Teams are the binding force of every company! Don’t you agree?
Do you recall a recent assignment undertaken by your company?
We are sure it involved several different groups of your company, all coordinating and working towards a collective goal. That is the power of teams!
So, how is working in teams essential for your company?
For starters, working in teams is an essential skill for both management and employees. Needless to say, it improves the efficiency of the work produced.
A recent study investigated that an essential key for successful virtual teams is communication.
Working collectively ensures your employees are communicating and trusting each other when it comes to taking important decisions and resolving workplace conflicts. Hence, inculcating a healthy competitive spirit among all people.
In our opinion, these are essential skills to make any project a hit!
In fact, team-working has become a crucial element in a company with a shift in the workplace. The ongoing pandemic has changed our working landscape and encouraged virtual teams and online meetings.
Most of the people are now opting for WFH, which can lead to long working hours or burnout.
After all, staying constrained to one place with minimal interaction with colleagues can hamper an employee’s morale. Not to mention, the endless video conferences and email, which can be demanding and straining for all.
So, how can you ensure your people do not fall into a similar situation?
The answer to this is rather eventful and interesting. Team Building Activities with the help of Virtual Games!
Yes, you heard that right!
According to a survey, 65% of employees from remote teams have never experienced virtual building exercises at their workplace. This is a worrisome matter and explains why people often reach a breakout point.
In a traditional setting, HR managers understand this problem and address at all workplaces through team building games. But, when work becomes virtual, these things are not given enough importance.
You may ask if a virtual team building activity works?
Here’s an example to help you understand better!
During the pandemic, companies that offered their employees a WFH care package witnessed a 17% boost in virtual employee engagement and productivity levels.
A simple activity of this sort can ensure great collaborations among remote teams and enhance productivity levels!
Some common questions that are often asked include which games and activities are best for remote team building?
Can team building activity and games yield positive results for my company?
How do I implement team building activities?
Which virtual team building activity or online office games should I use to improve my employee’s lives?
Let us dive in deeper to answer these questions on remote team building games! Don’t worry as we have included all instructions needed to make your offices a fun place and official virtual events a success!
With that being said, here are 15 Best Virtual Team Building Games for Remote Teams
1. Rock paper scissor tournament:
Are you bored with tedious remote meetings, presentations, and long hours of offices?
Let’s face the truth, nothing beats this evergreen game! We are sure you grew up playing this one with your friends!
In fact, there is no better way to gear up the competitive spirit in your remote teams by trying this game out. Team builders look for a simplistic and easy to pull of virtual activity.
The truth is, this is a great virtual team building games for all! Especially, if you are looking for icebreaker questions or ideas.
Instructions: The rules are the same. The rock beats scissors; scissor beats paper and paper beats the rock! No more twists involved in the basic concept of this game but you can add an exciting twist by rewarding people who are the winners of different rounds.
Make sure to keep a tab of the winning teams or individuals though!
Also, coffees are an essential item of our office routine as must always be incorporated when meeting virtually. After all, who doesn’t like a cup of coffee?
Duration needed: 15-30 minutes, depending on the number of people involved.
2. Favorite photo of your life
Team building activities can be stressful for a new employee. It’s essential to break this awkwardness.
Creating a casual and friendly atmosphere among different teams is always helpful.
So, what kind of an icebreaker question can you ask? Try this game out!
It is a great way to understand your employees and create relatable moments. You can have a friendly competition to ensure maximum benefits from people’s efforts
Instructions: Tell people to share their favorite photos in their gallery. It could be anything they find interesting; landscape, people, etc.
Next, tell them to share the story behind these photos. What makes the photos a treasure for them?
Duration needed: 30 minutes, depending on the number of people participating.
3. Where are you in the world?
Looking for a simple yet interesting virtual team building activity?
Is your team spread over various geographic locations?
Then such ideas are a must-try!
Instructions: Tell your employees to post pictures or videos of a landmark or something that the city or country is known for! It could give a great way to initiate conversations and share your culture with everyone.
After all, pictures are worth a thousand words!
Objectives: Your employees are likely to remember each other better after having heard each other’s experiences. This virtual team building game can help communicate and improve listening skills!
This will strengthen team bonding, drive the company culture and build a strong community
Expected duration for the game: 15-30 minutes
4. Virtual murder mystery
Are you someone who loves solving murder mysteries? Do these online games intrigue you? Looking for exciting challenges?
Then this Real-Time virtual murder mystery challenge is a might try!
Instructions: The rules are pretty simple too. For starters, send out a link to all the participants. Once they download the app, participants will be divided into online teams, and they all will be assigned roles.
From there on, it is about channelizing your inner detective and finding clues till you deceiver the truth in time!
Objectives: Trust us, this is a fantastic collaborative and communicative team building activity. Especially if your employees are likely to hit burn out anytime soon.
Even if your group loses, you are more likely to take back positive learnings from this engagement.
Don’t forget to give virtual coffee breaks to your team and get a chance to chat and build friendships!
Estimated playing duration: 15-30 minutes depending on the number of players.
5. Virtual charades
Searching for icebreaker questions for new teammates? Or simple online games for a close group of people?
A person is never old enough for a quick game of charades! A great team-building idea that can charge up the energy of the room! An amazing way technology has brought back the old charades.
Instructions: In fact, an online tool called Skribble is the Pictionary version of charades. And trust us, this is more interesting.
It is a time-bound game wherein you need to guess what is being drawn. Moreover, you can make your private room in order to avoid interference from outside persons.
The individual or group that guesses the most answers right must be awarded at the end of the activity.
After all, every person loves some incentives in the form of coupons and prizes, right?
But what skills are you likely to take away from this?
Objectives: Well, the critical one being communicating and expressing yourself and the second one being trusting your teammates. This game can also enhance creativity and improve the morale of teams.
This can also be a great initiative to break the awkwardness and interact with new colleagues while making sure they feel comfortable in this new setting.
Hence, turning out to be an effective team-building activity for all people.
Time: 30 mins a total game if all instructions are followed.
6. Two truths and a lie
Wondering how to spice up your next virtual meeting?
Try this as it is engaging as well as spicy for your next virtual team building activity.
Instructions: The name is quite self-explanatory so no guesses here. Depending on your group’s comfort, you can opt for messages or videos to post everyone’s entry.
Objectives: An interesting way to integrate new people in the group while also getting to deeply understand your older colleagues. In our opinion, this would be a fun team-building events.
Having your videos on while playing such team-building exercises will definitely take the enjoyment to another level!
The time needed: 15-20 minutes.
7. Give Virtual team trivia a chance!
Looking for team building challenges? Or icebreaker questions for new colleagues?
Try events like Virtual team trivia!
It is the ultimate game of wits and brings healthy competition among the team leader, head and fellow employees.
Trivia Questions is a fun activity for all age groups. They help in building a strong team culture as every person works collectively towards a shared goal.
What is interesting with this website is the fact that they always add new trivia every week with a new theme, so you never miss an entertaining virtual team-building opportunity.
Remote teams are likely to feel lonely and distracted to work due to the absence of their colleagues. A water cooler or Pub trivia quiz will surely leave you entertained and be able to gel well with fellow members.
Instructions: They cover a wide spectrum of categories to choose from where you can name your crew and select a timing.
That’s it! Battle on.
We would strongly urge you to encourage all players to keep their videos on, so it is comforting and interactive.
Say goodbye to boring team meetings!
Difficulty: You can choose the difficulty level online
Estimated game duration: 10-30 minutes per crew.
8. Rose or thorn virtual games
Objectives: Looking for interesting remote team building activities? Are your online meetings getting dreadful with every passing moment?
Then in our opinion, ice breaker games such as rose or thorn will surely build stronger employee relationships while understanding your coworker’s personalities.
Instructions: The rules are easy to understand. Every person shares their rose (a positive experience) and thorn (a negative experience) that they feel comfortable sharing with their coworkers.
It can be either a personal or professional experience that they intend to share. This task brings liberty for everyone to voice their opinions or share their experiences with others.
Also, it is a great exercise to build trust, care and effectively communicate with the entire team.
Difficulty: moderate for all tasks
Estimated duration: a minute for all players will be sufficient.
9. An online version of Scrabble
Team building activities are all the more fun when everyone is familiar with the activity they need to play online.
Instructions: Words with friends is the online version of scrabble wherein every person can divide themselves into teams to use letters and create words.
It goes without saying that the people with the maximum number of words are the winners.
Objectives: This team-building game will drive creativity, collaboration and friendly competition.
And who said this is only limited to employees? You can break the hierarchy here and ensure your managers join in too! Everyone deserves a rest.
After all, such fun games help in breaking the ice between employees and their supervisors, right?
Difficulty: medium to a high level for all tasks
The time needed: 30-45 minutes.
10. Open mic
Visual team building can be a tedious task while managing several teams? Looking for challenges or ice breaker questions that are simpler to pull off? Give this a shot!
Every person in your company is talented in some way or another. However, most of us keep our matters strictly business.
Why not give them an open forum to express themselves better?
Most workplaces fail to acknowledge their employees beyond their professional capabilities. But what better way than giving them this opportunity to showcase their talents!
Instructions: Be it singing, dancing, playing an instrument, storytelling, having a light jokes session or letting them share their personal life stories.
Objectives: Such virtual team events will ensure your coworkers are able to show other facets of their personalities while positively engaging with others. It ties the community better leading to better friendships and meaningful conversations.
However, make sure you provide a stipulated time frame, such as a few minutes for all tasks, so you are well planned for the event. You can personalize the rules in settings.
11. Movie night
Who said virtual team building needs you to put in a lot of efforts?
Its time to give those long remote meetings a break. Try this real-time virtual team building activity for all your people out there! You can have one movie night a month for everyone to take a break from work.
Instructions: Stream playing the most voted movie through a video conferencing is all you need for this one. Also, make sure to open the chat function so that every person is free to post a remark or reactions here.
Objectives: A relaxing and bonding time for everyone will surely be a fun activity to try out. Also, coffees and snacks are a must so make sure everyone gets a break to grab onto these.
Wondering which technology or video conferencing tool to opt for?
Look no further!
You can try in zoom as a video conferencing platform as it allows a larger number of audience as participants. You can also opt for Google Meet or Skype, based on your comfort level for video meetings.
For messaging, you can opt for Slack as it’s a popular messaging platform that lets you customize different groups and channels. You can add images to make your chats fun.
Such ideas and exercise enhance the company culture
The time needed: An hour to two
12. A virtual discussion based on current affairs
Are you looking for team building events that lead to honing your employee’s skillsets?
Looking for ice breaker questions or topics to discuss over the week? Look no further!
Instructions: Send out a piece of current events of your choice to tune in all the folks. The forum is now open for every person to voice their thoughts and share their perspective on that particular topic.
Objectives: A discussion of such sorts ensures everyone is thinking logically while also engaging in meaningful and constructive discussions. Moreover, we all get to learn something new through this activity and build valuable human connections.
In fact, HR managers should encourage such virtual team-building initiatives on a weekly basis as everyone can proactively engage in a fruitful discussion.
Duration: Half an hour
13. Guess the emoji song
Looking for alternatives to make virtual meetings fun? In our opinion, this idea is a game of wit!
Instructions: Divide all players into different groups. Then, each group selects one recently heard song from their playlist and conveys the same with the use of emojis. Everyone can type their choice in the chatbox.
It is up to the others to try and guess them right. Trust us; this one is a challenge but an effective online team building activity.
It is a perfect event to lighten the mood of office work and bring in some excitement. Make sure all participants have their videos on to catch the real-time fun and interaction!
It will be fun to watch how some will get right to the business, trying to guess the song, while others lighten their mood during this conference.
Pro tip: Use a good messaging tool to ensure everyone is on the same chat to post emojis.
Difficulty: Medium to high
Duration: Every group gets three minutes to guess the song title
14. Whose office is it?
Our all-time favorite game and an effective team building challenge is this one!
In our opinion, this is a witty and interesting way to enhance virtual team building and enhance company culture.
Team meetings in the online space can pose challenges in terms of not being able to know your fellow mates. This game can make the space less mundane and promote friendly competition. Well, we can’t blame them if they fail to get opportunities to interact with each other.
This initiative helps to get to know your colleagues a little better and is a great icebreaker question!
Instructions: Every participant will send an image of their office space to provide a true representation of how their office looks like. Use the video chat option to interact with everyone.
Objectives: You can get to know a lot about other’s personalities by seeing how they keep their work desk and their settings. Ultimately, you have to guess whose office, or work desk could the image be of?
The highest winners get prizes in the form of coupons!
Duration: 10-15 minutes depending on different types of teams involved.
15. Personality tests
Running out of simple topic ideas to make offices sound exciting?
Instructions: Trying out different online personality tests for all people of the group can help you understand the contrasting and similar personalities we have at work!
Different personality types have different features, and understanding this is quite interesting!
Also, it’s a great way to build capability and what roles they can play!
Who said offices are boring? Let us make virtual meeting fun together for all people!
Including any of the above-mentioned activities, every week or month will surely enhance employee lives and bring positive engagement at the workplace. Trying out a different concept every week can help you understand what suits your people better.
According to a report by AI, 87% of remote teams felt deeply connected thanks to the usage of video conferencing. As HR managers, this is a huge potential that we often fail to tap on.
So, if you are looking to improve your team morale and productivity levels, then you must give these challenges or ideas a shot.
After all, the fun is in working and playing hard, equally!
And if you’re looking for an HR Software for your organization, try sumHR, we offer a Free Demo & 7 Day Free Trial.
