Looking to create a harmonious and productive environment for your remote team? Doing fun team-building activities for your remote employees is the answer. These activities can foster better communication, build stronger relationships, and improve company culture.
While you may think that team-building activities can only be done in person, that’s not the case at all. There are loads of games and activities that you can easily do virtually, and it takes minimal effort and resources to do.
We gathered below some fun team-building activities and ideas for you to try.
Fun Team Building Activities For Your Remote Employees
1. Ice Breaker Games:
Icebreaker questions are definitely the easiest way to get to know your team members. You can start with a few simple introductory questions, to help employees familiarize themselves with one another. This is especially helpful if you have a new employee, or if you have just formed your remote team.
- What are your hobbies?
- What was the last book you read?
- What’s a secret talent you have?
- Where did you work before this job?
- What was your favorite subject in school?
Alternatively, you can spice it up by asking more exciting or creative questions, like below:
- You pick up a phone that has the internet for five years in the future. What do you search for first?
- What would your job be if you lived on an alien planet?
- What is an obscure superpower that you would want?
- What name would you pick if you renamed yourself?
- If you could join any band, which one would you join and why?
2. Two Truths and a Lie:
Another great way to get to know your team is with this game. Each member of the team will say two factual truths about themselves and mix in one lie. The others will then try to guess which is which.
3. Guess my Drawing:
Let your employees’ creative juices flow with a drawing game! Each person will get assigned a word, and they will have to draw it. Others will then try to guess what word it is. The person with the most correct guesses will be crowned as the winner. You can also come up with a special award for the person who has the most creative drawings.
4. Designing game:
Another creative activity is to have your team come up with a new logo design and a tagline for your company. You can also have them draw a company mascot. The more creative the designs, the better! Plus points for those that can come up with a fun name and backstory for the mascot as well.
5. Create a Story:
For this activity, the team will create a story by saying incomplete sentences that the next member will then continue. For example, one can start with “John was walking to the store to buy apples. He was then shocked to see…”, and another team member will then say another sentence to continue the story.
Aside from being a fun and engaging activity, this will help in boosting everyone’s listening skills and collaboration spirit!
6. Surviving a Zombie Outbreak Game:
Divide your team into small groups. The scenario is that there is a zombie outbreak in your city. Each person will then choose three items from a list of items, and use those to survive the outbreak. To make it more fun, only include random or unhelpful items (like a harmonica or hair rollers) in the list.
After everyone has chosen their items, each group will then gather to discuss and debate how their items can best help their team. Everyone will then vote on which group has the highest chance of survival.
7. Online Games:
Another fun team-building activity is to play online games with your remote team. This is a great way to relax and have fun with your teammates. There are loads of free online party games available, and you can pick which one will work well for your team members’ personalities and interests.
Here are some ideas:
- Virtual Escape Rooms
- Virtual Board Games
- Trivia Games
- Online Uno
- Online Bingo
- Guess the song
- Guess the movie
8. Virtual Coffee Breaks:
Getting a cup of coffee during your break time with your team members has always been the norm in an office. Who says you can’t do it now that you are working remotely? Try scheduling a virtual coffee break session weekly. You can treat this as an informal meeting, where there is no planned agenda and employees can just use this time to chat or catch up with each other.
9. Knowledge Sharing:
Divide your team into pairs or small groups. Each group will get a random topic and will have to create a mini-presentation about it. Some fun topics include “Best sushi place in your area” or “The benefits of using an air fryer”. Don’t worry about having to create a formal presentation — some fun, short slides about the topic will do. The goal is for the groups to have fun while collaborating, and to impart some new knowledge to others.
Alternatively, you can host an informal workshop. You can do this by having a person on the team to teach everyone a particular skill or hobby that they have. Again, this doesn’t have to be formal, you can just have this as a relaxed and fun session.
10. Show and Tell:
Get to know your team more by having each person bring an item of their choosing. This could be anything, like a book they are currently reading, a recipe they have recently tried out, or their favorite perfume. This is a great way to get to know each other on a more personal level and discover shared interests. Who knows, you might even find a new thing to try out based on your teammate’s recommendations.
What Are The Benefits Of Team Building Activities?
There are numerous benefits to team-building activities, especially for remote teams.
Team-building activities foster better communication
Doing games and activities together will help build camaraderie and trust in your team, which in turn will lead to better communication. Your listening skills will also get polished, which is also helpful in being better at communicating.
Team-building activities promote collaboration and cooperation
Most of the time, remote workers are limited to work chat and meetings with their team. Having regular team-building activities will help in managing your remote team better since they would get to know each other in a non “work” environment. They can also help you learn more about how each person thinks or acts, which will be helpful in working together.
Team-building activities boost morale
These fun activities can help people to kick back, have fun, and relax, therefore boosting overall team morale.
Team-building activities boost creativity and problem-solving skills
Most of the games and activities will require the team to think outside the box and approach problems from a fresh perspective. This is a handy skill that will transfer to their daily tasks.
Team-building activities decrease the feeling of isolation
Remote workers can feel distanced or left out. Having regular team-building activities can help decrease the feeling of loneliness and can help them feel more connected with their team.
Team-building activities break monotony and stagnation
Remote workers tend to be stuck to the “work-eat-sleep” pattern especially since most of their day-to-day activity is done in one place only. Having a fun event to look forward to can help in breaking the monotony and bring more fun and positivity to their day.
Wrapping Up
Team building activities for your remote employees are here to create a more collaborative and positive work environment. It’s also meant to foster better communication, build stronger team relationships and improve company culture. By doing all of this, you can help your remote team thrive and grow even more.
Authors Bio:
Faviola has been in the digital marketing industry for six years and is currently an SEO Content Writer at BrandCrowd.com. In her spare time, she likes reading mystery novels and watching indie films.
Check also: Creative ways to present a project at work