Remote Team Building Activities: Engaging Remote Employees

Boost Employee Wellbeing and Team Morale

Team building engages employees in their work. Businesses need to invest in team building for remote employees to boost morale and overall wellbeing. Now more than ever before, businesses need to prioritize the happiness and mental health of workers.

They should feel supported by the company they work with, and they should know their employer is invested in their health. This support will help keep morale stable even in the most tumultuous of times.

Engaging Remote Employees Increases Productivity

Productivity improves when employee engagement improves. A team that is engaged and has learned to work well together is able to get more done more quickly. Team building activities help build trust between workers, which means faster, more efficient decision making. It also means fewer misunderstandings and miscommunications that can get in the way of productive workflows.

Attract and Retain Talent

Employee turnover is a huge expense that you may be able to avoid by investing in a team building strategy. Prioritizing team building brings your team closer together and illustrates that an employer cares about the wellbeing of the individuals they employ. Employees who are part of an effective team that trusts and understands each other are less likely to look for employment elsewhere. 

Become the company that everyone wants to work for. Your employees will talk about their experience, and the more positive that gossip is, the better your talent pool will be next time you need to hire.

Tough to Coordinate Remote Schedules

When employees work remotely, their schedules become more flexible. This allows each individual to work and take breaks when it best suits their work habits; unfortunately, that means it can be difficult to coordinate team building activities for remote employees.

To manage a variety of schedules, ensure you plan any mandatory team building activities with plenty of advance notice. Make your optional activities occur at different times to accommodate various schedules, and always ask your team what works best for them. You can create a Doodle calendar that allows employees to vote for their preferred date and time to ensure you choose what works for everyone or, at the very least, the vast majority.

Team Building for Remote Teams Relies on WiFi and Tech

Technology is the savior of remote work, but it’s also the demise. Remote teams have to rely completely on WiFi, software, and technological devices in order to function properly, and that applies to any remote team building activities as well.

Provide as much assistance as you can to your employees to ensure they have adequate internet and equipment. No matter how much you do to prevent technical downtime, it’s inevitable. At some point, something will go wrong—a lost connection, slow streaming speed, or a broken device. Be patient and work through it as a team. Consider it all part of the team building exercise.

Virtual Lunch and Learns

Lunch and learns foster creativity and improve technical skills across your team. They may be designed for traditional office environments, but there’s no reason why you can’t use the same concept for remote teams. You can run virtual lunch and learns that bring your team together for an extended video conference lunch. Set a specific topic—ideally, chosen by your team—and begin learning together.

Lunch and learn topics might include learning about:

• Writing
• Public speaking
• Drawing
• Excel spreadsheet tips and tricks
• How to run effective meetings
• Design thinking
• Wellness
• Photoshop
• Diversity in the workplace
• Managing personal budgets

Use the resources you already have built into your team. Ask if anyone has specialized knowledge or skills that they would be willing to share over a lunch and learn. 

💡 Read our Guide on How to Host a Lunch and Learn.

Virtual Conferences

Today’s technology makes it possible to attend conferences from anywhere in the world, with some conferences providing virtual access to live talks and recorded events at no cost. Remote teams can participate in conferences that are completely virtual to keep up with industry trends and network with like-minded professionals and businesses. 

Give your employees time to participate in a virtual conference together, or have one employee participate who relays a Zoom summary to the larger team.

DiSC Personality Test

Personality tests help teams better understand each other. They look at what makes each employee different to illustrate the unique strengths of each team member. The DiSC personality test seeks to enable greater connection and communication between individuals and teams. The more you know about how your teammates work, the more effectively you can communicate with them. 

💡 Learn more about the DiSC personality test and why we choose it at Blue Summit.

Enneagrams at Work

Enneagrams help people better understand themselves and those around them. When employees understand their own strengths and weaknesses, they are able to work more effectively on their own and with a team. Completing and analyzing Enneagrams in the workplace can improve communication and mitigate conflict. 

💡 Learn more about the different types of Enneagrams and what they mean in the workplace.

Two Truths and a Lie

Quick team building exercises are an ideal way to get everyone comfortable before a meeting begins, and they help ensure tech is working properly before you get down to business. Two truths and a lie is a quick little game that can break the ice at the start of any meeting. To play, say three statements about yourself, and ask your team to do the same. Two of the statements will be actual things that have happened to you, and one will be a lie. Once someone says their three statements, everyone else has the job of deciding which statement is false.

Rock Paper Scissors

You may not be right in front of your teammates, but that doesn’t mean you can’t engage in a light rock paper scissors competition. At the beginning of a meeting, pair off and play rock paper scissors until you are left with one tournament winner. It may be challenging to coordinate timing for this game, but the practice will ensure all of your audio and visual tech are up to speed before the real meeting begins.

Leave Your Grievances

Promote mindfulness before a Zoom meeting by getting everyone to write down any grievances they have in that moment on a piece of paper. What’s bothering you today? Did anything go wrong so far? Are you worried about anything coming up? Did your child or pet wake you up early this morning? Big or small, write down what’s on your mind. If a few people want to share with the group, they can, but don’t make this mandatory. After everyone is done, have each person rip up the paper, cathartically leaving those grievances behind for at least the duration of the meeting.

Zoom Dress Up Days

It doesn’t have to all be about learning. Look for creative ways to engage employees virtually. If your team is interested, set dress up themes for your Zoom meetings. Halloween is the perfect opportunity for this, but you don’t need to wait until October 31st.

Dress up days could include:

• Pajama day
• Halloween in the summer
• Birthday party theme for a team member’s birthday
• A color to support a cause (Ex. green for the environment or blue for bullying awareness)
• Rainbow day (LGBTQ+ support)

Bring Your Pet to Zoom Days

This idea is Larry’s favorite! 🐶 Did you ever wish you could bring your pet to work with you? If you work remotely, this has already become a daily reality and dream come true. Bringing your pets to a Zoom meeting (or the start of one) will let all of those pet-loving employees ogle and awe over each other's fluffy, scaly, or feathery pals.

Virtual Escape Rooms

With the rise of remote work comes the rise of virtual escape rooms. You may remember participating in an escape room with a group of friends or colleagues in the past; now, you can have a similar experience online. Escape rooms offer numerous fun team building activities for remote employees since there are so many virtual rooms to choose from. 

Virtual Escape Rooms:

• The Escape Game
• Mystery Escape Room
• Wildly Different Virtual Escape Rooms
• Puzzle Break Escape Rooms
• Escape Experience Virtual Escape Rooms

Virtual escape rooms bring a team together around a common goal outside of the typical workplace problem. They foster critical thinking, decision making, and collaboration, all while giving employees a chance to think about something other than work.