Virtual Team Building Activities: Employee Engagement During Remote Work

Nothing beats a united and motivated team. Within an organization, it's altogether more essential to have teams with a sense of unity and a common aim. However, the purpose of cohesion is somewhat lost in these testing times of COVID-19. Hence, we discuss some virtual team-building activities to smartly engage with your employees.

Employees working remotely are cut off from their colleagues, which has broken the bond that brings together a team and motivates them to work together. 

A virtual team-building effort could bring colleagues closer and impart in them the feeling of shared identity and unity. You can quickly achieve this by leveraging the power of purpose and vision and by planning interactive activities revolving around these sentiments.

Carefully planned virtual team-building activities enhance communication between the participants and drive them to collaborate to improve performance and productivity. Moreover, it reinforces the importance of shared effort and team identity.

Virtual Team Building: What Is it?

As in all team-building initiatives, the goal here is to bring teams together but through virtual means. This way, they learn to collaborate on new challenges and become even more productive together in the professional environment. These virtual team-building events are aimed at the well-being of the employees too. 

The activities are shared in a fun way which helps to release tension. Intimate, friendly, and warm virtual team building allows corporations to increase interpersonal confidence among employees. Moreover, it encourages sharing real collaboration and strengthens the bonds of the team.

Why Should You Encourage Virtual Team Building Activities?

Like the smart way of working that is spreading thanks to the ever-advancing technological means, even the classic team-building methods have to evolve to the current scenario. 

Following the rampage of COVID-19, employees worldwide have to adjust to the new norms of lockdown and social distancing. Working from home does provide safety and convenience but also makes employees distant from their colleagues. 

Lack of a professional environment and a sense of connectivity has an adverse effect on productivity. Moreover, involving and maintaining the relationships within a team working unaltered is vital to preserving the solidity of a company. 

Virtual team-building can potentially help employers instill the feeling of competence and team spirit. Virtual team-building imparts the confidence of cohesion and instills a sense of belonging.

Are you ready to learn some engaging and exciting virtual team-building ideas? This post features some exciting virtual team-building games and activities which you can implement to boost confidence and team spirit in your remote and distributed workforce.

Ice Breakers For Events

Ice breakers events are an intelligent way of removing communication blockage between remote employees. These are activities you can plan at the start of the day. 

A simple video conference at the start of the day where employees greet each other and ask about well-being can be a great way of bonding and boosting team spirit. 

You can plan several exciting events at the start of every workday to act as an ice breaker. It will help nullify the awkwardness that is generally present at the beginning of the work meeting and make employees comfortable and more open to collaboration.

 4 Virtual Team Building Activities And Games

Virtual team building activities and games bring together the whole team to collaborate and achieve a set target. It helps the team realize the importance of working together, sharing ideas and suggestions, and moving together to achieve the goal. Here are some great examples;

1. Virtual Tour

Gather your team for a virtual tour of a famous place. You can arrange this online event, and your remote team can easily participate virtually from the comfort of their home. 

To make this activity more interesting, you can set questionnaires about understanding names and places shown in the virtual tour. This activity will encourage healthy competition, strengthening individual and group self-esteem.

2. Virtual Scavenger Hunt

Nothing can be more exciting than a virtual Scavenger Hunt for a team-building activity. It engages all the team members at all competing levels. The team comes together for fun and interactive sessions and works together to solve the clues. 

The thrill, the fun, and the excitement create a perfect cocktail for a very engaging virtual team-building activity. There are several apps available for a multiplayer virtual scavenger hunt. With a quick install, your team members can immerse themselves in an exciting experience of solving puzzles and working clues.

3. Virtual Crime Mystery

Just like scavenger Hunt, virtual crime mystery games can be a fun way of engaging your team and bring a sense of cohesion and unity. Participants can be divided into groups and provided different clues to build their case and find the culprit.

 The game helps stimulate collective reasoning and pushes team members to apply out-of-the-box thinking. It could be a very engaging brainstorming session that can give a significant boost to the virtual team-building effort.

4. The Escape Room

It's been a hot favorite for an immersive virtual team-building event. It's an online team game that is thrilling and filled with wow moments. The online virtual mystery game is a fun way to engage your team that challenges their mental capacity. 

It pushes them for better communication and team effort to come out as winners. You can easily set up the whole environment through a live feed of the room and a simple video call. 

Your team will communicate with each other and guide the game host to apply the ideas and suggestions and escape the room. The game allows a fun-filled opportunity to improve the spirit of collaboration and team effort.

Use Confetti for Interactive Virtual Team Building Ideas

Confetti is an online platform that helps you plan hundreds of interactive virtual team-building events. However, it's a paid platform, but the value you get is worth the price. 

Sign-up is free, and once you are inside, you have dozens of interactive ideas to work upon and customize according to your likings. Confetti is very popular amongst corporations. Facebook, Amazon Adobe, and many other big names regularly use Confetti to plan and organize their virtual team-building events.

Conclusion 

The biggest issue associated with remote working is that employees feel disconnected if they don't receive proper attention from their managers or colleagues. Therefore, to keep this in check, organizing virtual team-building activities from time to time becomes essential. 

The virtual team-building activities discussed above provide you a way to fill the gap and bring your remote employees closer. However, there's another way to ensure employee happiness: Plum offers them an excellent group health insurance policy.