Posted by Shivali Anand
October 28, 2021 | 5-minute read (895 words)
Employee staff huddles, team-building activities, sports and retreats are events that many firms traditionally used to shape their cultures. But in most instances, this isn't possible today with so many people working remotely to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. On the other hand, remote teams may have fun and stay more connected by participating in virtual team-building events while also enhancing their working relationships.
Each team member is on their computer during a virtual team-building exercise, and they communicate via an internet-connected tool for chat, email, audio or video communication.
The activity's goal might be team-building, bonding or a combination of the two. While some exercises need immediate attention, others allow you to engage at any point within the allotted period.
Whether you wish to do these sorts of activities on a daily, weekly, occasional or annual basis is a personal choice. The following is a collection of fun and practical remote team-building exercises that may help your team improve trust, motivation, productivity, cooperation and engagement.
Team-building activities in real-time
Encourage team members to mingle with others online to create a culture of online social engagement. Begin your virtual meetings or team conversations with a personal check-in, inquiring about your colleagues' health or recent project triumphs.
Celebrating your company's successes and thanking contributing individuals through video conferences is a great way to show appreciation. Send emails, incentives or notes to workers to show your appreciation for their hard work and accomplishments. This will help to improve their morale.
Asynchronous team-building activities
To enable employees to interact and exchange information with one another throughout the business, create learning circles. Create a channel in your employee communication platform (such as Slack or Teams) dedicated only to random chats and sharing quotations, anecdotes and images. Staff members will be able to learn about each other's mutual interests thanks to the channel.
Fun activities in real time
These exercises strengthen employees' collaboration and listening abilities, allowing remote teams to communicate more clearly and effectively:
- Virtual lunch or coffee sessions – 30-minute time commitment. During lunchtime, the crew joins through video conferences to discuss informal subjects.
- Host virtual holiday gatherings – 1 to 2 hour time commitment. For costume or theme-based celebrations like Halloween and Christmas, the crew interacts via video call. Remotely operating companies such as Toptal, FlexJobs, Xerox and Zapier have made online parties a tradition.
- Virtual nonwork get-togethers – 30-minute time commitment. Yoga, fitness dance, happy-hour quiz challenges and book club meetings may all be held online for remote teams.
- Create a story – 20-minute time commitment. The group collaborates to create a tale around the provided image or frames it by adding one remark at a time until everyone has contributed.
- Viewing party – 30-minute to 1-hour time commitment. Over a conference call, the team can watch a video or listen to a podcast together.
- Online gaming competitions – 30-minute time commitment. By building a room, the team can virtually play various internet games. These games may be informative as well as entertaining.
- Recognize the song – 15-minute time limit. One team member plays instrumental music and challenges the others to identify the song in a set amount of time.
Asynchronous recreational activities
- Socialize through group chat – 5 to 15-minute time commitment. This is an excellent method for distant teams to remain in touch and speak about odd topics, health and how they're working together.
- Image sharing – 10-minute time commitment. In a line, ask the team to contribute a photo that tells a narrative about their lives, pets, favorite things, hobbies, family members, favorite TV series, nature image, workplace and more.
- GIF fights – 20-minute time limit. To depict particular scenarios or issues that fit the theme, have your team provide a picture or.gif. Once everyone has submitted their GIFs, have everyone vote for the best one.
- Make a drawing – 15-minute time limit. Everyone draws what they hear when someone explains an image or item.
- Online Scrabble – 10-minute time commitment. Each participant is given a letter tile, which they must combine to form words. The winner is the one with the most words.
- Two truths and a falsehood – 10-minute time limit. Other workers will guess the lie if one employee asserts two facts and one error about themselves, and whoever selects the correct one wins points.
Steps to organize a remote party
To organize and execute virtual team-building and fun events successfully, follow these six steps:
- Plan ahead of time, and thoroughly. Decide in advance things like which day and time would be ideal for everyone, what employees liked and disliked about past retreats, and how you may incorporate your co-workers' abilities into a holiday-themed event.
- Provide a variety of interaction options. Create virtual events based on team members' similar interests to include activities so that everyone can participate, such as casual talks, crafts, quizzes, yoga or cooking.
- Make a digital area to commemorate the occasion. Having a central meeting location will aid in getting everyone on the same page.
- Make the activities known ahead of time. Allow enough time for everyone to choose how to dress, acquire materials, clear their calendars and receive answers to their questions.
- Allow for flexibility. Allow people to come and go from events according to their choices and schedules.
- Request feedback. After a retreat, collect feedback from the team and record what was a success, what you should do differently next time and any other suggestions.
