Working remotely is great and it gives people flexibility to balance their personal and work life better. For many of us, it’s been an essential part of our response to the current pandemic. But there’s also a downside to it – and that is not being at the office and getting to work and have a good time with your co-workers.
It’s in situations like this that team building activities might be just what you and your team need to keep the spirit alive. For this reason we have come up with a list of 10 remote/online team building activities and games that you can enjoy with your team. Have fun.
- Fitness or Yoga – Keep your mind off of numbers and reports for a while and put on your sport clothes. Even if you’re a beginner or have some experience, fitness and/or yoga are the perfect activity for any kind of team. There are two ways to set this up: find an online class on Youtube to then get together on a video call for the activity, or reach out to a personal trainer or gym to create a special activity for your team. Pros and cons? The first time is free of charge, while the second isn’t but you get to have a professional lead the activity and encourage and challenge your team.
- Guess the song – This one is perfect for the music geeks and a casual friday afternoon get together. Ask your team to send 3 to 10 songs (depending on the size of your team), put them all together on a playlist and tell them to create pairs. The game consists of playing the first 3 seconds of a song to a pair and see who guesses it first. If they don’t recognise it at first, extend to 5 seconds and up to 20 seconds. First person to guess the title correctly gets a point. If you wish to make it a bit more challenging you can give 0.5 points if they only get the title or artists, and a full point if they get both, title and artist, right.
- Two truths and a lie – This one is the perfect game to get to know your team buddies. Ask your team to draft a list with 10 truths about themselves at 5 lies and then set up a video call. You can count points and get a winner at the end of the game or just let it roll and have a little fun getting to know the people you work with. You might be surprised!
- Charades – This is the kind of game that might not be thrilling to some people at first, but everyone ends up loving at the end. Depending on the size of your team you can either play all together or divide into two (or more) small teams. So that all team members can play, you can use Get Charades Ideas – a free generator which can also be filtered to create different categories as you play the game.
- Hidden hobby – All of us have something that we’re very good at and that maybe our team members don’t know about. This activity is about getting to know a hidden side to your work friends. Ask your teammates to prepare a 5 to 10 minute presentation on something they’re good at and create a workshop around it. For example, if you’re a great baker, you can shoot a video to show your teammates how to make the best Sachertorte. So that it doesn’t get overwhelming, space out the presentations and host 1 or 2 maximum every week.
- Virtual happy hour – Don’t let lockdown come in between having a good time. Happy Hour is perfect for Fridays at 5pm when you can’t focus on anything else anymore. Like you do on a regular Friday at the bar next to the office, grab a few beers and turn on your laptop camera. Might also be a good idea to play some of the games mentioned above.
- Virtual travel – This one is perfect for the creative minds and those with wanderlust. Ask each team member to decide on one country – could be one that they have visited or want to visit. Create a calendar and decide on the theme country for the week. For every daily standup meeting all team members will have to wear or do something that reminds them of the chosen country. For example, if one person chooses the UK, you can show up to the morning catch-up with tea and biscuits, or pull off your best British accent. This can even be turned into a mini social media campaign to share on your company’s Instagram.
- Virtual campfire – Friends, campfires and s’mores? Couldn’t ask for anything better. There’s two ways to go with this one. You can either contact Tiny Campfire and they will deliver a tiny campfire set for all your team, or you get all your team members to buy the essentials at home: candles and s’mores. Sit down with your workmates and chat. or even play a few games while you disconnect from work for a while.
- Donut time – This is a slack extension that will pair up your team members randomly. Each pairing will have a 15 to 30 minute video call to chat about anything but work. Encourage your team to use this time to get to know each other on a more personal level and then share on your group channel any similarities or fun facts that they might have learnt from one another.
- Virtual Kahoot – Not being at the office might be keeping you away from knowing what’s being done in other teams. Product updates, deals closed and campaigns launched, the list goes on and on. So that no one gets lost, make sure to send out a weekly newsletter or message on the General channel where you tell your team everything that has happened. To (sneakily) make sure that everyone gets and reads the news, you can set up a small Kahoot game on Monday and see who is on the loop with what’s going on.
Now all that we can say is go have fun! We hope that you and your team enjoy these activities and small games. In situations like the one we’re living it’s important to stick together and keep the team spirit thriving.
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