Virtual Team Building: 16 Great Ideas to Boost Employee Engagement
In today’s remote work environment, keeping teams connected and employees engaged it’s more important than ever, but it can be challenging. Virtual team building activities offer creative ways to promote remote team engagement, enhance communication, and boost morale.
From virtual happy hours to online workshops, these activities can help maintain a strong team spirit and ensure everyone feels part of the community. Let’s explore why virtual team building is important and what are some of the events you can promote to boost employee engagement.
Why Virtual Team Building is Essential
In an effort to save money, many companies might think that team building activities are a waste of resources, especially when we talk about remote teams. However, there are plenty of reasons why remote team engagement activities are essential to building lasting connections with your employees.
Let’s dive right into them.
Strengthening Trust
Trust is the cornerstone of swift and effective collaboration, particularly in high-stakes situations. Initiatives like virtual games and interactive sessions pave the way for establishing and nurturing this trust, leading to enhanced performance and quality.
Enhancing Communication Skills
Effective communication is the underpinning of successful sales, marketing, and even internal operations across different departments. By fostering virtual camaraderie, we cultivate an environment where communication flourishes.
Reinforcing Organizational Culture
The importance of company culture is universal. Especially in fast-growing teams, ensuring that the company’s core values are constantly reinforced prevents potential cultural erosion.
Boosting Employee Engagement, Retention and Satisfaction
The significance of recognizing and appreciating employees cannot be emphasized enough. Recognition can manifest in various forms, from awards to acknowledging personal milestones. Such gestures prevent feelings of isolation and play a crucial role in talent retention.
Community Building
Communities are all about connections. When you allow your employees to bond beyond their daily activities, you offer them an opportunity to connect in new ways with their peers, growing a sense of belonging and enhancing employee engagement.
The easiest way to host events and enable conversations is through a centralized community engagement hub, where you can concentrate all valuable information and allow employees to interact with each other, even after the event is through.
16 Ideas for Virtual Team Building Events
Embarking on virtual team building can be both simple and effective, depending on which tools you choose to host these kinds of meetings. There are now many no-code alternatives that can offer a seamless experience for both organizers and attendees, and, if you’re not sure which one suits you best, take a look at our guide to the top 10 virtual conference platforms.
As for virtual team building strategies, you can start small, with modest activities that help your team familiarize themselves with the format. Once you get comfortable, you can explore several creative and engaging events.
Below, you’ll find 16 remote team engagement ideas, ranging from simple to more complex events. These activities are designed to foster collaboration, enhance communication, and build stronger relationships within your remote team.
1) Introducing Virtual Icebreakers
An effortless way to embark on this journey is to weave icebreakers into routine virtual meetings, such as All-Hands Meetings, especially when there are new team members. Occasional exercises like “Two Truths and a Lie” or “Would You Rather” questions can set a relaxed and engaging tone for discussions.
2) Trivia Challenges
Trivia games are an excellent tool for fostering team spirit and knowledge sharing. Tailoring questions around company updates or general knowledge can spur participation and bonding.
3) Virtual Scavenger Hunts
This is a playful way to get team members to share a slice of their personal lives, from household items to tech gadgets. For more intricate events, virtual scavenger hunt apps like Let’s Roam or Scavify can be a game-changer.
4) Engage in Online Games
For those pressed for time, online games can be a quick-fix solution. Platforms like Skribbl or CardsMania can be an excellent starting point. To ensure an interactive gaming experience, Arena Live Chat can be seamlessly integrated, offering real-time communication capabilities.
5) Virtual Celebrations for Employee Recognition
Dedicating time during meetings to spotlight achievements or milestones, both professional and personal, can significantly boost morale and foster community feeling.
6) Host Virtual Happy Hours
Traditional bonding over drinks can be virtualized, where team members join from the comfort of their homes. Gift cards can incentivize participation, ensuring a relaxed and informal atmosphere.
7) Virtual Executive Socials
Creating a platform for informal interactions between executives and employees can break hierarchical barriers and foster mutual respect and understanding.
8) Weekly Sharing Sessions
Encourage team members to share valuable resources, be it apps, websites, or books, enhancing the collective knowledge pool and encouraging innovation.
9) Randomized Virtual Coffee Chat
Want to foster individual connections within your team? You can do this without any intricate tech or virtual team building platforms. This concept mirrors the day-to-day interactions that make workplace dynamics lively. You merely shuffle participants’ names and pair them up.
10) Virtual Fitness Quest
Warm seasons call for outdoor activities. A month-long fitness challenge can be the nudge for colleagues to embrace health targets. Utilize an honor code for activity tracking and let everyone share their progress.
Kickstart this by rallying fitness enthusiasts who can act as influencers within their teams and organize incentives for those who complete the quest. Conclude with a virtual gathering showcasing photos, and videos, and applauding top performers.
11) Online Cycling Expeditions
This mirrors the fitness quest, but it focuses on biking. It resonates especially if situated in bike-friendly cities, and it can even be paired with a sustainability initiative for your business. Perhaps, enlist a biking professional to share insights and increase employee engagement.
12) Digital Summer Festivities
Revel in the spirit of a summer cookout, virtually. Consider:
- Scheduling nuances, since summer months are prime for leave.
- Geographical considerations. Ensure the theme caters to the majority.
- Personalize the theme. If mainstream holidays don’t resonate, label it something generic like “Online Summer Soiree”.
13) Online Cooking Classes
Many of your employees might have a keen interest in home cooking, as well as sharing their favorite dishes and, of course, learning new recipes. An online cooking class is the perfect opportunity to gather colleagues to expand their repertoire and engage with each other while doing so.
14) Engage a Role-playing Game
Expert Board games like online Dungeons & Dragons are surging as team cohesion tools. While lengthy and intricate, professionals can streamline the experience, ensuring a blend of entertainment and team bonding.
15) Online Language Immersion Sessions
Got a multicultural workforce? This could be your ace. From spotlighting a specific language on a relevant holiday to consistent weekly sessions, the camaraderie from learning together is irreplaceable.
16) Digital Corporate Literature Circles
Cultivate a reading and learning culture within your team. Suggest employees list top business reads and consider roping in the authors for an interactive session. Even if that’s unfeasible, an engaging discussion on a practical business book can be enlightening.
How to Prepare for Virtual Team Building Events
Besides choosing the theme for your internal event and setting a date, there are some steps you need to follow in order to have a great virtual employee engagement event. Here’s a practical breakdown:
1. Choose a platform that enables you to easily create an event, preferably with an integrated live chat.
2. Do a breakdown of the event specifics. Organize the agenda, see if there are any specialists, teachers or speakers that should be brought in, and plan the pre and post-event marketing strategy.
3. Announce the event 30 days beforehand to promote internally and gather attendees. Don’t forget to send sporadic reminders to your team across your internal channels.
4. Partner with internal influencers and leaders who can advocate for the event among peers to raise awareness about the initiative.
5. Host the event, taking note of how employees are reacting to the content that is being brought to them.
6. After the event, solicit attendees’ opinions to understand what they enjoyed, and cross that information with the internal data you have available.
Optimize Your Digital Event with Prime Tools
Hosting virtual team building events is essential for growing employee engagement and fostering a strong community, even when team members are physically distant. By investing in regular virtual events, companies can ensure their remote teams remain motivated, engaged, and united, ultimately driving better performance and satisfaction.
Arena Community and Live Chat are invaluable tools for facilitating virtual team building. They provide real-time communication and interaction, making it easy to host engaging activities and keep your remote team connected. With these tools, you can seamlessly organize and manage events that bring your team together, create a sense of connection and belonging, promote collaboration, and boost morale.