Team building has always been an important part of a company. Designed to help employees bond through various types of activities, virtual team building activities offer numerous advantages.
Do you still remember how much fun you had the last time you went to a picnic with your co-workers or when you engaged in a paintball game and worked as a team? Even if it’s just for an hour or two, quality time spent the right way can deliver great results.
Apart from learning how to effectively run virtual team building events step by step, it is also necessary to have fun and present intriguing games and challenges to your co-workers.
We have solved the puzzle and are ready to share our clues with you, so you can join the game.
What Is Virtual Team Building?
Team building is a set of activities that encourage people to work as a group and take part in various games. It helps employees engage in collaboration, teamwork, and communication in a fun and interesting way. Think of it as playing games with your co-workers instead of with your friends.
There are a lot of activities that can be done outdoors, in the park or even on a short trip. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when a lot of people work from home, society reevaluated home office work and how to create a positive remote work environment.
The only difference between team building and virtual team building is that virtual team building is done remotely and online.
Is It Possible to Create a Team Spirit Virtually?
Believe it or not, the answer is yes! The feeling is slightly different since employees are physically separated, but the effect of boosting team spirit is still present.
The purpose of virtual team building activities is to motivate your employees, boost team performance, and enhance the company’s culture. The group is socialising while having fun playing games.
If you schedule this type of meeting frequently, it will not only boost your team’s working performance but will also keep them motivated. Knowing there are virtual team building activities scheduled for the next week creates something to look forward to.
Virtual team building activities also improve your employees’ engagement and morale. This will greatly boost your company’s internal feedback and you will have employees who are devoted and loyal to the company, motivated to stay, and keep improving in every aspect of their career.
The Top 10 Most Entertaining Virtual Team Building Activities
We have created a list of virtual team building activities for you and your team to try. Some of these activities are completely free to use and for some, you’ll need a paid membership.
The list consists of the most fun virtual team building activities with high impact and low effort. Use platforms such as Discord, Slack, Google Meet, Zoom, or any other communication channels for some of these games.
This is a creative, 90 minute event running a virtual campfire for your team. They facilitate virtual team building activities for all participants and will take care of the entire organisation for you.
They will even send your team a tiny campfire kit consisting of wood matches, campfire-candle, and s’more ingredients. The event includes historic ghost stories, little competitions, icebreaker games, and s’more making.
This event will not only leave your team with memorable moments to treasure, but will also result in strong team bonding, engagement, and communication skills.
War of the wizards is a fun and creative online team building game suitable for both smaller and bigger groups.
The wizards are at war! The legend says that their conflict started so long ago, none of them remembers why. Your team jumps in to engage in smart game mechanics and collaboration in order to solve this riddle and bring peace.
The best thing is: no RPG knowledge or gaming skills required!
Similar to “never have I ever”, this game is a real gem on the list of virtual team building activities for large groups. Rules are simple to follow and the game itself is entertaining with high impact and low effort.
The activity starts with all the group members holding their hand up, so everyone can see it. They extend all five of their fingers and start sharing their life experiences. Team members who have shared the same experience should put one finger down for each activity.
The winner can be the person who will have all of their fingers down, or you can spice things up and make a winner the last person with a few fingers remaining. To make the game more entertaining and interesting, encourage your team members to share unique prompts.
Everyone is special in their own way. This game helps you understand that and learn more about your co-workers.
Team Building is the most popular place to go to, if you’re looking for virtual team building activities. They host the most popular team building events for any type of business and have a high rating among their customers.
Online Office Games, Superhero Academy, International Monster Hunter, and Murder in Ancient Egypt to name just a few, will attract you not only with their title, but also with the creative engagement they require.
- Online Team Building Bingo
The popularity of the bingo board has spread among various niches, from artists and Instagram influencers to marketing and business. It’s not surprising that bingo has made it to the list of virtual team building activities.
Just like every bingo, team members start with the bingo board in front of them, marking off activities and accomplishments as they come.
For the home office option, you can try remote work bingo that comes with a free board you can print for every team member. Although it contains prompts, you can still think of your own and make the bingo more precise and specific to your company.
- Can you hear me now?
It’s a creative game similar to Pictionary with a funny twist. To prepare for this activity, your team members choose one person who will be the speaker, while the rest are artists.
The chosen person uses a random picture generator to receive a photo they have to explain to others, whose task is to draw what is on the photo. The trick is that the speaker is allowed to use only geometrical objects to explain the generated image.
The person has to accurately communicate with the artists, who need to listen carefully and interpret the object, while using only geometrical shapes.
Slack users are already familiar with this extension. Donut automatically schedules a call between two employees and allows them to have a video call for 30 minutes. This is a great way for your employees to get to know each other better and bond remotely.
This Slack extension is extremely useful when you are too busy and don’t have the time to organise this month’s team building. Leave it to Donut and it will do the work for you. To make sure this team building activity flourishes, you can add certain rules and challenges to it.
Find things that should not be allowed during the video call such as talking about work to ensure a separation of work and play.
- Pancakes vs Waffles
This is a quick and easy game designed for all group sizes. Team members are allowed to keep only one of the two sweet treats in this world. Is it going to be waffles or pancakes?
Once you have the majority of votes and are able to eliminate one of the two options, the game proceeds. You add another idea to the conflict. If the group chose to eliminate waffles, the game is now pancakes vs coffee, then coffee vs pets, pets vs cars, etc.
Consequently, the more you play this game, the more tense it becomes and the choices are harder to make.
- Guess the Emoji Board
After the introduction of emojis, they were mostly used between friends, family members, and in personal conversations. Leaving emojis in emails and business related chats was inappropriate. Today, they continue to find their way into professional contexts as well.
Apps like Slack encourage this change, when emojis can be added as reactions to your co-workers’ messages. In remote work, they represent our emotions and facial expressions people can’t see. That is why emoji games can be fun and create a lot of inside jokes.
The activity itself has a lot of variations, but the basic idea is to screenshot your most used emojis on Slack, Asana or your phone’s keyboard. Every team member then sends their board to a moderator. The team tries to guess which emoji display belongs to which team member. Develop a points system and make this game work for your team!
This virtual team building activity is an inspiring skill builder. It consists of 26 words assigned to each letter of the English alphabet:
- Alfa
- Bravo
- Charlie
- Delta
- Echo…
Although you may not need this alphabet and your team members won’t be using it too much in the future, it can still be an amazing team spirit developer. Learn the phonetic alphabet together by communicating with it and practising together.
Make Virtual Team Meetings Fun
Building a team that is happy, motivated, and engaged plays an important role in how your business is going to develop in the future. Rewarding team members with fun and engaging virtual games is one of the best ways to gather the group and create a strong bond between co-workers.
Virtual team building activities will help you organise and run team building events for smaller or larger groups. They are enjoyable and entertaining with countless options and variations.
Choosing the best type of game depending on your team members or job requirements helps you build your team and keep them motivated.
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