Creative Virtual Team Building Activities for Remote Teams

Establishing a company culture and strong relationships with your remote-first team can be tricky. When hiring globally, organizing in-person team buildings can also prove costly.

Still, just like you moved your whole business online, you can also establish a company culture virtually. There are many ways to engage your remote workers, build camaraderie, and encourage collaboration. If done right, these can also create positive feelings among your employees and toward your company.

Let’s start by discussing the benefits of establishing virtual team-building opportunities.

Why is team building an important part of having a remote-first team?

There are many pros and cons to working remotely for employers and their employees. One of the main cons often cited is the sense of isolation that comes when working from home. For some employees, not having a chat with coworkers now and then can be difficult.

Moving to a remote-first model means finding a way to replace the water cooler talk in-office that some of your employees need or appreciate.

It's easier to assess engagement or enthusiasm in an in-office setting. If you find these lacking with your remote employees, they may feel disconnected from their coworkers or your company. Your remote workers may feel isolated and unhappy with team dynamics.

This is true for your remote team members who rely on their coworkers for social interactions because they live alone, for example. This type of isolation may have serious negative impacts on your employee’s mental health. It can present itself as low productivity or poor job satisfaction with some employees.

If the sense of belonging and camaraderie is important for an employee, they may decide to leave you for a job that will provide better team dynamics. Overall, it may be best to work on having a good team that can depend on each other, and your company, to get the job done.

But, how do you establish team-building experiences for your global team, without a significant budget? Here are some virtual-building activities you can try with your team.

The best virtual team building activities for your remote team - ranked by employees

Even though the internet is overflowing with great team-building ideas, actual remote employees on social media often don’t agree on the “greatness” of those ideas. Here’s a list of employee-approved team-building activities they are much more likely to enjoy.

Virtual escape rooms

A virtual escape room is one of the most mentioned team-building activities that employees do enjoy. Not only it is a fun team-building activity, but it is also a good exercise in problem-solving, decision-making, and teamwork.

But, to ensure that everyone will enjoy this experience, you should choose the virtual escape room carefully. It would be best if you looked for a room whose theme matches the company values, and will not be triggering for your employees. For example, crime-themed or horror-themed virtual escape rooms may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Virtual trivia games

Virtual trivia games are a quick and easy way to keep your employees engaged throughout the day. These boost communication, provide a healthy dose of challenge, and are fun to play. Some of your coworkers will display competitiveness. Others will have a unique opportunity to showcase irrelevant information they know.

Virtual trivia games are often based on popular TV game shows, including Jeopardy and Family Feud. However, you can also find virtual trivia games that focus on particular themes and topics. Consult with your team on which would be the best for them as well. This is a team-building activity that's easy to set up and bound to include everyone.

Virtual classes

Virtual classes are one of the most beneficial team-building activities you can organize. While it may not build any decision-making skills, it can build other valuable skills among your team. You may choose classes held by a third party, but you can also engage your workers to share their talents as a course for other coworkers.

Some virtual classes employees say they have enjoyed include language and cooking classes. Having your global team share local recipes or virtual cocktail-making classes can be a fun activity.

Keep in mind that these types of classes often have certain requirements. Cooking class may require your team to have certain equipment. Make sure your team can follow along before you book a certain activity.

Book club

One of the popular team-building activities that your remote team employees may enjoy is the “Book club”. It may not be suited to team members who prefer to watch movie adaptations. However, it may be an interesting choice for teams with many people who like reading as a hobby.

It is also one of the team-building activities that can be asynchronous. As long as your team is mindful of spoilers, it also doesn’t require active participation at a set time. Your team members can read at their preferred pace. They can then catch up with the rest of the team when it's convenient for them and share thoughts and opinions on the book.

Virtual coffee breaks

When in the office, employees will sometimes take coffee breaks together. It is often good to try to replicate these online. You probably already use a video conferencing app for meetings, so it's easy to set up.

These coffee breaks will help your employees get to know each other and build relationships and better communication.

You may choose to set up one-on-one meetings between employees who don’t often get to collaborate. On the other hand, if your team has many introverts, a group coffee break will allow them to feel included without the feeling of being put on the spot.

Picture or photo sharing

Picture-sharing contests are another great way to engage your employees. It is one of the activities that won't intrude into their workday. Decide on a theme for the week or month, and encourage your employees to share photos that match the theme.

Some companies encourage employees to share pictures of their workspaces, favorite coffee shops, or coworking spaces. Others focus on a specific thing and ask their employees to accompany the image with a description.

You may ask your employees to share images of their pets, hobbies, and more. However, it’s important to know your team and find topics that are office-appropriate. If an employee doesn't want to participate, you should respect their wish for privacy and allow them to keep their personal life separate.

Storytime

Similarly to picture sharing, you might encourage “story-time” in one of your communication channels. This team-building activity can be both asynchronous and fun. Plus, it will allow your employees to showcase their creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

You can center it around a particular topic for the day or week, and have each of your employees contribute on the same topic. Or, one coworker may start the story time with a sentence or two, and the rest of the team can jump in to fill in the rest of the story.

Donut Meetups on Slack

If you have a lot of new people on the team, Donut meetups on Slack might be the right choice for you. It is also a good solution for establishing cross-team communication. This app integrates with Slack. You can use it to engage your employees without having to search and work on finding new team-building activities.

You can count on this app to randomly introduce your coworkers to each other. It can also prompt relevant channels with conversation starters. It will also help you celebrate your employees' successes. While it’s not recommended to outsource team building to apps, it can bring elements of team-building into every workday.

Online yoga classes

If your remote team spends a lot of time glued to their office chairs, you may decide to organize classes that encourage movement. Online yoga classes or group fitness classes may be a good choice, but not everyone will be comfortable doing yoga in front of their coworkers.

You can also set up smaller workout challenges for your employees who want to take part. Allow them to share their progress in a manner that is comfortable for them. They can share fun and healthy activities they enjoy or share their favorite healthy recipes.

Three things to consider when organizing team-building events

Team-building activities can help build relationships and encourage people in your company to get to know each other. But, it’s important to keep the following in mind to avoid your team building becoming a dreaded activity.

1. Not everyone will be happy to take part

You likely have a group of both introverts and extroverts on your team. Some team members will be happy to participate in social activities. They will appreciate your company's efforts in organizing them, which will improve loyalty. Introverts may not share the enthusiasm, and would rather show their loyalty through hard work.

Try not to make team-building mandatory for all, as it may create anxiety in some of your team members. They may be happy just doing their job and calling it a day without speaking to anyone. Allow them to choose when to take part, and make sure to support them if they do.

2. Be respectful of their free time

Some companies have a habit of organizing team-building activities outside of work hours. It may be a good thing for building relationships as it takes after the occasional “coffee after work." However, others will not appreciate it in their free time. They may be unhappy carving out time for mandatory things that are in nature social and not work-related.

Most people who choose to work remotely do so to save on time spent commuting to work and have a better work-life balance. Interrupting their free time with mandatory activities may cause the team-building to flop.

Try to establish these during work hours, and not at the end of the day. If your employees have worked hard they may disengage mentally at the time for team building.

3. Don’t make team building mandatory for promotion

HR individuals sometimes use team building to assess who shows interest in the company. Other times, employees may feel pressured to take part just so they don’t upset the organizer. If your employees feel pressured to attend, it’s unlikely to make them feel good about leadership and your company in the long run.

Some people prefer to show their loyalty to the company by overperforming instead. Someone struggling to find the time after work to read for the company’s book club doesn’t mean they do not have the company’s best interests at heart.

Building connections through quality time at work

If done right, team building can be a great way to build relationships among your employees, and establish a strong company culture. Each of these activities can help everyone feel included, appreciated, and valued. It can also remove the feelings of isolation your remote team might be experiencing.

However, it’s easy for team-building activities to turn into dread-building activities, so it’s important to do them right. Be respectful of your employees’ personalities and free time. Also, you should ask your employees for feedback as it will help you improve your efforts.

Drop the activities that are not showing engagement instead of forcing them further. Consider asking your employees for suggestions on what they believe would be a good activity. It’s one of the easiest ways to ensure you’re engaging your remote team.

FAQ:

What are the 5 Cs of team building?

The five C’s stand for communication, camaraderie, commitment, confidence, and coachability. Each of these is considered to be an important aspect of effective teamwork. Strong teamwork increases productivity and creates a strong bond between the employees. It also increases job satisfaction.

How do you help your team bond virtually?

There are many activities, both free and paid, that can assist in virtual team building. You can create different team bonding activities, depending on everyone's preferences. It can include virtual coffee breaks and virtual gaming. Or, you can offer your employees a virtual cooking or yoga class for team bonding.

What is the 5-minute icebreaker activity?

A 5-minute icebreaker activity is an easy way to include team building into a busy workday. Companies rely on these activities to build relationships between employees at the beginning of a meeting. Some of the common 5-minute activities are “Two truths and a lie,” “This or that,” or other quick activities.

What are the 4 main types of team-building activities?

Team building activities fall into four categories:

1. Communication-focused activities,

2. Trust-building activities,

3. Problem-solving activities,

4. and decision-making ones.

Each of the categories is important for building strong relationships among team members. They are also beneficial for improving productivity and creating a sense of loyalty to the company.