7 Best Ideas for Remote Team Building activities

The company leaders are the ones making the decisions, but the employees are the ones who make the wheel go ‘round.
They do the daily work necessary to make any company successful, and these employees do their best in the environment they’re in.

In the world, as we knew it, your employees met each other every day and had no other option but to communicate. The bounding, while they were working together, improves overall office productivity.  But, now with the pandemic, a huge percent of the companies went online, so this interaction isn’t possible anymore, at least not as often as before. This is why you have to think of ways of how to make your employees feel like a team again and how to build their team chemistry through the internet?

Team building activities are one of the best ways of reconnecting colleagues and making them bond in a funny and creative way.
These activities will show employees that even though they can’t see their colleagues, they are on the other side of their screen. It will make them feel like they’re part of a community.

And why this is so important?
The essence is in small things, so why not make the working environment harmonious and productive. Good team chemistry is one of the top factors on that and it is worth all the time and resources you put into creating it, especially for your remote employees.

So how to know which activities are the best for your team?
In choosing a team-building activity for your team, you have to know your business and take into consideration your employee's possibilities -  ask yourself are all in the same time zone, what time of the day is the best to do this, during work time or maybe during the weekends?

Always use a video conferencing platform.  A recent study showed that 87% of remote employees are more connected to their teammates while they are on a video call, so, use Adobe Connect, bring your employees together in the same meeting room and push the start button on.

(Our recommendation would be to use Adobe Connect Meetings or Adobe Captivate Prime as a solution)

After you set all these things, don't forget to think of your employee's personalities. This is crucial for the success of team-building activities. Inform them before, check their reaction, see if there is a good environment for it.

These are the top 7 ideas for team-building activities with which you can easily engage and bound your employees again

Build a story

Who doesn't love a good story?
This game is one of the oldest and most fun games. The best part is that you are not limited on subjects at all,  the only thing you need is a good meeting platform and creativeness.

Here are the steps you should follow:
Create a meeting room, invite all your employees there, and start the process - the youngest or 'freshest' employee starts the game with an opening sentence. Here you can define the subject or just leave it to the creativity of your team.
So, the first person starts with an opening sentence and one that follows but is not completed. For example -  Rosie woke up this morning enjoying the wonderful view outside her window. Suddenly her phone rang...

The next one in a row completes the previous sentence and continues with his own incomplete sentence.  This way, each employee contributes until everyone has had a turn. The aim is to develop a comprehensive story structure by the end of the game! Not only does building a storyline force teams to use their creativeness, but it also helps them listen to each other and improve team cooperation.

Personal facts

The personal facts game is a great way to learn your employee's interests outside of work.

Here are the steps you should follow:
In the first step, the manager or one of the colleagues asks each team member to share some personal facts with them.
These facts will then be written into a document that’s shared with each individual in the team.
Next to each personal fact, there’s an empty column where each employee will have to guess which team member the fact belongs to!

Not only can this ice breaker game be hilarious, but it is a great way to develop successful team cohesion.
Once all the guesses have been submitted, an answer key will be provided so that team members can see how well they guessed. This activity can take place in a meeting room where you can use all the pods that Adobe Connect provides. 
The facilitator will have the whiteboard opened on their computer and will share their screen while employees try to guess the answers. As each answer is guessed, the facilitator can follow along, putting answers into the empty column.

Read my lips

Read My Lips is a quick and easy game.
It relieves stress and promotes interaction between employees in a funny way.

Here are the steps you should follow:
Create a meeting room, invite all your employees there, and start the process - One player mutes their microphone and turns on their camera. The other participants will choose a topic, and the selected player will read out a sentence or say a word. Everyone else has a minute or two to guess what they’re saying. Whoever guesses the right words gets the point.
You keep going until the allocated time for the activity is over. In the end, the three people with the most points can get a reward. The award should be a group activity, such as tickets to an online concert.

Chat over lunch

This activity is a great team-building exercise for employees with packed schedules.
Organize virtual lunch dates during break times where workers can talk to each other over coffee or lunch. This replicates lunchtime in an office where workers typically go to a cafe together or just get together to eat. They can share what they eat for breakfast or lunch, share some recipes or advice for healthy eating or just talk about some nonworking things.
Create a meeting room, invite all your employees there, and enjoy the date you have with your colleagues. You can practices this even once or twice a week.  The only tool you’ll need is a video conferencing platform and a willing remote team.

Virtual scavenger hunt

A virtual scavenger hunt is entirely customizable for your work environment and time limit.
Pick an easy-to-find object such as basic office supplies (sticky notes, a black pen, etc.) and set a time limit of 2 minutes.

Create a meeting room, invite all your employees there, and display the list of chosen objects through the screen sharing feature. The winner is the first person to get all the objects and display them in front of their camera.

Not only is this activity fun, but it will push your remote team to interact with each other. And if they already know each other from before the pandemic, they can cheer for the participants or try to confuse them by mixing up with the objects that need to be found. However, it's fun.

Icebreakers

Icebreakers are a great way to get to know someone.
And if your team isn’t familiar with each other, this is a great activity to start off with.
Create a meeting room, invite all your employees there and create a list with questions as a starting point, and then use the conversation as inspiration for questions.
You can use some of these questions: What is one thing you are looking forward to doing when you retire?

What movie can you watch over and over again?
If you could only pick three foods to eat for a month, which foods would you choose?
If you could be reincarnated as any animal, what would you be?
If you could tour with any band, which band would you choose?
What’s the best vacation you have ever taken?
Camping. Love it or hate it?
What’s your favorite time of day: morning, afternoon, evening, or late night?

The purpose of an icebreaker session is to get your team to learn more about each other. So keep it as informal as possible and try to ask impromptu questions. If, at any point, the questions dissolve into a back and forth between employees, don’t interrupt; they’re bonding.

A peek into each other’s homes

This virtual team-building exercise requires team members to virtually open their homes to one another.
Don't forget that you have to inform them before so that you are assured that some strange situations will be avoided. Still, the home is an extremely private part of our living so please be careful with this game. But on the other hand is one of the funniest and most interesting games for team boxing.

Create a meeting room, invite all your employees there, and enjoy. Each team member will have a minute or two of showing off their home and some of their favorite things there. This activity allows team members to get to know one another on a more personal basis and can lead to cohesiveness.
This fun game may be better suited for smaller teams, but it’s still a great team-building exercise for any team looking to get the process started.

Don't forget that the building of team chemistry in remote employees is a challenging task. However, it can be done. So the few things listed above are the best way for you to get there. The activities are easy to plan, relieve stress, and get employees to engage with each other which is the main aim of each team-building activity. 

NOTE: Connect Innovation, from the other side, provides online courses for each and any kind of user of Adobe Connect, no matter if you are experienced, or you just started to use Adobe Connect.
We can assure you that our online courses will make the usage of AC easy and simple. They will improve your knowledge and give you the opportunity to get your meeting host certificate in the easiest way possible.
Our courses are available in all Nordic languages and English language as well. Check our courses here