10 Best Virtual Team Building Activities for Remote Employees
Tags: Work, Employee Engagement, Team Building, Remote Working

Employees are the primary building blocks of any organisation. They execute different work and make sure that the organisation can hold an excellent production level in the market.

In the last couple of decades, the global industrial sector has changed a lot. The IT industry has now turned into a happening one where the IT giants are recruiting a huge mass of people throughout the leading countries of the world.

There are several processes covered by remote employees. Due to the ongoing pandemic, most regular employees of every industrial sector are working from home.

What is Employee Team Building?

Employee team building helps the employees of an organisation to develop a bond with each other. It enhances the quality of work as each employee is aware of the comfort zone and limitation of others.

Generally, major organisations frequently organise team-building activities. But, now, since the maximum of employees are working remotely, organisations are coming up with virtual creative activities for them.

If you run a business organisation with remote employees, go through the details about the best virtual team building activities to promote employee satisfaction, transparency and production.

Best Virtual Team Building Activities For Remote Employees

Online Coffee Breaks

As a director of a business organisation, you can allow your remote employees to engage in the virtual coffee breaks. Generally, these breaks can be 15 to 30 minutes.

A virtual coffee break can act as a stress-buster for your remote employees. Moreover, they can communicate among themselves in various ways. You can also listen to them and minimise every sort of confusion or stress.

Organise a Health Challenge

A health challenge can be an exciting team building activity for your employees who work remotely. Try organising a health challenge for 30 minutes on Fridays after closure. Working out helps minimise stress and maintains good mental health; doing it in a group also builds team cohesion.

You can connect to all your remote employees and tell them to complete challenges like doing a specific number of pushups or squats.

Health challenges can also be done every week. You can encourage your employees to complete several tasks every day after the day’s work. Moreover, daily sessions of meditation can also help your employees to de-stress.

To enhance the interest of all remote employees for participation in the health challenge, you can give away prizes for participation and reaching personal goals.

Lunch Meetings

Lunch meetings are quite common among office-working employees. However, you can allow remote employees to do the same.

As the director or team leader, you can encourage your employees to meet up during the lunchtime. In general, you should try to talk personally with all your remote employees. It will not only help you socialise with your workforce, but also allow them to speak with each other informally.

Apart from the fun chat, you can provide statements and notices to the remote employees during the lunch hour. Moreover, it’s a great way to get to know about your employees’ problems and discomforts.

Online Games for office

Online games can be a great support for you when it comes to organising an office activity. You can make your remote employees indulge in such games daily as a break. There are lots of online games for group activities.

Online games help remote employees to get casual in front of their teammates. As a team leader or employer, you can also indulge in online games. Consider it as an excellent means of socialising.

As per planning, you should always consider the workforce and divide the teammates accordingly. Make it a rule for every team member to dedicatedly participate in the office games. A leaderboard and participation awards will also help you keep employees engaged with this new social ritual.

Story writing

You can organise a story-writing competition for the employees who are working in your organisation from a remote place. It can be organised regularly on the weekends. The employees will get a chance to utilise their writing and creative skills.

Make sure to take time to read or listen to everyone’s story and get the team to give reviews on it. This can be an excellent team-building activity as the remote employees can use their imagination when writing a story and share it with their colleagues.

The fun factor related to a story writing session can enhance the satisfaction level of a remote employee towards your organisation.

Online Quiz session

Online quiz session is an everyday team-building activity for remote employees. You can organise it on a daily or weekly basis. As a competitive game, it can help your employees to know each other.

Moreover, it also allows a person to know his/her teammate more personally, as it gives co-workers the opportunity to be themselves and share their general knowledge. This way, you can expect your remote employees to develop a stronger bond with their co-workers.

A good duration for a quiz session is between 15 to 30 minutes, and will refresh employees as a well-earned break from their mundane everyday tasks.

Employee Icebreaking

Breaking the ice between employees is vital when a new employee joins your company. In the case of a new remote employee joining your company, you should organise an icebreaking session with the rest of the team or at least their immediate co-workers.

Ask the employee to share something about him/herself and allow all current employees to chat with the new recruit online. You can also make the icebreaking session entertaining by inviting the new recruit to solve puzzles or riddles.

Icebreakers should always be simple and easy — remember the point is to put the new employee at ease, not to embarrass them!

Online cultural program

A cultural program can always help remote employees to minimise stress. Try to interact with your employees in order to learn if they have any hidden talents like singing, recitation, playing musical instruments, etc.

You can give a break at work to allow your employees to indulge in such programs. Try organising cultural programs on the weekend as it can both mark a sweet end to the week and provide refreshment to your employees.

Organise interactive webinars

Webinars have now become quite trendy and it is a suitable means of infotainment. Interactive webinars can help your remote employees to interact with each other and present something about a particular topic.

You can strategically organise a webinar that allows your employees to do a task informally. Moreover, you can also observe his/her strong points and weaknesses. It’s also a great learning opportunity for them!

A webinar usually takes about an hour and you can easily do it after the workday is done, or end the day early to make it possible for everyone to join in. Allow your workforce to fragmentise themselves as teams and choose a specific motion to address. It might not be mandatorily related to work, but your employees can learn something from the activity.

If you find your employees are quite interested in a topic, you may consider sponsoring them to attend an online course to gain more experience or a qualification related to their work.

Online Riddle solving

There are many references to some excellent riddles available on the internet. You can give such riddles to your employees daily that helps to take a break from their monotonous jobs.

Make a specific time limit and keep a record of the activities of your remote employees. Consider keeping a leader board and giving out an award at the end of a round or each month or quarter to keep engagement and enthusiasm high.

Final words

As a director of a profit-making organisation, you should always develop an excellent work culture. Even if you are a team leader, make sure that every member of your team knows the others.

There are no hard and fast rules that an organisation must follow in terms of organising virtual team building activities. You can always pick a specific activity from these ideas to help your employees minimise stress and have a casual time.

Frequent team building activities not only boost productivity, but also ensure excellent quality of work in an organisation.