Remote Team Building Activities To Boost Your Team's Morale
Remote Team Building Activities To Boost Your Team's Morale
As a remote team, we geek out over remote team building. We’re always looking for ways to bring our team closer together.
Loneliness is probably the biggest downside to remote work and can lead to disengagement, which, in turn, leads to poor performance on the job.
Making time to form social bonds and build trust not only combats loneliness, but it also helps teams work together on a tactical level.
Team building is a crucial part of any successful business or organization. While businesses can’t give up entire days for retreats or pieces of training these days, there are other ways to weave team-building exercises into the day-to-day happenings. If you’re tasked with coming up with some team-building icebreakers for your next meeting, it doesn’t have to be hard. The best icebreakers are simple, but require a few materials and a lot of enthusiasm!
Below you can find some really cool icebreakers, tools, and virtual team building activities you can implement or share and to build strong remote teams:
Virtual Happy Hour
Here are some virtual happy hour tips based on experience:
- Use a reliable video conference tool
- Engage with the whole team
- Have a variety of icebreakers prepared
- Have fun for a happy hour!
Remote Book Club
Start a book club and have everyone do the reading independently and offline.
Have everyone keep a log of their thoughts and impressions as they go.
You can have your final discussion by hopping on a conference call or chatting in a dedicated Slack channel.
Remote Fitness Challenge
Have everyone on the team vow to complete a fitness challenge. Or ask for proof!
The challenge might be completing a certain workout every day or even achieving a specified fitness goal.
As you all complete the challenges independently, you’ll know you’re not truly alone.
"Fun fact" - Icebreaker
Before the meeting (preferably a day before), ask everyone to find a fun fact about the place they were born/a vacation/from high school, etc.
Share the fact before your meeting. Attendees will learn fun facts about cool places and also about each other.
Plus, a good dose of laughter is always a good idea!
"Dance Party" - Icebreaker
Tell everyone about the awesomeness that’s about to happen.
Do a quick sound check to make sure everyone can hear the host’s music.
Start your jam.
Dance and probably laugh a lot! Have fun with your team!
DIY Craft Challenge
The DIY Craft Challenge is a 30-minute activity you can play with your team members.
To do the challenge, you bring everyone on a video call, share the rules and then start a 30-minute timer.
Each person has half an hour to build something from materials available at home.
You could make pasta art, an epic pillow fort, or doodle a poetic harmony.
The goal isn’t to build something museum-worthy; it is to spark creativity and give your team a fun way to interact together!
Just remember that remote team building isn’t just for special occasions! It requires an ongoing team-wide effort to mean anything useful. So think about how you can bridge the physical gap with your team and work social interaction into your everyday.