This leads to a more cohesive team that works together with integrity and understanding. In this short exercise, a group must count up to a certain number, taking turns in a random order, with no two people speaking at the same time. The task is simple, however, it takes focus, calm and awareness to succeed.
Virtual Code Break
Your session timing adjusts automatically as you make changes and when you’re done, you can share a beautiful printout with your colleagues and participants. Either checking-in or checking-out is a simple way for a team to open or close a process, symbolically and in a collaborative way. Checking-in/out invites each member in a group to be present, seen and heard, and to express a reflection or a feeling. Checking-in emphasizes presence, focus and group commitment; checking-out emphasizes reflection and symbolic closure.
Invite collaborators and co-facilitators to work on the workshop plan in real-time and share PDFs of your agenda with the participants. You can also adjust your workshop plan in real-time and see how going over in one section can affect the timings of the rest of the day. By keeping your notes, materials, links, and agenda all in one place, you can help ensure the smooth running of any online workshop or meeting.
Gallup found 25% of fully remote employees report feeling lonely at work—nearly double the rate of on-site peers. Virtual team activities fill that gap by creating shared moments that teammates can reference later—the kind of experiences that turn coworkers into actual colleagues who know each other. Keeping skills current matters for employee engagement and organizational competitiveness. Virtual escape rooms translate the popular in-person experience into collaborative digital problem-solving.
Over two-thirds of workers aged have struggled to make friends and maintain professional relationships while working remotely. For maximum impact, schedule these regularly with 1-2 team members sharing each month, creating an ongoing connection point the team looks forward to. Assign someone with theatrical flair to be the game host, complete with exaggerated game show host mannerisms. The familiar format combined with company-specific content creates an immediately engaging experience. During your next video conference, play portions of the songs and have contributors explain their choices. The stories behind music selections often reveal surprising insights about colleagues’ personalities and experiences.
- Smaller teams can learn more about each other’s roles and routines through day-in-the-life sessions.
- Asynchronous communication and collaboration tools are key factors of any remote team, but there is enormous value in real-time workshops that are expertly facilitated.
- A marketing team member might share content creation strategies, while someone from finance explains budgeting basics.
- Exercises and activities are part of the bread and butter of many workshops and group processes.
Maintaining Team Morale And Engagement
If you’re using collaboration tools, online whiteboards, or will be using resources in a shared Google Drive, ensure everyone has access before the meeting. Time wasted finding and sharing links in the meeting can be costly.It’s also worth noting that you need to be familiar with the tools you are using and take the time to have them all updated. Having to update mid-meeting can throw you off your groove as a facilitator and is something worth preparing for. Employee engagement platforms offer features that help onboard new team members effectively, providing them with the necessary information, resources, and support to integrate into the team seamlessly. Features like virtual team building games and virtual icebreakers can also help new team members feel welcome and connected from the start. The key to successful remote employee engagement activities lies in understanding your team’s unique needs, maintaining consistency, and focusing on inclusivity.
Trivia and knowledge-based games are ideal for challenging your employees’ memories while sharing a few laughs. DIY activities are free and flexible but require someone on your team to plan, facilitate, and keep energy high. Professionally hosted experiences handle logistics, materials, and facilitation so your team can participate without anyone playing organizer.
Schedule a 60-minute block and send the tour information to everyone beforehand so they can pull it up on their own screen. Assign a “tour guide” to lead the group through the museum and decide which exhibits to focus on. This person shares their screen and navigates while everyone follows along.
Work-life balance workshops give teams https://easternhoneys.org/ concrete strategies for managing the unique challenges of working from home. Platforms like Vantage Fit excel in activity and fitness challenge tracking, including steps, calories, and sleep, with integration to trackers like Fitbit and Apple Health. Make participation inclusive by offering multiple challenge types that accommodate different fitness levels. Mental health support can’t remain optional given that only 34% of employees report having meaningful mental health support from their employer, despite 43% reporting increased stress levels in 2024. Guided meditation and mindfulness sessions provide practical stress management tools.
Here’s the evidence-backed answer, including what behavioral science shows, what our own event data confirms, and the conditions that determine whether team building delivers or falls flat. This exciting, fast-paced virtual trivia game, packed with nostalgia and good vibes, is guaranteed to produce big laughs, friendly competition, and maybe even some chair-dancing. For teams new to the game, start with easier modes like Famous Places or a specific country. The world map can be brutally hard when you’re dropped in the middle of rural Mongolia with zero distinguishing features.
It’s very easy for someone to get mixed up on time and miss the start of the workshop. Lead by example, acknowledge the difficulty or strangeness, and move forward together. Once you and your organization have it down, remote working and online meetings can be effective for everyone – in the upskill and teething period, try and be kind and compassionate. Co-facilitating is a great way of splitting workload and bringing multiple skill sets to the table in a live or online workshop. That said, co-facilitating in an online setting certainly gets more complicated without the non-verbal cues one can have in a live setting.
Running courses or training for your remote team likely includes lots of asynchronous learning and the use of collaboration tools. Some online courses can be delivered entirely on-demand, with pre-recorded materials and training software. Asynchronous communication and collaboration tools are key factors of any remote team, but there is enormous value in real-time workshops that are expertly facilitated. You might even use a workshop template to save time and use a trusted process as the basis for such a session. Virtual facilitation means moving this process online and learning advanced techniques to ensure engagement and great outcomes – even when a group isn’t co-located.
Whether your team prefers white elephant style or something more thoughtful, you can pull off a gift exchange even if you’re not at an offsite. Start by copying this handy Trello board template and inviting your teammates to join. Instead of announcing what the gift is, you’ll add a card to the board with a picture and title that provides a hint. If people need to prepare something before arriving, make this explicit. Include a section on etiquette, technological requirements, and any other expectations you have. When it comes to documenting things, we also recommend taking notes during a session and where possible, using software to make this easier!
In an increasingly stressful environment of deadlines and meetings, it’s worth remembering the value of joy, play and simply have fun as a team. 9 Dimensions is a powerful activity designed to build relationships and trust among team members. Drag bingo is a new spin on a classic game, designed to get teams laughing together as much as they are competing with one another. This one is hosted virtually by an emcee with three decades of experience and who was the subject of a profile by The New York Times. Everyone’s got some level of competitiveness in them, especially if your team is largely sales-driven.
Settings in Zoom can be reconfigured ‘behind the scenes’ (e.g., the ability to rename oneself, or privately message others) in ways that shape the conditions for participation in online settings. These settings are initially determined by developers but can be clicked on or off by institutional or organizational administrators, and finally, practitioners (sometimes unknowingly). All influence how people can participate in an online space, thereby influencing care-taking, connection practices and community dynamics. Many commented on how the shift to working online or remotely encouraged them to think about space, place, and collaboration differently. The virtual environment can bring individuals and communities together across geographical distances, which might not otherwise be possible (or without significant cost).