effective ways to build team morale remotely is to do games and activities together. For example, virtual trivia, online bingo and icebreaker questions are all popular options. Online team building games are games that are specifically meant to boost employee engagement, morale and connection.

So why not create this as a fun activity and a dilemma your team participates in together. Another major player in the video conferencing apps is Webex. It is easy to use, very secure, and great for calls, chats, and everything work-related. Virtual bingo is a fun and easy way to get everyone involved and realize what they have in common.

Not only will the team have fun, everybody will feel great knowing they did something wonderful as a team. You can do events with 5-50 people, or more for large groups. The event is 90 minutes, and conducted with two hosts over Zoom.