We live in the 21st century, and there has been an evolution in technology. Many changes have happened in our day-to-day lives, including our work culture. Things are now much simpler for us than they ever have been, thanks to technologies like cloud computing, wireless network, and 5G.
Before, employees had to report to the office to complete their work. However, thanks to real-time collaboration tools, professionals can work from anywhere. The need to develop virtual team-building activities has gained popularity with the rise of remote workers. While working from home has advantages, keeping your staff away from the typical office environment for an extended period will have a negative impact.
The managers must take the necessary actions to maintain the team’s spirit. Team building exercises are the best method for doing so.
Keep reading this article to find remote employees’ best virtual team-building activities.
1. Virtual Coffee Break
Who doesn’t like to grab a cup of coffee and engage in an interesting conversation with their colleagues? I guess no one.
Coffee breaks are a great way to enhance the professional relationship between your employees. Such breaks also allow the employees to de-stress themselves and bounce back with great productivity.
This activity aims to bridge the communication gap between your remote employees.
As a starting point, incorporate virtual coffee breaks into your online team-building exercises. You can treat these breaks as informal team meetings over a conference call and allow your employees to engage in a random conversation with their colleagues.
2. Speak Your Heart Out
One of the best activities a manager can arrange for the employees, whether they are nearby or not, is talking with one another. Active participation via video conferencing is required, as is your staff’s willingness to impart their knowledge to others about various topics.
You can ask your staff to submit the subject they want to discuss with their peers before you start. Afterwards, you can choose a few submissions at random and ask the staff to share them with others the following day. Activities such as these will encourage your employees to learn new things and respect each other.
3. Play a Fun Quiz
This activity aims to encourage the spirit of learning amongst the employees.
The fast-paced nature of this activity encourages participants to display their competitive nature. Playing a quiz on a topic will challenge all team members to give their best and win whatever is up for grabs.
Depending on your preferences, you can prepare questions on sports, movies, culture, geography, and many others.
The one who wins the quiz will get a secret gift hamper. Fun, huh? Go ahead and start a team quiz right away.
4. Conduct a Meeting over Lunch
Socializing with coworkers is crucial for fostering positive working relationships and improving relationships between your employees. One important thing your employees miss while working from different locations is lunch with their team members. You could ensure that the employees working from home do not feel left out by inviting them to lunch.
You can organize meetings over lunch via a video conference call. This will boost morale among your staff members when they get together for lunch and even virtually talk about pressing issues or engage in lighthearted conversations. Initiate it from today to keep holdings, such as frequently meeting so that your remote team members feel connected.
5. Crack the Code
It would help if you considered brainstorming-intensive activities when planning any team-building program.
Most employees now spend most of their time in front of their computers working on the tasks given to them. You can break this chain by asking the staff to crack any code or figure out a puzzle or problem.
This exercise is meant to inspire creative thinking and idea implementation among your team members.
As a manager, you don’t need to worry about creating special problems for each team; instead, you can give each team a difficult code and ask them to crack it in a certain amount of time. Any team or team member that can crack the code will be awarded a respectable prize.
Closing Thoughts
Working remotely can be isolating, unfulfilling, and unproductive, or it can be the opposite. The team members can converse through virtual team-building exercises, leading to a more beneficial outcome.
Benefits of virtual team building activities include improved team collaboration, better internal communication, happier remote workers, job satisfaction, building team culture, and improved public relations.
Organizations that invest in virtual team-building activities have more creative, communicative, and productive workforces, which is a huge competitive advantage.