Even with all the benefits of virtual teams, over 53% of remote workers feel it’s hard to connect with coworkers from behind the screen.
We’ve all been there!
As convenient as remote working is, employees are bound to feel lonely sometimes.
Virtual team-building activities are fun games and exercises that help coworkers collaborate on a shared goal, no matter how remotely located. It helps you know each other and build relationships, fostering cohesiveness and creativity.
Most of your coworkers will find team building event announcements ‘meh’ because they fear another boring meeting without the ‘fun’ element.
To level up your team-building efforts with remote employees, we’ve curated a list of 100+ fun virtual team-building activities and tools to enhance collaboration and engagement within remote teams.
Let’s go 🎉
100+ Fun Virtual Team Building Activities to Boost Team Morale
- Importance of Virtual Team Building
- 100 Virtual Team Building Activities to Try in 2024
- 1. Virtual icebreakers
- 2. Virtual team-building games
- 3. Virtual talent shows
- 4. Online team-building workshops
- 5. Virtual lunch meetings
- 6. Remote movie nights
- 7. Group meditation or yoga sessions
- 8. Online cooking classes
- 9. Online comedy sessions
- 10. Online fitness challenges
- Games, quizzes, and trivia
- Food and drink
- Music and dance
- Creative expressions
- Intellectual pursuits
- Interactive team-building activities
- Cultural exchange and diversity
- Tools to Facilitate Virtual Teams
- Keep Remote Teams Engaged and Productive with ClickUp
- FAQs
Summarize this article for me pleaseImportance of Virtual Team Building
Virtual team building is essential for remote teams to help overcome isolation, improve communication, build team trust, and keep employees engaged. Let’s see how virtual team-building activities help remote teams stay connected.
- Help build relationships: Virtual team building activities help remote employees get to know each other personally despite not being present physically in the same location. These activities help build stronger relationships, which are essential for maximizing collaboration and team productivity
- Boost morale and engagement: Engaging in fun and interactive team-building activities provides a break from the daily grind and allows team members to unwind and relax. Such breaks help reduce stress and lead to improved morale and overall well-being
- Improve communication skills: Our list includes many fun virtual team-building activities to enhance communication and team bonding. These activities include active listening, expressing ideas clearly, and providing constructive feedback to keep remote employees engaged. If you are tired of hurdles in productivity due to miscommunication, then these activities are a must-try!
- Enhance problem-solving skills: Many virtual team-building activities require participants to work together to solve complex issues. Such virtual games teach your team to work cohesively to accomplish goals
Summarize this article for me please100 Virtual Team Building Activities to Try in 2024
Here’s a list of 100+ fun-filled virtual team-building activities to facilitate your team’s coming together to achieve maximum efficiency.
1. Virtual icebreakers
Do you feel your team members aren’t yet acquainted with each other? It’s time to break the ice! 🥶
Virtual icebreakers are activities and exercises that encourage conversations with your team members.
The main agenda of icebreaker activities is to allow team members to have free-form conversations in a fun, informal setting.
For example, ‘Two Truths, One Lie’ is an excellent icebreaker. Each team member has to come up with three statements about themselves. Of these statements, two are truths, and one is a lie. The rest of the team listens carefully and tries to guess which statement is the lie. Once everyone has voted, go on and reveal the answer.
Similarly, there are other virtual icebreaker activities, like ‘Six Word Memoirs’ and ‘Desert Island Intelligences.’
Speaking of introductions, it’s not easy to remember everything about everyone in just one meeting. That’s where ‘meet the team’ templates can help you quickly introduce everybody. Keep these templates handy to see everyone’s job titles, experience, skills, and contact information in one place.
You can also use team charter templates to document your team’s mission and objectives so you’re all on the same page.
2. Virtual team-building games
Interactive games like Pictionary or Dumb Charades are a fun way to improve teamwork and friendly competition.
These games aren’t what one would call an icebreaker; you typically play them once you’ve established some rapport with your team members.
The good part is that most video conferencing apps like Zoom, project management tools like ClickUp, and collaboration apps like MS Teams are equipped with drawing tools and elements to play Pictionary without having your team install another app.
3. Virtual talent shows
Understanding your team members’ interests and passions helps you interact with them better. Sometimes, it means appreciating your colleagues for their unique talents.
Virtual talent shows can be a handy tool for this. You and your co-workers get to showcase your creative sides, and discovering a possible overlap of their interests with yours helps you and your team bond better!
4. Online team-building workshops
Another great avenue for team-building is hosting virtual workshops or training sessions. Topics could cover team leadership, communication skills, team dynamics, and enhancing professional development and collaboration. Workshops with role-playing exercises and group discussions are worth a special mention.
While these workshops will help your team members grow, bringing out the best in each member requires focusing on different stages of team development– forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Just make sure you are there at every stage to guide your employees.
5. Virtual lunch meetings
Food is among the simplest ways to bring people together. Virtual lunch meets enable team members to gather online, eat together, chat, and bond over meals. The good part is that these meetings are incredibly simple and easy to pull off.
Moreover, having a virtual meet-up over lunch once every week is an excellent practice for building relationships outside work-related discussions. Use these virtual meetings to learn more about your coworkers—food preferences, favorite restaurants, and how they like to spend their time outside work.
6. Remote movie nights
Everyone bonds over food, and movies are a close second. 🎬
To improve your virtual team-building game, consider organizing virtual movie nights where team members watch films together using synchronized streaming platforms.
For example, Netflix Party is the big fish of the remote-watch-party ecosystem right now. It works as a browser extension, allowing up to 50 people to watch anything on Netflix together.
Likewise, third-party apps like Scener facilitate remote watching via Netflix, Disney+, HBO, and more.
7. Group meditation or yoga sessions
As a team leader who is acutely aware of how stressful the work environment can be, you must encourage your team through activities that promote mental well-being.
If you are into meditation and yoga, you could lead virtual sessions to promote relaxation, mindfulness, and stress relief among team members. If not, you can conduct group yoga/meditation sessions using video guides from YouTube that are bound to give everyone some much-needed de-stressing!
8. Online cooking classes
Do you cook? If yes, maybe teach your team a recipe or two or even learn their favorite recipes. 🍴
Alternatively, you could let a team member lead a virtual cooking class. If no one on your team cooks, have group sessions where you can learn from the gazillions of videos the internet offers!
9. Online comedy sessions
What is something that everyone loves, apart from eating? Laughing, of course!
You could host online comedy sessions with your team, where everyone shares jokes about each other or what’s happening in your lives. You might discover a colleague’s hidden talent at stand-up! Moreover, giving your team a chance to rib you about your quirks openly and taking it like a sport will make you the coolest team lead ever!
10. Online fitness challenges
If there’s one thing we all learned from 2020 and 2021, it is the importance of a healthy body to house a sound mind. Setting fitness goals for each other will not only help you stay healthy, but it’ll also foster a sense of working together towards a common goal, and the overall outcome is bound to reflect on the output of your projects!
Looking for a few more suggestions of virtual team-building activities? Here are some more team building activities for your remote team.
Games, quizzes, and trivia
11. Virtual board game night
12. Virtual bingo
13. Augmented reality game
14. Virtual ‘never have I ever’
15. Bucket list challenge
16. Personality test quizzes
17. Virtual ‘emoji conversation’ game
18. Virtual code-break
19. Virtual murder mystery
20. Digital marketing trivia
21. Online trivia games
22. Virtual scavenger hunt
23. Virtual arm’s reach show-and-tell
24. Virtual escape room
25. Guess the emoji contests
26. Virtual ‘who am I’
27. Online time machine trivia
28. Guess the slogan
29. Logo trivia
30. Podcast trivia
31. Friday special – ‘know your team’ virtual meet
32. Virtual racing games
33. Virtual five-finger showdown
Food and drink
34. Virtual pub crawl
35. Virtual mixology class
36. Digital dessert party
37. Virtual happy hours
38. Cookbook club
39. Trivia cook-off
Music and dance
40. Virtual karaoke sessions
41. Online collaborative playwriting
42. Virtual dance party
43. Virtual open mic night
44. Group karaoke competition
45. Virtual DJ battle
46. Online music jam sessions
47. Group playlist collaboration
48. ‘Name that tune’ challenge
Creative expressions
49. What if you were X (a CEO, movie star, or similar recognizable roles)
50. Photo-sharing challenge
51. Virtual improv session
52. Remote creative writing contests
53. Digital playwriting challenge
54. Remote storytelling session
55. Virtual art challenge
56. Remote paint and sip sessions
57. Remote crafting sessions
58. Spreadsheet pixel art
59. DIY craft challenge
60. Virtual origami session
61. Digital art collaboration
62. Virtual fashion show
63. DIY home decor challenge
64. Intra-team photography contests
65. Online sketching class
Intellectual pursuits
66. Debate club
67. Virtual Sudoku sessions
68. Virtual book club
69. Power hour
70. Spreadsheet wars
Interactive team-building activities
71. Leader role play
72. Weekly wins celebration
73. Productivity tip showdown
74. Product pitch challenge
75. Department swap day
76. Virtual workshop on communication
77. Online brainstorming sessions
78. Virtual team pursuit
79. Interdepartmental mentorship program
80. ‘Deal or no deal’ negotiation game
81. Department swap day
82. Empowerment workshops
83. Online fundraisers
84. Customer persona creation
85. Virtual Secret Santa
86. Gratitude circle
87. Virtual team-based story building with objects around you
88. Virtual team-building experiences
89. Virtual support squad social
Cultural exchange and diversity
90. Book swap session
91. Virtual travel talk
92. Virtual museum tours
93. Virtual plant shop
94. DIY spa day
95. Sharing favorite movie quotes
96. Digital escape to nature
97. Remote book club discussions
98. Virtual language exchange
99. Virtual cultural exchange session
100. Diversity panel discussions
Summarize this article for me pleaseTools to Facilitate Virtual Teams
Now that you have the best virtual team-building activities list, you need the right tools to execute them. Before you pick activities for the month, discuss them with other members.
Use ClickUp Whiteboards to discuss different activities and ask your team members for suggestions. There are many fun activities in our list above that you can execute using our virtual whiteboard.
Once you have the right virtual team-building activities, you must ensure everyone becomes a part of it. As your team members might be located in different parts of the world, ensure you get the sessions onto their calendars and remind them of the upcoming activities.
With ClickUp Reminders, you’ll be free from the hassle of manually sending out reminders to team members. It’ll automatically notify members frequently to ensure everyone participates in the fun activities.
While it’s all fun and games with team-building activities, our platform also has features to keep your remote teams organized.
ClickUp Teams allows you to collaborate with distributed teams, align on common goals, and track progress.
When collaborating with virtual teams, there is a chance of miscommunication if you solely rely on meetings. You need to visualize your processes, action plan, and progress to keep everyone in the loop.
That’s precisely what our visually compelling ClickUp Dashboards will help you do. They will keep everyone on the same page regarding team goals and track project progress. Assigning tasks to team members will also keep them accountable at all times.
The ClickUp Tasks feature further enhances accountability and team discussions. Add comments, assign tasks with comments, record and share voice clips, and add priorities so that everybody in the team knows what to work on first.
In addition, collaborative ClickUp Docs make it easier to sync efforts and keep everyone in the loop regardless of location and time (a big yay for hybrid and remote teams!) Our Chat View also makes it convenient to chat with your team in real time. If you prefer, you can arrange Zoom calls within ClickUp.
Bonus: How productive is your team? Take the productivity quiz to find out!
Summarize this article for me pleaseKeep Remote Teams Engaged and Productive with ClickUp
Making sure your remote team has fun at work is serious business! Do try out one or more of the suggested virtual team-building ideas to break the monotony of work and bring teams closer.
Another way to keep your virtual team productive is by using collaborative task management tools like ClickUp. Designed to help the whole team work efficiently together, irrespective of location, ClickUp is the go-to platform for big and small teams worldwide.
Want to learn more about how remote work becomes easier with ClickUp? Book a demo today!
Summarize this article for me pleaseFAQs
1. What are team-building activities for virtual work?
Virtual team-building activities strengthen bonds, boost morale, and foster collaboration among remote team members.
These activities can include virtual icebreakers, such as fun quizzes or online games, to help team members get to know each other better.
2. How do you build teamwork online?
Online teamwork happens through work management platforms like ClickUp.
These comprise streamlined processes that ensure smooth workflow, activities, and games where team members worldwide can participate while working from home.
The goal is to unite all the team members, no matter which part of the world they live in.
3. How do you build team spirit virtually?
Building team spirit virtually requires creativity and intentional efforts.
Start by scheduling regular virtual meetings where team members can interact, share updates, and engage in casual conversations to build rapport.
Use a video conferencing platform for face-to-face interactions to mimic the feeling of being in the same room. Incorporate virtual team-building activities such as online games, quizzes, or challenges that encourage collaboration and teamwork in a fun way.
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
