Games, trivia, joy—sometimes, these aren’t exactly what’d you associate with the workplace.
But why not? We spend so much time at work. Shouldn’t it also be important to let off some steam, laugh, and have fun with your coworkers?
We think, yes! Especially when you add in the business benefits of fun at work, like employee engagement, productivity, and more.
Why is virtual team building important?
The physical distance of remote work can quickly turn into emotional distance, which leads to isolation.
And when you feel isolated, you won’t be comfortable working alongside your fellow team members! This is why it’s important to create a comfortable team environment that remote workers can rely on.
Virtual team-building consists of several carefully designed strategies, games, and activities that are meant to bring more human interaction to virtual work.
It’ll help your team connect with each other – making them feel like they’re actually part of a community!
Wondering what you can do apart from exchanging funny photos of your dog on your Slack channel
Here are some amazing team building activities for remote workers:
1. Play Virtual Games and Quizzes
Tools like Trivia allows you to play real-time games and quizzes with your remote team. Invite your team to join and start playing games and quizzes. You can create rounds of questions and give teams a few seconds to respond to each question. Tally the scores and announce the winner. It will help teams bond, no matter where they are.
2. Two Truths and a Lie
It’s a light and fun game. Host a video call and ask each employee to tell two truths and one lie about themselves(not work-related). Keep the lie realistic, so it won’t be so easy for everyone to guess. The other employees need to guess which was the lie and whoever guesses the right gains gift.
3. Bucket List Challenge
It’s a better idea to get to know your team by sharing their bucket list. Each person’s bucket list says a lot about them.
Each day choose a person and ask them to share their bucket list. Everyone listening can then spend 5-10 minutes discussing the bucket list and asking fun questions.
Maybe a teammate could help you clear one thing from your bucket list.
4. Movie Night
Let your employees vote on what movie they want to watch on Friday night. Create a dedicated channel on Slack for it and keep the instant messaging open so that team members can make remarks and jokes while watching the movie.
5. A Peek Into Each Other’s Rooms
This is a fun game. Each team member will take a short video showing off their room, workspace, and some of their favorite things. You can ask one team member to show off their room or home at the beginning of each day morning.
6. Show and Tell
Have you ever played this game in your school?
Basically, each team member gets one minute to show and talk about something they own. This could be anything – such as your favorite straws, a tug of war trophy, or even a passion project!
After each turn, save two minutes for a conversation from the rest of the team.
7. Virtual Book Club
To encourage your remote teams to read, you can start a virtual book club.
Employees express what they’re interested in reading about, which leads to the book choice. Let them choose the book format — whether it’s an audiobook, ebook, or printed book.
A book club helps remote teams mingle and socialize, it also encourages them to engage in critical thinking and be open to differing opinions.
8. Virtual Tea or Coffee Time
Instead of doing the same old thing remote teams expect, make your next virtual meeting fun by hosting a Virtual tea or coffee time. Have some time off from work to come together for a virtual coffee/Tea break and get involved in some random chit-chats.
Do a video conference call, include quick online team building games like icebreakers, and use breakout rooms to have themed conversations while having your coffee or tea.
9. Recipe Challenge
Invite your remote team to participate in a recipe roundup, which could have themes like “that one thing you make better than everyone else.” Create a Slack channel, and if you like you can do a challenge where participants prepare the recipes and post photos. It’s a really fun activity.
Do you have any other suggestions? Please let us know in the comment section below.
The article was originally published at Springworks Blog