While remote work provides convenience and flexibility, it can get lonely for some people. Unfortunately, the camaraderie between office workers just can’t be replicated in a remote setting. Workers share how they miss having friends at work they can just turn to and have a laugh with. Of course making friends with your remote colleagues isn’t impossible, but it can understandably be harder to form connections when communication is limited to chat and video calls.
Still, team building is very important to help your employees communicate openly with each other. Loosening the work restraints and allowing them to interact with each other more casually keeps them engaged, motivated, and reminds them that you think of them as people and not just workers. Team building exercises have also long been proven to improve work relationships and productivity.
We’ve compiled a list of fun activities you can do through a video chat with everyone participating or everyday things you can do on chat to liven up the work day. We hope you and your team have fun with these!
Ice Breaker
Ice breakers are the go-to option for any gathering of people who don’t know each other very well yet. Every student and professional has heard of ice breakers. They can be anything from fun questions to trivia to Simon Says to a quick round of charades. They’re speedy and allow everyone to think more creatively rather than
Two Truths and a Lie
This is a great one to get to know your teammates a little better on a social level. As the name suggests, everyone goes around telling two truths and a life. Everyone will try to guess which is the lie. The trick is to make everything sound mundane or crazy to make it hard for others to pick the lie.
Charades
Charades are great for people who are nervous about speaking for the first time in front of colleagues. You can create a collection of themed topics whether related to your industry or just good old pop culture. Charades always gets everyone loose and laughing. We guarantee your teammates are going to be shouting to get the answer right after ten minutes.
Photo of Your Life Challenge
This activity is a great way for everyone to learn something personal about their team members. It tasks them to take an image with their phones that they believe sums up their life. It can be a location, landmark, pet, hobby, anything. Then it’s shared with the rest of the team with the person explaining why they chose that image and its significance to their lives.
Virtual Scavenger Hunt
This gets everyone out of their seats! Just like the classic game, players are going to search for something that’s asked for but in their own houses. They can be mundane things that they can find in their homes or make it a challenge and add details such as “a decoration with a bird on it” or something in a specific color. You can make it a race to win or how close the item fits the description.
Donut
Donut is a channel on Slack that randomly pairs coworkers together through an email notification to have a one-on-one catch-up or to get to know each other for the first time. It’s up to the pair to schedule their one-on-one so there’s autonomy and investment involved. Interested team members are put on a list and the app chooses the pairs from there. This is admittedly more intimate than when it involves the whole team but it can also be less pressure for more introverted members of the team.
Time Traveler
This game is a chance for everyone to get imaginative. Team members each take turns describing an era they’d like to visit if time travel were possible and the rest have to guess. Any time period is up for grabs and the more creatively it’s described, the more points one can earn.
Pitch Me
This is a great exercise for the sales team or everyone who wants to be more confident in presenting. Group the team into threes or fours. Prepare slides of different items that the team have to pitch to you or one another. The fun part is it can be the most mundane things like kitchen items or tools but the teams have to do thorough research to refine their pitch. They can even make slides but nothing too fancy. The point is still to have fun with a bit of exercise on presentation and sales talk.
Can You Hear Me Now?
Probably the most uttered phrase since 2020 when remote work and video calls skyrocketed. But this game is a fun twist on Pictionary that encourages collaboration. Team members pair up, one is designated as the Artist and the other the Describer. In just three minutes, the Describer must explain to the Artist how to draw an item picked from a list using only geometric shapes. Once the three minutes are up, the drawing is shared on video chat and the other team members try to guess what it is. For every correct guess, the Describer gets a point and so does whoever guessed correctly.
I Spy With My Little Eye
This can be a fun break from work that everyone can do every day. A team member takes a really close up photo of something they find in their home or workspace and sends it to a dedicated group chat with hints. The other members try to guess what the item is and the correct guess wins. Maybe raise the stakes and send photos for every day of the work week and the member who guesses correctly for at least four days gets an end of the week treat. There can even be a semifinals for the whole month for a grand prize!
Experience fun remote working
Remote Workmate helps companies make remote working a breeze. How? We help you build your best team by vetting applicants and narrowing them down to the most qualified ones through a series of tests and interviews. All you have to do is make the final interview.
But it doesn’t end there. We also help with onboarding your Workmate as well as payroll and HR management. We also moderate evaluations of your Workmate on the third and sixth month so that both of you are working with each other as effectively as possible.
Tell us about your recruitment needs on an obligation-free session that you can schedule today. Just click the button below to get started.
