Remote Team Building Ideas

1. Virtual Break Room

Encourage your employees to take a quick break in the afternoon to catch up with each other in small groups a less formal setting. Zoom has a feature, Zoom Break, which allows you to break a meeting into separate sessions. The idea is to mimic the “water cooler chat” where often times, employees get an opportunity to engage with each other.

2. Virtual Coworking Sessions

With typical coworking sessions, you physically go to a space to get work done, and sit with other coworkers to brainstorm and collaborate on projects.

Virtual coworking sessions provide the same benefits as in-person, but without everyone having to be in the same place. There aren’t as many interruptions, and no need to walk somewhere else in the building.

This is a great option because it frees your employees from working alone in their home office all day and allows them to work together on projects and other work-related tasks.

Encourage your employees to use Zoom for this type of activity.

If you want to take it a step further, Sococo gives a virtual floor plan (like in an office) with avatars for each employee. This way, everyone can see what others are working on and where they are. You can even “shut the door” if you don’t want to be disturbed and “knock on the doors” of people you want to work with.

3. Quirky Photo Challenge

If a picture is worth a thousand words, there’s no better way to get to know our coworkers better than with a quirky photo challenge. Here’s how to play:

• At the start of every week, come up with a theme. For example, this week, the challenge could be “the best photo of their pet” or “the best of their car.”
• Set up a chat using Slack or whatever platform you already use for internal communications so that anyone can upload a photo at any time.
• Choose the best photo of the month and send the winner a framed picture to keep it fun!

4. Book Club

Hosting a virtual book club can serve two equally beneficial purposes: connection and learning.

You can all discuss what types of books you’ll read and then take turns choosing them. If you choose an educational book, make sure it builds skills or knowledge related to the team’s work. If the choice is for connection, it can be something easy to read, inspirational, or entertaining.

Make sure to set a schedule and some ground rules to ensure the success of the group.

5. Two Truths and a Lie

This is a really fun way to learn random facts about your team members that maybe would’ve never come up in conversation otherwise. Again, the instructions are simple:

• Allow each player a second to come up with two statements about themselves that are true and one that is a lie. Make sure they’re not work-related!
• Then, the rest of the players, one by one, will call out what they think is the lie.
• To add a little friendly competition, consider giving the player with the most correct answers a prize.

6. 1 on 1 Sessions

1 on 1 sessions are probably more important in a virtual setting than in a physical one because it can be tougher to secure some of that time with your team members.

This isn’t a team activity, but it can give you the opportunity to engage with your employee on a smaller level.

Before each meeting, make sure to set goals on what needs to be discussed and have an actionable takeaway at the end.

7. Round Robin Recognition

This team-building activity is perfect for boosting morale and letting everyone know that they’re seen and appreciated.

It’s quite simple: at the beginning of a meeting, give everyone a chance to comment on something they did well this week and something another team member did.

8. This or That

Getting people to have conversations can be tough sometimes, but with games like this one, you’ll find it makes getting over that hurdle a little easier. It’s a good way to get everyone talking at one point or another.

To play:

• Every week, pick different this or that questions. Pepsi or coke? Summer or winter? Cats or dogs? Working from home or remotely?
• Post the questions in a Slack channel or your preferred communication channel.
• Give everyone the chance to discuss their answers.

9. Ice Breaker Quizzes

Asking each other fun questions and trying to figure out what answer belongs to whom is a great way to make connections and bond with your team members.

QuizBreaker has figured out a great way to gamify the otherwise basic way to ask ice breakers. Just sign up for an account, then you can either choose from their hundreds of questions or make up your own. Once people start answering questions, they will send out automated emails where everyone can guess who answered them.

You can choose with what frequency you’d like to send these out: daily, weekly, monthly, etc., and for those who like competition, there is a leaderboard.