Virtual team building activities are games, quizzes, questions, challenges, or other types of exercises that virtual teams do over communication platforms like Google Meet, Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Slack or others. Leading team building games and virtual icebreakers when you are managing virtual teams will help you create a healthier remote work culture and result in happier and more productive team members.
Why you must include virtual team building activities in the management of remote teams
“Virtual team building activities lead to an increase in employee performance rate, claiming 41% lower absenteeism and 21% higher profitability.” – Gallup research
Team building is a crucial aspect to focus on when you are managing a remote team. In a brick and mortar business, employees interact unofficially and these spontaneous moments are not possible with remote work.
This lack of in-person interaction can cause virtual team members to feel isolated, demotivated and lonely, negatively impacting overall work performance and quality of results. As a manager of a virtual team you need to include team building and virtual team building activities as part of your remote work culture to create a better remote work environment for your team.
When done effectively, virtual team building activities can boost employee engagement and collaboration by:
- making employees more aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses
- increasing trust among team members
- promoting creative thinking and fostering innovation
- providing additional motivation and support
- encouraging greater work life balance
Engaged, collaborative, creative, and motivated teams will be more effective, more efficient and ultimately improve business performance!
Virtual team building activities and virtual icebreakers
These are our top 7 virtual team building activities to help you achieve greater results from your remote work and greater well-being for your remote team. The first two are great for breaking the ice to get communication started, and the other five can be used to keep communication going for your team.
#1 Better said with an emoji
This is a simple activity and one of the many virtual team building activities that can be organized in small or large virtual teams. It is especially effective when conducted before a meeting so you get a sense of how your virtual team is feeling or thinking about certain things.
For example you can ask these questions, and have each employee express themselves with an emoji:
- How are you feeling today?
- How is your week going?
- How would you describe our team?
- Which emoji do you use most frequently?
- What emoji describes your last client?
- What emoji represents how your current project is going so far?
It’s a fun way to break the ice and encourage team members to communicate with each other.
#2 Express yourself with a drawing
This is a great example of a Zoom icebreaker that you can do at the start of your team meetings. Share a whiteboard with your team and ask them to draw their current mood. This is a quick and really fun activity, and one of the many virtual team building activities that you can do with your team that will reveal how your team is feeling and whether you need to take any measures to boost their motivation and productivity.
Your whiteboard might be filled with drawings of smiling faces, coffee cups, sleepy faces, etc. If there are a lot of angry faces, frowns and lightning bolts, it may be time to make some improvements!
#3 Typing Speed Race
This competitive virtual team building activity is a great way to develop an important remote work skill – typing quickly and accurately. You can do this race using online typing tests sites then share a screenshot of your results on Zoom, Skype, Slack or another communication platform that you are using. Challenge your colleagues to a friendly competition using any of the available online typing tests. Everyone thinks they are a pretty quick typist, but who will be the best?
#4 Can you hear me now? (20 questions)
We can all agree that “Can you hear me now?” is one of the most common meeting opening phrases. You can actually use this as a simple but very engaging virtual team building activity.
It is very easy to lead this virtual team building activity and it can improve employees’ communication skills, making the team more aware of potential miscommunication at the same time.
In this online team building game one team member thinks of an object and tries to describe it with words to the rest of the team. Like the familiar game of 20 questions, the team members ask questions to guess what the object is. A follow up discussion of “How did you guess that so quickly” or “I can’t believe you didn’t guess that one” is likely to happen at the end of the game.
#5 Before and after
This online team building game is a fun way to test the attention to detail of remote teams and see who has an “eagle eye.”
Every team member gets on a call and one person is chosen to be the “hider.” Once a hider is selected, the game leader spotlights this person in the meeting for 15 seconds. Then, the hider turns off their camera, removes, hides or adds one item in the background of their room, and turns the camera back on.
The other team members must guess the item that was moved or what changed in the room.
#6 This or That?
The distance between employees working remotely and the absence of physical interaction makes it really hard for members of remote teams to build relationships and establish strong working bonds. Remote workers tend to work without knowing each other well, both personally and on a professional skills level.
This virtual team building activity enables employees to get to know each other, by answering a series of questions. The game leader gives the team a series of choices, and participants must pick their preferences.
Some examples include:
- Ambition or Comfort?
- Start work late or leave work early?
- Education or experience?
- Loose guidelines or clear directions?
- Company retreat or company holiday party?
- iOS or Android?
- Facebook or Instagram?
- Twitter or TikTok?
- Speed or accuracy?
- Cash or Credit card?
To answer, players can use emoji, type the answer in the chat, or talk it out.
#7 Virtual scavenger hunt
A little competitive team spirit is always good to get people engaged, as long as it’s done positively. A virtual scavenger hunt is one of the virtual team building activities that everyone can enjoy, without an intense level of competition.
The hunt can be organized in groups, and every team needs to create a list of items that the other teams must find and show to the group on the camera or as an image, in a certain amount of time.
The game starts by splitting the employees into teams, or for smaller teams this can be played individually. Then each person or each team creates a list of 10 items, which can be done on Google docs or as a Google form.These lists are shared with the rest of the group and whoever finds the most items or all the items first is the winner.
Your scavenger hunt lists can contain items as simple as “your favorite pen” or more interesting items like “something you can’t live without”.
Some examples of virtual scavenger hunt list items are:
- The view from your window
- Favorite cup
- Your bookshelf
- Selfie with your pet
- Your current outfit
- A circle shaped item
- A picture of you as a 7 year old
- Something red
- A leaf
- Foreign money
Add a virtual team building game to your next meeting!
If you’re not doing so, you should start implementing some kind of a team building activity in the management of your remote team as soon as possible. Team building activities create strong team bonds, improve collaboration, team engagement, and boost team motivation and productivity. If you want to learn more about creating a healthy remote work culture that delivers results, check out this book based on 15 years of experience managing remote teams.
Besides organizing virtual team building activities as a way of improving your team engagement and productivity, check out some more tips that will help you in the establishment of productive, motivated and engaged remote teams by reading this article.
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