Remote work isn’t a fad. It’s here to stay. In fact, by 2025, it’s estimated that 36.2 million Americans will serve in remote roles, about 22% of the workforce.
While remote work offers companies and their teams various benefits, it comes with its fair share of challenges — particularly regarding team building.
Wondering how to keep your remote team members connected and engaged? Here are 14 fun virtual team building activities guaranteed to bring your remote team together.
1. Virtual Escape Rooms
Virtual escape rooms recreate the experience of physical escape rooms online. In virtual escape rooms, remote teams collaborate to solve a series of challenging tasks within a specific time limit.
For instance, team members may have to piece together various clues to escape prison, find buried treasure, or even save the planet from destruction.
Try out virtual escape rooms to foster creative thinking and improve team collaboration among different departments.
2. Book Club Meetings
Few things compare to cozying up with a good book. But if you want to discuss a book’s contentious issues or share your love for an author, reading alone won’t cut it.
Book club meetings allow fellow bookworms on your team to connect. Here’s how to start a virtual book club meeting at work:
- Gather book recommendations from your team.
- Let team members pick the book they want to read from the recommendations submitted.
- Set a timeframe within which team members should complete the book.
- Choose a time and date to discuss the book.
Before the virtual meeting day, create prewritten questions for members to discuss. Also, we recommend starting with novellas.
3. Virtual Game Shows
Virtual game shows are an excellent way to have fun while encouraging friendly competition among remote team members. Using video-conferencing tools, you can designate a team member to serve as your gameshow host and play popular virtual games like The Price is Right, Jeopardy, or Family Feud.
Just be sure to familiarize everyone with the rules before you start playing. Also, don’t let the winners simply walk away with bragging rights. Consider offering prizes like gift cards, branded merch, or even time off to boost employee engagement and improve morale.
4. Trivia
Want to pit your remote team members in a battle of wits against each other? Host a virtual trivia event! Create questions on company facts, movies, TV shows, literature, or another team-favorite topic and split employees into teams.
Then, schedule a video conference call, pick a designated host to ask the questions, and allow teams to guess the right answer. This will encourage healthy team rivalry and allow every team member to bask in the limelight when their favorite topic arises.
5. Virtual Scavenger Hunts
Virtual scavenger hunts are one of the most popular remote team building activities. And with good reason. They’re easy to organize and take a short time, making them especially ideal for large remote teams.
Here’s the easiest way to organize a virtual scavenger hunt using your preferred video conferencing platform:
- Create a list of up to ten items people typically have around the house, such as a favorite book, mug, or childhood photo.
- Share the list and give team members a set amount of time to retrieve the items.
- Declare the person who has found the most items as the winner.
6. Personality Quizzes
Many HR professionals use personality quizzes to screen candidates during recruitment. But personality quizzes aren’t solely for HR teams. They’re also an excellent way to build team camaraderie.
Taking personality quizzes and discussing the results can let your team members understand what makes each person tick, resulting in better working relationships among colleagues.
7. Guess the Emoji Keyboard
What’s the most popular emoji your remote coworkers use? Well, if they’re like most people worldwide, their favorite emojis are the face with tears of joy and the red heart.
But maybe your colleagues aren’t like most people. Want to find out if they have a quirky side? Then, play an entertaining game of Guess the Emoji Keyboard. Here’s how to play:
- Create a list of team members participating in the game.
- Ask each member to share a screenshot of their most used emojis with a host who won’t participate in the game.
- Let the host share the list of participants with each team member and give each player up to five minutes to guess the five most used emojis by each participant.
- Allow the host to disclose the answers and declare the person who gets the most emojis correct as the winner. Bonus points if they’re in the right order.
This is one of the best team building activities for virtual teams, big or small. You can set it up in no time, and it’s a great way to lighten the mood during virtual meetings.
8. Virtual Guess Who
Guess Who is a timeless board game. Fortunately, it’s also an exciting virtual team building game you can play with your remote team. Ideally, participants should leave their webcams on to play the game.
Here’s how to play:
- Pick two team members. Allow one team member to pick one person. They should keep this person’s identity secret.
- Allow the other team member to guess the person who has been picked by asking yes or no questions, such as ”Does the person work in the sales department?”
- As the game progresses, players who don’t fulfill the criteria should turn their webcams off. This will allow the person guessing who the mystery person is to see other players left in the game.
- Eventually, the person trying to guess who the mystery person is should be able to pick the correct person, and the game will end when only one person’s webcam is still turned on.
It’s pretty simple to set up Virtual Guess Who, and it’s an excellent way to build a healthy hybrid work culture and forge connections among recently onboarded remote coworkers who don’t know each other well.
9. Murder Mystery Game
People really enjoy murder mysteries. It’s no wonder Glass Onion — the sequel to Knives Out — is one of the most-watched movies of all time on Netflix.
Murder mystery games task participants with piecing together clues to solve a fictional murder. If you want to let your team members play detective, try murder mysteries to foster creative problem-solving and teamwork among colleagues.
10. Virtual Happy Hours
One of the best things about working in a physical office is going for after-work drinks with colleagues. While you can’t do the same with your remote team, you can still organize a virtual happy hour.
Using your preferred video conferencing tool, you can schedule a virtual happy hour where your colleagues engage in casual conversations and banter as they indulge in their favorite drinks or snacks.
Just remember to keep work-related issues off the table. Also, allow team members to join the conference call with non-alcoholic beverages so that teetotalers don’t feel left out.
11. Guided Meditations
Some remote employees rarely take breaks. Working constantly without taking breaks to recharge can take a toll on mental health and cause stress or anxiety.
Guided meditations can let team members catch a breather. Best of all, they can significantly reduce stress and anxiety, resulting in improved team morale and productivity. Look for a guided meditation exercise online or work with an external expert to guide your virtual team through guided meditation sessions.
12. Virtual Team Building Bingo
Leading hybrid teams and keeping team members in high spirits can be tough. If you want your hybrid team to play a game that’s relaxing after a challenging workday, consider playing virtual team building bingo. It’s a simple online game of chance that’s perfect for virtual teams of all sizes.
To play the game, create custom bingo cards with five rows and columns and email them to your remote coworkers. Then, allow players to join a virtual call and pick a team member to call out the events on the cards. If an event on your card is called out, mark your card with an X. The objective of the game is to mark an entire row or column and shout bingo to win.
To inject a bit of humor into the game, consider creating cards with hilarious activities that happened throughout the workday.
13. Virtual Lunch
Good food and company make a great pairing. Host virtual lunches every so often to encourage team members to have meals together and interact with one another.
If you have time and want to add spice to your virtual lunch breaks, consider organizing virtual cook-offs where members use particular ingredients to prepare meals. Whoever makes the most creative and presentable dish wins.
14. Virtual Ambassadors
Test your team’s knowledge of other countries by playing virtual ambassadors. It’s a fun team building activity where each team member gets to serve as an ambassador of a random country.
The aim of the game is simple: Team members must describe their country without mentioning its name by giving clues such as famous landmarks, cities, or personalities. Then, team members must guess the country, and the player who guesses the most countries right wins.
Find a Meeting Space for Your Remote or Hybrid Team Building Activity
These 14 virtual activities offer many benefits for remote teams. They can boost morale, enhance relationships, improve productivity, and more. Looking for a meeting space to host team building activities? Industrious offers stylish meeting rooms at more than 200 locations in over 65 cities worldwide.
And best of all? Our offices come with all the essential amenities teams require, such as high-speed WiFi, wellness rooms, lounges, fully-stocked cafés and so much more. Browse our locations to find the perfect venue for your next team building activity.