Activities to promote team building for remote employees
Attracting employees and encouraging effective collaboration is a challenging task for most businesses. Now, imagine that you have to do it for a workforce that works almost or entirely remotely. Despite the increasing difficulty, serious efforts to connect employees through virtual employee engagement activities remain vital. These help them get to know each other better and build stronger relationships. By achieving this, it strengthens collaboration and teamwork within the organization, allowing employees to make the most of their diverse ideas and experiences. This article explores 22 virtual team building activities that can be implemented to increase remote employee engagement, job satisfaction, and retention and productivity.
22 Virtual Team Building Activities for Remote Workforce
1. Two Truths and Lies
In a casual game of two truths and lies, breaking ice between employees who have not seen them for a while or may not have seen them for a while. Each participant submits three statements, two of which are true and one is false. The rest of the team then vote for what they think is a lie. You’ll be surprised to learn about your colleagues through this game. You may discover some common interests.
2. Virtual Coffee Roulette
This activity requires a random selection app that combines two employees with a quick virtual coffee chat. This approach effectively brings water cooler conversations to a virtual work environment, offering the added benefit of encouraging interactions between employees who may not normally have the opportunity to communicate. This virtual employee engagement activity idea is perfect for improving collaboration and teamwork.
3. GIF Battle
This is a great way to bring fun to your company’s internal communications platform. It’s very easy. All you have to do is give employees prompts such as “Monday mood” or “Christmas vibe” and encourage them to share the appropriate GIFs. This is not a competition, but you can choose to scream at the end of the day to the best response.
4. Online Escape Room
Escape rooms aren’t just fun. It is also a great way to promote effective collaboration, communication and problem solving among team members. This experience can be easily adapted to remote employees through online escape rooms. Divide participants into groups of 6-8 people, allowing the puzzle to be solved together while working to escape.
5. Trivia Game
This fun employee engagement activity is so versatile that it is suitable for monthly company-wide events and simple games while everyone is waiting for them to join the Zoom call. If you want to use them, you can find a large number of quizzes online, or use AI tools to generate your own trivia questions about your company, its employees, or general knowledge.
6. Virtual Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger Hunt is a fun and quick way for employees to get excited in their daily lives. To organize one, start by creating a list of five or six items that can be found in a typical household. Next, set a timer and ask employees to search for these items at home and display them on camera. Anyone can win the fastest!
7. Online drawing game
Many of us are familiar with the game’s “Pictionary” and remember how fun it is to play with friends. You can use an online whiteboard to create an online version of this game for your employees, drawing and guessing in order. However, if you want a more organized experience, there are several online platforms that can generate prompts and provide chatbox functionality to accelerate the guessing process.
8. Murder mystery “Night”
Another virtual team building activity that can turn a typical company into an engaging and enjoyable event is organizing a murder mystery. There are various platforms that set scenes and provide rules to the team, as well as live actors to make the story come true. Your team can wear costumes and incorporate them into their spirits, and work together to gather clues and reveal the perpetrator.
9. Virtual yoga or meditation session
Working from home can lead to a bit of loneliness and even feelings of isolation and burnout. Consider scheduling regular yoga and meditation sessions to protect your employee’s mental health and prevent these negative experiences. With the help of professional instructors, employees can help develop new healthy habits and reduce pressure from daily stress.
10. Offline fitness and wellness challenges
Physical health is just as important as mental health, especially as employees spend most of the day sitting. Organizing your fitness challenges motivates employees to take daily steps. For example, you can sync your smartwatch or share screenshots from the fitness app to track who walked the most steps that day. This causes friendly competition between them while promoting their overall health.
11. Virtual Talent Show
Each employee has their own unique talent and passion that they may be willing to share with others. They give them the opportunity to do it by hosting virtual talent shows where they can show off their talent with songs, magic tricks, and juggling. This activity brings a marvel to employee engagement and team building, allowing employees to reveal different aspects of themselves.
12. Group Office Playlist
Employees often enjoy listening to music while they are at work. Isn’t it a great bond and engaging activity for everyone in the office to work together to create a playlist? Share the intended mood of your playlist, such as relaxation and energy, with team members, and encourage them to provide their favorite songs. This activity helps remote employees feel approaching their colleagues as they listen to each other’s musical recommendations and explore different musical preferences.
13. Remote Team Painting
Virtual team building activities can also encourage employees to express their artistic talent. Surprise you by sending your painting kit home and inviting you to a virtual team painting event. At the end of the activity, you can also compare the paintings and create a collage of everyone’s works to commemorate this fun event.
14. Remote Happy Hour
Remote Happy Hour Events are a fun way for employees to relax. It’s also very easy to throw together. You can send a box of ingredients to your employees or a list of items to collect in advance. Assign someone to share a cocktail recipe during the event (or mocktail if it’s during the day). Employees can enjoy a break from work while commenting on drinks and interacting with colleagues.
15. Virtual Comedy Show
These days, you don’t need to visit local clubs or theatres to enjoy a comedy show. Now, businesses have the option of hiring comedians who can perform live for remote employees via virtual calls. These stand-up shows are interactive, tailored to meet your specific needs and create great virtual employee engagement ideas.
16. Virtual Book or Movie Club
Books and movies are things that most people can relate to. Why not schedule a monthly online book or movie club and turn this into a fun virtual employee engagement activity? Employees can agree to the book or film and then meet to discuss their thoughts and opinions. It is best to keep reading materials as short as possible to encourage participation and to engage everyone.
17. “Day in the Life” video
The rise of social media has led to a very popular trend in recent years. Apart from online content, however, it can be an interesting and fun activity to help employees connect with their colleagues. These short home videos usually only minutes long, presenting employee work-from-home setups, showing pets who keep their company on a daily basis, and showing them some of their daily lives.
18. Building a story
This free virtual employee engagement idea is easy to implement and requires no preparation. All you have to do is give the story’s starting sentence. For example, “Nick woke up in the morning to prepare for a job interview.” After that, each employee must contribute a complete or incomplete sentence to continue the story. By the time everyone turns, the first prompt changes to a silly, funny or crazy story, entertaining everyone while encouraging collaboration and creative thinking.
19. Who is that baby?
This is an outspoken online activity that warms everyone’s hearts and offers some big laughs. You will need to ask employees to provide photos of their babies to play “Who is that baby?”. Next, you create a slideshow and invite your team members to vote for the adults that each baby photo will correspond. If you have a clear winner, you can reward them with gift certificates with a sharp eye.
20. We will hold a messy desk contest
Working from home will help you keep your workspace more organized than you would in the office. Because no one can really see it. And while many of us may be embarrassed by the cluttered desk, the truth is that we are not alone in this. Encourage employees to celebrate a messy desk by sharing photos on a dedicated channel on the company’s intranet. who knows? This may motivate them to move forward and become more organized.
21. Find that song
It’s a great way to establish connections with colleagues who love music and share your music preferences. Make the Zoom Call a little more musical by playing the first few seconds of the song and having everyone guess what it is. Choose between 5-10 songs to keep this virtual employee engagement activity easy and move on to the rest of the agenda.
twenty two. Please read my lips
This game is a great choice to help employees laugh at each other down. Nearby, this activity requires the player to wear headphones, so you can’t hear what the other person is saying. In a virtual environment, you just need to mute the sound. And your colleagues need to decipher what you are trying to say only by reading your lips. Perhaps you can set a theme to provide clues and set a timer to prevent the game from being dragged.
Conclusion
The fact that employees work remotely does not mean they are not given the opportunity to interact with each other in an informal environment. The right virtual team building activities can help foster meaningful relationships, strengthen collaboration, and increase morale and productivity across your employees. Use the ideas researched in this article as inspiration for your next team building event and prioritize your company’s culture in 2025.
