In the traditional setup, team buildings are a common way of boosting the morale of employees. It also serves as a complete form of detachment from all workloads. Companies are constantly seeking strategies to build their team relationships in light of remote situations. When everyone is not physically there with one another, it can be challenging to keep a remote team together because the important elements of effective communication, support, common goals, and entertainment might be neglected.
However, throughout time, it has been established that online team development differs significantly from in-person team development. Thus, companies are able to provide an alternative to continuing the implementation of standard workplace procedures in order to support, maximize, and foster people even when they are at home. As an alternative, virtual team building is conducted.
Remote teams can feel as close as on-site teams when virtual team building is done right. This is especially true if companies use their objective, vision, and passion to design engaging virtual team-building activities for their employees. Remote team leaders must continually innovate strategies for engaging and motivating their people. This entails forming and maintaining strong team bonds, regardless of where they are located.
According to research, remote employees have relatively weaker interactions with their coworkers than those who work at an on-site office; 65% of remote employees said they have never participated in a team-building or virtual event. Remote employees experience struggles because they are not exposed to the same direct personal interaction they have been used to. This means that even in the new normal, some companies are missing opportunities to create trust, collaborate, and enhance workplace culture.
Therefore, virtual team building is one aspect that ought to be conducted in every online workplace to push employees to succeed and thrive. Virtual team-building activities that are intentionally established promote effective communication while strengthening teamwork. These online team games and activities can also aid a distant staff to overcome engagement-draining difficulties. Because of these profound bonds, it delivers exciting impacts and results to the employee’s morale, productivity, and engagement.
Conducting a virtual team building also coagulates ties, therefore maintaining these links over time is a process that requires ongoing attention. The goal of virtual team building is to establish a good rapport among remote employees in order to imitate physical teams and improve the employee’s well-being as a whole. A virtual team-building exercise might help them revive their zeal by introducing them to other enthusiastic coworkers and acquiring trust from their supervisors and peers for autonomy.
As a result, companies can engage in a wide range of team-building activities, from simple and spontaneous games to highly-structured programs. To keep your team engaged and connected, below are five awesome ideas for a fun virtual team-building plan.
- Virtual Scavenger Hunt
There is nothing more exciting than a scavenger hunt with your team! Using TeamBonding’s Virtual Museum Scavenger Hunt, the company could easily conduct this fun and exciting game with their employees without exerting too much effort since the website is already responsible for all the direction, mechanics, and instructions of the game. TeamBonding offers an alternative to a physical museum since the COVID-19 forced it to close. TeamBonding is known for leading the best scavenger and treasure hunts for over 30 years. They combine high-tech hunts with the virtual tours of the world’s best museums and their Virtual Museum events can be run literally anywhere in the world. Combining team building, culture, and the power of play, their latest high-tech virtual scavenger hunt works really well on many levels.
These Virtual Museum Scavenger Hunts can be enjoyed from the comfort of a laptop, mobile phone, or iPad. It can be played as individuals or with a team. Either way, your TeamBonding facilitator will guide the experience of the players every step of the way. They also provide a leaderboard, virtual wrap-up, and debrief as well as lots of photos and videos.
- Virtual Stand-Up Comedy Show
Who wouldn’t want to have some comedy albeit virtually? To keep your remote personnel amused, hire a virtual stand-up comedian in Kabloom. It hosts online stand-up comedy shows for businesses, including family-friendly comedians that will surely make your employees laugh and enjoy themselves. They can use Zoom and Google Meet to host stand-up comedy gigs. The 45-minute set includes a 15-minute stand-up set, as well as warming up and joking around with the audience. The next section contains a Q&A on the life of a working comic. Finally, there’s a game called “joke karaoke,” where your team could express their unique personal favorite jokes!
- Online Karaoke Session
Many companies have become remote teams looking for interesting and entertaining engagements since COVID. Good news: a virtual karaoke party is a superb (and simple) way to bring your staff together virtually. For your virtual karaoke session, you’ll need a spectacular host.
The host’s job is to motivate the virtual team, manage the technical aspects of the event, facilitate smooth transitions between vocalists, and get the party rolling. To host the event, you’ll need an enthusiastic and tech-savvy emcee. These hosts are experienced in handling details, such as setting up Zoom and Google Meet, introducing attendees, arranging song selections, and ensuring you and your work-from-home team have a good time! Throughout, there will be a dedicated host (think: high-energy, charismatic, tech-savvy camp counselor) to handle all of the technical stuff, so that you and your team get to focus on laughs and belting it out.
- Online Team Building Bingo
A fun video conference team building activity is Virtual Team Building Bingo. The game is simple to learn, has a sentimental tone, and is appropriate for both youngsters and adults. Bingo is an easy and enjoyable game to play with your remote employees.
This game is played by distributing the Virtual Team Building Bingo board to remote employees. A time limit should be established, which may be anything from a single video conference to a one-month period or more. The game begins with a bingo board that has a number of action items or accomplishments on it. A player earns a point when they discover information about a coworker that applies to the Bingo board. For example, if someone came in late for a meeting, you can mark that spot off on your board, and the same goes for someone being unmuted. Have players track their progress by marking each box.
- Guess Who
Here’s an interesting idea: have each member of your team submit one (unknown!) fact about themselves to the boss. The crazier, the better—everyone has a couple of these stories that wouldn’t have come out in casual conversation. Remote teams, which often feel highly alone, benefit greatly from learning amusing facts about one another.
Knowing that you and your coworker both like obscure 80s bands or studied abroad might lead to a deep connection that would otherwise be impossible. It’s an easy approach to starting conversations that lead to friendship. Read each item aloud to the group during the meeting, and have the team guess which fact goes to which team member!
If you have a small group (5 or fewer people), reading all the data at once and having everybody do the guessing game works nicely. If you’re a group of six or more, it’s a good idea to do many rounds so that everyone remembers the facts you read. The team can vote at the conclusion of each round to see if they provided an answer appropriately.
Written By: Frances De Guzman
