Working with a virtual team can create new and exciting prospects. Remote working can also be difficult. Managing your team and making sure tasks are being handled in a timely fashion can be hard to do when you are not face to face with your team. You might need not only strong managerial skills that you can develop through training but also a list of fun games to enhance team’s soft skills. Here are twenty-five exciting virtual team building activities that will help your team work together well and keep focused on the job at hand.
Pet Project
While working remotely, people are spending more time at home with their fur babies. Pets are there to keep people company and now more than ever they are a great asset. Have people take pictures of their pets and take a few minutes to set up a location for people to put their pet pictures and videos up for others in the team to enjoy. Videos of romping dogs and kittens playing will brighten up your workers day and bring your team together.
Remote Bingo
Set up a virtual bingo card and have employees tick off things as they happen during meetings. The first one that has completed a row wins. You can fill in the squares with phrases like “a child appears in someone’s video” or “someone drinks coffee during the meeting.” As things occur people can keep a tally and whoever wins can get to pick the next activity. People will be more attentive to each other during the meetings and will grow closer despite the distance.
Childhood photos
Have your team send you photos from when they were young. They could be baby pictures or teenage years. Compile these photographs on a site and have your team guess the identity of the pictures. This is a great way to build your team and have them get to know one another and see how much they have grown and changed since childhood. Relive the fun fashions of the seventies and nineties while having a great time with your team.
Team Lunch
About once a month or so you should set up a virtual lunch with your team. You can give them $20 to have a meal delivered to them at a set time and you can all sit and eat together remotely. This is a great way to bring your team together in a non-office setting while enjoying some delicious food. People can sit, relax, and talk while eating. You can get to know your team better and they get some new and fun food.
Book Club
Book Club Just because you are not meeting together does not mean you cannot organize a book club. Have your team read a book and meet up virtually once a month to discuss it. The book can be a business book, fiction, or literature. You can have each member offer book suggestions at the end of the meetings and the team can vote on the next book to read. To make this more comfortable you can tell your members to pour a glass of wine and sip while discussing the book. This should be a relaxing and fun event that brings your team together while they are apart.
Pajama Party
You can organize a pajama party meeting. Before the meeting you should send everyone some hot cocoa and mug with your company’s logo on it. During the meeting your team can drink cocoa from the mug you sent. Everyone on the team should wear their favorite pajamas while attending this virtual meeting. This is a fun way to have a relaxing meeting and build your team. You can give out prizes for the most original pajamas and funniest pajamas. Get your team on board and they will have a fun time. You can also take pictures of everyone enjoying their cocoa and use it for fun marketing at a later date.
Care Package
You can organize a care package for your team. This will be a nice surprise for your team members and will help them come together as a team. The care package could be coffee, a mug, and some office supplies. Or it could be a box of pasta, some sauce, and a loaf of Italian bread. You can find pre-existing packages online or build some yourself. You can send these once a month or once a quarter. The idea is to let your team know that you are thinking about them. They will be happy with their surprise. You will lift their spirits and they will be more productive. If you have the packages hand delivered you can have everyone open them virtually when they arrive. Then everyone can open the packages together as a team.
Recipe Swap
One thing everyone enjoys is eating. People do not always have the time to make their own food, but when they do they usually use recipes that say something about them. Having a recipe swap meeting can help your team get to know each other better. You can ask your team members to provide a recipe and a picture of the completed recipe for the other members to see. This gives your team members new food ideas and helps spark creativity. You can have the recipe swap once every week or so. A virtual location for storing the recipes and pictures can be set up so people can access it as they wish during the week or on the weekend.
House Hunting
You can have your team members make a virtual tour of their house. This can be a short clip highlighting where they live and what they like to do. You can show one clip before a scheduled meeting so your team can get to know one another better. This gives your virtual team a chance to look into each other’s lives and get to know one another from a distance. This can be a fun and creative way to make your team more cohesive and strong.
Painting Parties
A painting party is one that can be easily organized. You will just need to send materials to your team ahead of time. You can hire an artist to paint a picture with your team. All you will need to supply is a canvas, some paint, and a couple of brushes per person. Your team will enjoy hanging out together to paint and will grow closer as they create a work of art together. At the end everyone can show off their pictures to each other. Everyone can have a fun and relaxing time while being creative. This activity will involve everyone on the team and bring them closer together.
Desert Island Game
This is a fun virtual team building exercise that you can set up quickly. Have a list of items that are obscure and fun. Let your team know that they will be stranded on a desert island and they need to only pick three objects on the list. Next you will divide your virtual team into smaller teams and they can decide which items their team will pick. Bring everyone back together and one member from each team can tell which items they picked and why. This is a great team building exercise and it also helps with virtual collaboration. Your team needs to be able to collaborate while working and this is a fun way for them to see how to collaborate virtually. It is also a fun way for your team to compete and get to know each other.
Scavenger Hunt
You can organize a virtual scavenger hunt for your team. Make a list of things that people can find in their houses and yards. Have your team members look for the items. The first one to gather everything on the list wins. Your list should include things like a funny mug, favorite shirt, or favorite book. Be sure the things on your list are accessible to all of your team members. This will be a fun and exciting activity that provides competition amongst your team members. It will get your team thinking and moving for a fun afternoon.
Dance Party
Put on some dancing music and throw a virtual dance party for your team. Encourage everyone to get up and dance. The movement will promote blood flow and the activity will help them with mid-week doldrums. Everyone can dance and have a good time before sitting down and getting to work. The movement will help with stress and give them something fun to do.
Virtual Trivia
Organize a trivia game party for your virtual team. Trivia can be fun and competitive. You can have trivia about your company, general trivia, music trivia, Star Wars trivia, whatever genre you want. Have your team members answer the questions via personal message and keep track of their scores. You can assign different point values to different questions. The harder the question, the more points your team members get. If you have a larger virtual team you can divide them into smaller teams and have them work together. If you have a smaller team, each member can compete individually. Trivia can be a fun way to create camaraderie amongst your team members. The winner of trivia night can receive a gift certificate or other prize.
Camaraderie Calendar
Most virtual teams share an office calendar to keep track of deadlines and meetings. This is a great way to keep your team organized. Another function of your team calendar can be to keep track of fun personal information about your team members. You can list birthdays and have everyone send a remote card to the birthday person. Other things that can be listed are weddings, graduations, first day of school for an employee’s child, passing a driving test, and more. Find out fun information about your team and celebrate together as a team. This will build your virtual team and make them a stronger team. This will encourage support within your virtual team and inclusiveness.
Places and Things
You can have your virtual team make a list of a few unknown things about their city or town. Before a meeting, you can have one member make a one or two slide show presentation about where they live and what it’s like. This will help personalize your virtual team members and make them more accessible to other team members. The more interesting and wacky the points the better. All towns have some fun facts that your team members can share with one another. Take the time to get to know your virtual team members better. This will make them feel more included within the team.
Website Wonders
This is a game that is similar to a real life pub crawl. When people are together in real life they can go to a bar and have a drink and then hop over to another bar. This virtual pub crawl moves the bars to the web. Your team members can pick out a website that interests them. Everyone will go to that site and discuss the website and then move on to the next site. Encourage your members to have a drink and relax while perusing websites. This is a fun way for your team to get to know each other better.
Movie Night
Send your virtual team members some microwave popcorn and have them pop it up for a virtual movie night. Most streaming services are offering a way to view movies with other people from home. You can all watch the movie together in real time while commenting and enjoying the show. This will bring your team together and is a fun activity to do once every couple of weeks. This will give your team some fun memories and help them bond with being apart.
Karaoke
Singing is fun and singing karaoke is even more fun when you do it for your team. Have each team member take a video of themselves doing karaoke in their home. You can have a karaoke night after hours and show highlights from each of the clips. Team members can vote on the funniest video, best voice, best costume, etc. This is a fun way to gather your team together to have a good time.
Healthy Habits
Sometimes when people are working remotely they tend to be less healthy. This is a team building exercise that will help your members to drink more water. Make sure everyone has a glass of water for the meeting. You will designate a person to be the hydrating hero. Have that person randomly pick up their glass and take a sip of water. The other team members then take a sip of water. This is a way for your team to drink more water and to be more aware of what is going on in the meeting. This virtual team building exercise promotes attentiveness and healthy habits.
Compay Highlights
Virtual team members can feel left out of company events. One way to include them is to host a video conference highlighting your team members. Once a month you can highlight the most productive member of your team, the most supportive member, the funniest team member, the most caring team member, etc. You can give out virtual rewards. This is a way of highlighting your team and showing them how they contribute to the team and the company. You can have a virtual office party where people can chat about company things and network online. Highlighting your virtual team promotes team spirit within the company and keeps everyone closer and more involved. It can also promote some healthy competition within the team and more creativity.
Bucket List
Have each team member take five minutes to tell the other team members something that is on their bucket list. You can then help them and encourage them to accomplish this thing. Someone on your team might want to fly an airplane. Another team member might give flying lessons. You could set up some lessons for the team member who wants to fly. Encourage your team members to reach for the stars and complete something on their bucket list each year. Working together will help your virtual team grow into a fantastic force.
Collaborative Playlists
Set up a team playlist on Spotify. Everyone on the team can add one or two new songs each week. This is a virtual playlist that everyone can listen to. This helps you and your team to get to know each other better while exposing people to new music. Everyone loves music and this is a great way to introduce your team to new and interesting songs.
Waffles vs Pancakes
This is a great way for your team to collaborate. It starts with the premise that you can either have waffles or pancakes in the world. Whichever one has the least votes, they will be eliminated. Once waffles or pancakes are eliminated you can then go to another round like pancakes vs ice cream. You can throw other ideas into the mix like kitten, pizza, puppies, popcorn and more. Your team members will demonstrate creativity and collaboration with this fun virtual team activity.
Two truths and one lie
Ask your team members to come up with a list of two truths and one lie. Each team member will present their list and the other members must figure out what the lie is. This is a fun way to get to know the members of your virtual team. Everyone can participate and the more outrageous the list, the better. You will find out things about your team members that they would not normally share in a meeting. Building your virtual team is easy with this fun game.
