Virtual Team Building Activities

Remote work is becoming the new norm these days. Even though remote teams may not be able to get together in the meeting rooms or participate in more traditional company events, that doesn’t mean they cannot socialize and have fun in a virtual setting.

We’ve compiled a list of 20 virtual team building activities to help you connect and bond with your team. Check them out!

Why is virtual team building so important?

Frequent virtual team building activities can help your employees adapt to their new remote work environment more effectively. Team building can also create a sense of togetherness and boost morale since remote work can often feel isolated and lonely.

When your employees know their colleagues personally, they can collaborate better and achieve better results. Team building also plays a huge role in building a strong company culture. When someone has a strong team around them, they feel more empowered to share their ideas and goals.

According to Gallup research, virtual team-building activities can lead to an increase in employee performance rate, claiming 41% lower absenteeism and 21% higher profitability.

Top 20 activities for remote teams

If you’re looking for some quick and fun team building activities for your remote team, here are a few ideas you’ll love.

1. Fun slack channels

Create a few Slack channels that are completely non-work-related. For example, on the channel #silly-joke-of-the-day your team can share funny jokes to make the working day more fun. In the  #window-to-the-world channel, people can share the places they’re currently wandering around.

And let’s not forget about the #furry-friends channel, where everyone can share photos and videos of their animal companions.

2. Virtual coffee date

With virtual coffee dates, your team members who usually don’t work together can get to know each other better. We recommend the Slack integration Donut for that, which pairs up 2 new team members each week and encourages them to go on a quick virtual coffee date and spend some time together.

3. Weekly team yoga practice

Yoga sessions can boost the morale and the productivity of the whole team, so think about organizing quick lunch or afternoon yoga sessions to help relax and stretch those hard-working muscles. Even a quick, 15-minute yoga session can do wonders for your team.

4. Quick dance parties

Quick 5-minute dance parties before or after the meetings are always a great way to lighten up everyone’s mood. That’s super easy to do virtually, too. But make sure everyone turns their cameras on for this.

Here are a few song recommendations, which have been tested by our team:

• Whitney Houston – I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)
• CHIC – Le Freak
• ABBA – Dancing Queen
• Donna Summer – Hot Stuff
• Taylor Swift – Shake It Off
• Kenny Loggins – Footloose

5. Game nights

Whether in-person or virtual, you can never go wrong with organizing a game night. Choose a fun game like Pictionary, charades or “draw a picture”. With “draw a picture”, each team has to draw something and everyone else needs to guess what they’ve drawn. This will definitely lead to some funny moments!

6. Bucket lists

Create a dedicated folder or a document and invite all your team members to share their bucket lists for the things they still want to achieve in life. That way, everyone can learn a bit more about their colleagues’ hopes and dreams. Plus, it can give you new ideas for your next team building activities.

7. Virtual happy hour with pub quiz

Happy hours don’t necessarily have to be done in person. When your team is spread across the world, you can do them virtually too, you just have to tell everyone to grab their favourite drink and turn their camera on. Don’t forget about adding a fun pub quiz, this will make the virtual happy hour even more interesting and fun.

8. Recipe swaps

Organize a virtual get-together with the team where everyone can share their favourite receipts and give some tips and tricks on how to make the meals even better. That way, everyone can get some fresh ideas for meals, plus the team can learn a bit more about their colleagues and see who’s the biggest foodie.

9. Virtual book club

A virtual book club offers a chance to interact with remote team members who share similar interests. Like in real book clubs, the primary goal is to get people together to read the same thing within a set time frame and talk about their views and opinions afterwards.

Check out our recommendations for great summer books.

10. Movie night

Hosting a virtual movie night (or evening) can be another great idea for a fun team building activity. Ask your team members for suggestions for the movie and select the time to watch it. You can show the movie via a video over a chat service like Zoom, or you stream it via the Netflix watch party option, which will keep everyone synced.

11. Personality quiz

You can find many tests online that measure different aspects of a person’s personality traits, strengths, values, etc. Select the one that you think would suit your team the best, and invite them to share their results with everyone after they’re done with it. This is not only a great way for your team to learn more about their colleagues, it is also a good way to learn how to best work together and maximize both productivity and happiness.

12. The fitness club

Do your team members like the outdoors? Just because you can’t enjoy some adventures together in person does not mean that you can’t encourage each other when it comes to fitness goals.

You can create team workouts or activities and use fitness apps like Strava to keep track of everyone’s accomplishments and give kudos!

13. Virtual lunch meetings

Virtual lunch meetings are a great way to get together virtually and socialize in a non-work setting. We recommend you give each of your team members a certain lunch budget, which they can expense back to the company. That way, everyone can grab whatever they want for lunch, sign on to a video call and catch up with their mates while eating their favourite dish.

14. Virtual coworking

Even if your team is not physically present in the office, that does not mean they cannot work together virtually and have a feeling someone is always next to them.

There are a few platforms which offer virtual spaces for remote teams to work as if they were together in person. Our favourite virtual office is Kosy, which allows your team to create different virtual spaces to mingle, have meetings and get a feeling like you’re working along to each other. Check it out!

15. Online escape room

An online escape room is a popular team-building activity because it includes the social elements of teamwork and problem-solving. Plus, they are fun and interactive too. Your team will have to figure out how to escape or break out of prison and everyone will have to contribute their knowledge. Plus, it will feel amazing after you win!

16. Guided meditation

Group meditation can be an effective way to bring your team together and build a strong team spirit. You just need a good guide who will guide your team through the session. Those can be either long or short ones; even 10 minutes per day can make a big difference in reducing stress.

17. Virtual bingo

Virtual team building bingo can be an especially fun team building activity for conference calls. Since it’s quite a popular game which almost everyone should be familiar with, it can almost feel a bit nostalgic, and you can adapt it to suit your team the best.

18. Two truths and one lie

Two truths and one lie is one of the easiest team building activities and it works as a great icebreaker too. For this activity, each person has to share three facts about themselves. Two of them should be true and one false. Then the rest have to guess which one is a lie.

19. Typing speed race

Typing speed races is a fun way to get everyone playing online games together. First, you’ll need to take a typing test like typingtest.com and share the results with your team. After this, you can organize a bigger typing speed challenge by forming squads and adding the cumulative scores to determine which team wins.

Not only the typing speed races are extremely fun, but they can also serve as a great skill building as typing speed is important for everyone who works from the computer.

20. Online drawing

Drawing activities can be a great way to satisfy the creative outlets of the whole team. There are a few multiplayer options, where the players need to draw right on your screen. 

For example, with Drawasaurus the participants take turns drawing a world and everyone else tries to guess what the person is drawing.

Virtual team building activities are great for remote workers

Virtual team building activities are a great way to get to make your remote team feel more connected, engaged and happier at work.

Building a strong company culture where everyone feels appreciated should be a priority for every team, no matter how big or small. With creativity and attention, remote teams can become just as effective as on-site teams while having added benefits of working anywhere they want.