Plan events and activities that cater to different interests and lifestyles. Most importantly, create an environment where everyone feels welcome and valued. As we explore how to incorporate family members into virtual gatherings, we’ll see how these practices can make online socials more inclusive and engaging.
The great thing is that you can instantly visualize everyone’s opinion and display the results in real-time to the group. It helps your participants to feel engaged, which is especially important for larger remote teams. It works really well on mobile devices with a streamlined user experience and the free version allows you to create two polls and five quiz questions per presentation. One of the main purposes of any workshop is to align the participants around a common goal or purpose. Successful workshops help a team collect their Fanfills thoughts and come to a consensus on how to move forward. Open communication is more difficult to facilitate, with cross-talking or an unwillingness to speak up in a remote meeting often cropping up.
You can also organize virtual team-building activities that promote collaboration and camaraderie. You can do this during working hours, with a small ice breaker game in conference calls. Alternatively, you could set up team building games that can be played over a longer time, and keep a scoreboard in Slack. Remote team building activities rely heavily on technology, which means that technical issues can arise unexpectedly. Whether it’s problems with video conferencing software, internet connectivity issues, or compatibility issues with different devices, technical difficulties can disrupt the flow of activities and frustrate team members.
Host Company Cribs
Much of the business of an organisation takes place between pairs of people. These interactions can be positive and developing or frustrating and destructive. You can improve them using simple methods, providing people are willing to listen to each other. Team empathy is a vital ingredient of good team work though whatever the size of your organization, it can sometimes be difficult to walk in the shoes of others and see things from other perspectives.
- Finally, our research speaks to the importance of continued dialogue and research on community engaged-facilitation.
- While different viewpoints and perspectives are useful in many situations, it’s also vital that everyone is aligned on team purpose and vision.
- These activities not only inject fun and excitement into the workday but also offer a plethora of benefits that contribute to a stronger, more cohesive remote team.
- Some aspects of the online workshop will be exactly the same as the one you run in the flesh, whereas others simply take too long or require rethinking to be effective in an online setting.
With more employees working remotely, creating structured, engaging activities that foster connection, collaboration, and a strong company culture becomes essential. These activities ensure that remote workers feel valued, aligned with the company’s mission, and connected to their colleagues. Team-building activities are vital for creating trust, strengthening relationships, and improving communication within remote teams. When employees work remotely, team-building fosters connection and collaboration while breaking down physical and virtual barriers.
A participatory researcher and co-author, rubén reflected on the spatial qualities of in-person workshops where youth “can sort of roam, and when they can go up and down the stairs, or, when there’s a kind of dynamic. And that actually allows for a certain kind of collaborative energy to emerge. First, drawing on Gaztambide-Fernández and Matute (2013), we understand pedagogy as an inherently relational and ethical process, driven by practitioners’ desires and intentions (both conscious and unconscious). In other words, pedagogy refers to how community-engaged practitioners think through and enact ethical commitments in their facilitation practice. Here, engagement is neither a technocratic means to an end (e.g., we ‘engaged’ a community in order to), nor a fixed state (e.g., they were engaged). Since you only have a screen width to do virtual team building activities, sometimes it calls for a little creativity.
The difference between theoretical engagement activities and effective ones shows up in measurable outcomes. Their engagement score increased from 34% (July 2023) to 73% (2025), a 114% improvement demonstrating how consistent, diverse engagement activities compound over time. Real-time video chat virtual team-building activities are a fantastic way to promote team bonding and collaboration. Unlike with in-office team-building activities, remote team members can show up to a virtual activity without actually participating. This can happen with more introverted employees who may be all too happy to let other colleagues take the lead. When it comes to remote team building, you’ll need to think outside of the box to ensure your employees can bond.
At Matter, we understand the challenges leaders face in keeping remote employees engaged while navigating the ever-evolving world of remote work. Managing teams across different cities, time zones, or continents can feel overwhelming, especially when maintaining a sense of connection, collaboration, and belonging. Professional platforms provide themed scenarios ranging from mystery solving to space missions.
Themed Virtual Social Events
The physical distance between workers can soon lead to feeling separated entirely, which can leave remote employees feeling unsupported and disconnected from those they work with. Regularly engaging in these activities helps reinforce a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive work environment, even in a remote setting, ultimately leading to higher employee satisfaction and retention. Maintaining high team morale and engagement during remote team building activities is essential but can be challenging. Remote team building activities can enhance a team’s adaptability by exposing employees to diverse perspectives and problem-solving approaches.
We have bonded over potato competitions, trivia, remote work struggles, goats, goal setting, and so much more. Finding the silver lining during these times and planning fun activities have strengthened our team in so many ways and is setting an even stronger foundation for our future. Donut can start the conversation for you and also checks in to make sure meetings happen.
Engaging remote employees is no longer optional—it’s essential for building a thriving, connected, and productive workforce. As remote work becomes a permanent fixture in many organizations, leaders must prioritize initiatives that foster connection, recognition, and well-being across their teams. When teams bond over shared experiences, they’re more likely to communicate effectively, work seamlessly together, and feel a greater sense of connection to the company and each other.
Lunch and learn sessions combine professional development with the natural mid-day break, making learning feel less like added work burden. These minute virtual sessions cover topics relevant to team members’ professional growth. Two-minute wins sharing creates space at the start or end of team meetings for members to highlight recent accomplishments—their own or a colleague’s. These moments build a culture of appreciation while keeping everyone informed about team progress. An e-commerce firm insisted on daily virtual standups and weekly game sessions, causing growing resentment as teams found the volume unmanageable. The schedule was revised to bi-weekly themed sessions rotating fun and work-related topics, with some meetings replaced by asynchronous check-ins.
Host this last thing on a Friday, so it’s still technically in work (albeit at the very end) and ensures that all members of the team are around to socialise. This really helps to bring the whole team together and feel proud and excited about the company they work for. When you’re not together in person, the all-important elements of good communication, support, joint goals and, of course, fun, can get lost. Content Strategist with 3+ years covering HR technology, employee engagement, and survey methodology, translating people science research into guidance for HR leaders and teams.