As more and more organizations are hiring remote workers, it's been harder to develop and maintain a bond within a team or teams working for you. Similarly, remote employees also miss connecting with their team members, which indirectly affects their productivity.
Thankfully, remote team building activities and games are a great way to fill this need. They give employees time to informally connect with their co-workers and create bonding moments.
This article looks at 21 different and interesting remote team building activities that you can implement.
What Is Remote Team Building?
Virtual or remote team building is a process that helps engage different remote teams using an online format to deepen their bonds with their co-workers. This exercise helps create strong connections between employees that live in various parts of the world and are working for the same organization.
Whether you have a physical office for your business or you run your startup online, having a strong company culture is imperative. It enhances team spirit and helps generate exceptional productivity.
Communication is key to success — this is what team building helps achieve. Below are some significant benefits of virtual team building.
The Benefits of Virtual Team Building
According to a report on remote work in 2020, it's projected that the demand for remote jobs will rise by 30% in 2030. This data highlights the vital need for virtual team building in today's work environment.
As the famous quote from Bang Gae goes, "Teamwork makes the dream work." Startups can't afford to underestimate the importance of virtual team building to empower and engage employees for productivity at work.
What's more, team building boosts the morale of employees and enhances work collaboration. Let's explore each benefit in detail.
Boosts the Morale of Employees
There's no doubt that constant pressure to deliver work and meet deadlines can result in burn-out and disengagement in employees. Hence, team leaders and decision-makers must encourage workers to work collectively and empower each other.
Remote team building activities help your employees take breaks from their usual work, boost each other's morale, and create a sense of value as team members. They're also are a great way to remedy any internal conflicts created by miscommunication.
Virtual team building activities typically involve elements of fun and personalization, which helps every employee feel important and connected with the rest of the players.
Increases Workforce Collaboration
Some tasks are impossible to achieve without coordination and collaboration. However, when you run a virtual team, it's harder to align every member with the progress of the project. Therefore, the chances of discrepancies in communication are pretty high.
This is why virtual team building activities help eliminate this problem. They build a connection between employees and encourage them to work collectively on a project. Moreover, virtual team building also improves coordination between team members by helping them learn about each other's strengths and weaknesses.
Promotes Creativity and Innovation Management
If you want to survive and excel in a competitive industry, innovation is crucial. Remote team building helps bring different people in one place and fosters brainstorming, creativity, and innovation.
Encourages Versatility
If you have a remote team, chances are that many employees belong to different parts of the world. This means that your team is versatile and able to meet the demands of the ever-changing developments in various industries.
Virtual team building helps you to utilize your versatile team in the best way by enhancing their resource skills. Additionally, remote team building activities encourage employees to try new things and make mistakes without the fear of being judged by others.
Builds a Diverse Culture
A startup or an organization that embraces diversity helps promote a positive work culture. If you want to achieve that for your company, remote team building games will help build meaningful connections. Moreover, such activities encourage employees to respect each other's limitations and to learn new ways to collaborate with team members living in different parts of the world.
Enhances Productivity
Finally, virtual team building enhances productivity. A scattered team doesn't have a clear motive or direction to follow — as a result, that affects productivity. Virtual team building activities counteract this by helping leaders align their team members and clarify the organization's goals.
With a clear sense of purpose, employees feel motivated, allowing them to work together to achieve exceptional results for the business.
21 Ideas for Online Team Building Activities and Games
Now that you understand the importance of virtual team building, here are 21 ideas for team building games and activities that you can try online. These are a great way to break the ice between your employees and give them a chance to engage informally.
Above all, implementing these ideas is quite convenient. Just squeeze in each activity on a workday and give yourself and your team members some time to reconnect.
Online Games for Virtual Offices With Teambuilding.com
You can always connect with a service to host a virtual team building activity for your office. Teambuilding.com is a unique platform that provides great experiences for different virtual teams around the globe. The service hosts 60 to 90 minutes activities through Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Team.
If you want to try an activity for your startup, online games for virtual offices are pretty fun. You can opt for Online Office Games that include activities like, "Can you hear me now?" and world-class trivia. Moreover, an activity called Murder in Ancient Egypt is also quite fun — it helps bring out the detectives and mystery solvers in your team.
Jackbox Games
Jackbox Games are readily available on different digital platforms and are popular for their most famous game, "You Don't Know Jack." If you decide on this service for your team building, you can get your hands on one of the party packs that Jackbox Games offers.
Each pack features five games for a group of up to eight people. The games are conducted through Zoom or Twitch streams and can help you and your team explore activities such as Drawful Animate, Poll Mine, and Job Job.
Werewolf on Brightful
Recommended for eight to 16 members, Werewolf by Brightful is a super fun game. In this game, each player gets a role to play. Team members will get the part of either villagers or werewolves, and the villagers have to find ways to survive werewolves that aim to kill them.
Villagers need to conduct discussions and use their unique abilities to escape the attack. On the other hand, werewolves have to act innocent and act like villagers every night without being caught.
This activity is a great way to strengthen your virtual team's problem-solving skills and give them opportunities to use their unique qualities to win.
Online Tea and Coffee Tastings With Tea vs. Coffee
Tea vs. Coffee is a unique service that offers remote team building games centered around online tea and coffee tastings. Just a week before the actual event, each of your team members receive a package with four drink packs from various farms. These packs contain unusual coffees, infusions, and teas.
On the event day, your entire team joins the hangout room. After some meditation, the real activity starts. The facilitator shares different aspects of coffee and tea and then explains the background of all the products.
This activity is quite entertaining and gives a global tea and coffee tour to all the participants.
Virtual Campfire With Tiny Campfire
Tiny Campfire offers virtual campfires for remote teams and entertains your employees through fun games and smart stories. Simply put, your team members can enjoy a fun camping night without the need to leave their homes or use mosquito repellent.
A few days before the main event day, each member receives a campfire kit including s'more ingredients, wood matches, and a campfire candle. Then, on the main day, each employee gets a link to enter a virtual camp party.
This is a unique 90-minute experience and offers excellent engagement with real bonding.
Remote Watercooler Chats With Donut.com
Do you want to experience your team bonding around a virtual water cooler? It may sound strange, but Donut.com gives you that opportunity.
This activity works in three different steps:
- Create a virtual water cooler or choose an existing channel to make your team members start talking.
- You can select different topics from the platform to help with the conversation flow. Alternatively, you can also create customized topics for discussion.
- Your team members can also chat in channels that help combat the fatigue that comes with Zoom.
The Remote Watercooler Chats activity is one of the best remote building activities that help initiate good conversations between your team members.
Remote Team Cooking Workshops With Rockoly.com
A cooking workshop is a great way to build a strong team. Rockoly.com conducts entirely customizable cooking events so that each team member feels important during the cooking session.
This activity is quite simple. As the leader of your startup, share different details of your team members with the platform — for instance, the kind of food they like and if there are any vegans in the team.
You can also create your own workshop menu or select from the options given by Rockoly.com. First, all of the team members get the ingredients delivered to their doorstep. Then, a chef provides each participant with instructions to cook a dish together on the main event day.
This virtual activity helps build interaction between members and is quite fun to experience.
Online Chocolate Tasting Class With Dandelion Chocolate
Who doesn't love chocolate? We're sure that the online chocolate tasting experience with Dandelion Chocolate will bring a smile to the face of each member of your remote team.
This unique chocolate tasting experience is conducted through Zoom and offers a great insight into the flavors, smells, and textures of five different chocolates. The 50 to 60 minute long session helps participants learn about different chocolates and experience ways to enjoy chocolate in the best way.
War of the Wizards Online RPG
One of the most fun remote team building games, the War of the Wizards encourages collaboration and game mechanics through storytelling.
Different members of your team will be enlisted as minions of wizards, and they will have to work together to bring an end to an old war. This interesting game is around 90 minutes long and is conducted through a secure line.
The game involves storytelling, puzzle-solving, and other activities to increase team participation and collaboration.
Online Escape Rooms With Escapely
Online Escape Rooms by Escapely is a great way to boost morale and build bonds between employees. The platform provides a seamless experience to your team members so that they can explore this fun game from start to finish without any glitches.
The game involves cracking codes, solving puzzles, and exploring different routes to reach an open elevator safely. Therefore, it's best to divide your entire team into small groups and let them work together to race against time.
One of the best things about this virtual game is that the adrenaline rush that comes with it, and it's a great way to enjoy a break from work. Moreover, you don't have to do anything to conduct this activity online.
Simply contact Escapely, and they will provide you with a link. Then, share that link with your remote employees and let the platform handle the rest. You can either use Zoom or any other app for this activity.
Virtual Gardening Classes With GardenStreets
If you want to cultivate wellness and engagement among your remote team members, try Virtual Gardening Classes conducted by GardenStreet. Plants can help eliminate stress and burn-out at work, and with GardenStreets, you can request a class that can save your employees from monotonous work.
As soon as you book a class with GardenStreets, each member of your team will receive a garden kit for the main event day. Then, on the day of the class, they can learn to use the given material and perform different interesting exercises.
This class helps build inclusivity, which is imperative for your virtual team building mission.
Remote Group Cocktail Class With DrinkMaster
A cocktail class for your virtual team is a great way to build bonds and initiate attractions between different members. DrinkMaster designs virtual cocktail classes for groups and remote teams so that they can create fantastic alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks while sharing their experiences.
Usually conducted through Zoom, each team member gets a kit with ingredients required to make drinks in the class. On the day of the class, the participants get 30 to 90 minutes to enjoy this activity and learn a thing or two about each other.
Each class is customized and designed according to the preferences of your team members.
Online Team Improv Classes With Nerd Improv
Nerd Improv is an excellent platform that offers one to three hours of workshops to develop communication and learning within remote teams. The platform believes in "Learning through laughter," and that's a wonderful way to strengthen the bonds between remote co-workers.
Activities conducted in the Online Team Improv classes usually focus on active listening and collaborative storytelling.
Learn More: Tips for Managing Distributed Teams of Software Engineers
Virtual Wine Tastings With Priority Wine Pass
Priority Wine Pass offers a fantastic virtual wine tasting event. The platform creates customizable and tailor-made wine kits for members of your team and engages them through assertive conversation, facts, and lots of fun topics of discussion.
Your group can have a virtual conversation with various wine owners and makers. So on top of getting a complete wine tasting experience, each member enjoys premium wines to taste, which is a great way to make them feel valued.
Zoom Beer and Cheese Pairings With City Brew Tours
For the cheese and beer lovers in your team, you can contact the City Brew Tours and arrange a Zoom beer and cheese pairings event for them. This is an hour-long virtual tour that allows you to explore the history of cheese and beer while trying new flavors and creating combinations.
Each team member gets a gourmet tasting box that they can open on the event day, and they get to enjoy a live cheese and beer pairing through a video conference. This event is suitable for employee engagement and helps with client appreciation as each player works smartly to create unique combinations of flavors.
Remote Painting Classes With Painting to Gogh
Painting is a great way to bring out the creative side of every participant and is a well-known stress reliever. Painting to Gogh offers virtual painting classes for groups and allows members to bond through colors and creativity.
To arrange this activity, simply pick a painting or different paintings you want your remote workers to make, and then order specific painting kits for all of your employees. The kit comes with art supplies and offers access to the link to the main class.
Once your employees get their kits, they can join the virtual class on the decided date and time. The painting class is usually one to two hours long.
Virtual Scavenger Hunts With GooseChase
GooseChase is a platform that organizes virtual scavenger hunts for team building activities. You can sign up and create your own recreational game for your team for free, or you can contact the platform for some already available game options for your customizable scavenger hunt events.
Online Wellness Classes With Office Meet Yoga
Virtual fitness is a great way to de-stress your team members and allow them to look after themselves. Moreover, it allows each participant to learn about the wellness journey of their co-workers.
Office Meet Yoga organizes live wellness classes for a group of people living in different parts of the world. Through Zoom, your team can learn about holistic nutrition sleep secrets and explore ways to build strong personal resilience.
This platform also offers virtual Zumba, Cardio, and Yoga mat sessions for a fun fitness session.
Zoom Magic Show With Alan Hudson
Alan Hudson is a well-known virtual magician who performs fun and unbelievable magic shows online. Known to perform shows for Warner Bros, Netflix, and Twitter, the magician is appreciated for his team building skills and ability to initiate fun conversations between participants.
If you want your remote workers to have a fun-filled hour or two after or during work, contact Alan and book a show.
Spreadsheet Battleship
Battleship is a game designed for two players, where one participant has to find the location of the other's ships. Spreadsheet Battleship is a Microsoft Excel version of the classic game that everyone already knows.
This game is a fun and excellent way to get to know an opponent who is also a team member. Divide your team into different groups, and let them enjoy this game for an hour or so.
Virtual Stand Up Comedy Show With Kabloom
Enhance bonds and relationships between your team members through a comedy show by Kabloom. The platform brings great stand-up comedians together so that your team members can have a great time with each other.
Laughter eases stress and increases blood flow. It also adds positive energy to the body, which eliminates boredom and moody behavior at work. You can book a session with Kabloom and share the link with all your team members.
Each show is almost 45 minutes long and includes a question and answer session with the presenter. You can also opt for a Job Karaoke session for this show, in which each member can get an opportunity to show off their comedy skills.
Final Words
If you run a virtual team and want to see each member satisfied and confident — both with their work and in their co-workers — then organizing remote team building activities at least twice every month is essential.
Lucky for you, many platforms help you conduct exciting games and activities virtually. This article covered 21 of these options, so you can easily choose those that sound fun and suitable for your team.
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