Do you remember the fun games you used to play with your team on Fridays to break all the work pressure of the week and step into an exciting weekend? We all remember them as they were the best motivation for stepping down to the office with extra energy on Fridays, even after a long working week. But while imagining the good old days, did you just wish that you wanted it all over again?
Well, your wish just got granted. Even though we are working from home within our comfort zones and enjoying all the flexibilities of remote working, everyone needs a break. And what can be better than bringing in all those fun games in a virtual way with remote team building activities?
Yes, we have summarized and brought you some pretty inspiring and fun virtual team-building games (and not the regular ones that you must have scrolled through a hundred similar articles by now). To help you connect with your corporate mates sitting miles away from you.
But does including exciting games in corporate life hamper your company culture? The answer is a complete no. Indeed it just spreads a positive vibe within the employees and impressively helps them know each other better. Hence this leads to building great teams in the future even if you have not met each other personally.
So, that was just too much information and a little recap to take you back to your amazingly spent days in your traditional workplace. Now, let us just roll right in and check out some super fun and creative remote team-building activities that will help you connect with your team better.
REMOTE TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES
Before getting started, let us just look at some obvious factors that influence your plans for executing a game. There are times when all your employees are available and are willing to participate, and at times there is less time to include all the participants to continue the game for longer. And we understand the scenarios.
Hence, we will provide you with some innovative remote team building activities to implement. Indeed we have divided these games into various categories considering the time and employees involved only to make things more uncomplicated for you.
So, let us just get started with the first category.
QUICK REMOTE TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES
Less time-consuming and involves fewer participants.
1. THE 30 SECONDS PLANK CHALLENGE
Number of participants: 5–10 employees
Time duration: 5–10 minutes
Planks! Not easy as it seems but undoubtedly a lot of fun is included. Yes, the main objective of this challenge is to make your employees laugh a little louder and stay a little fitter. Well, you can begin by saying it is a super healthy game, but it will turn out hilarious once it gets started.
The instructions go like you have to ask your employees to do a plank straight for 30 seconds and click a picture through the online meeting applications. Put up these images in a chat and ask all your employees to vote for the best planker. Hence, the one who wins gets a surprise reward at the end.
2. I’M SO HAPPY TO BE A MEMER
Number of participants: 5–10 employees
Time duration: 10 minutes
Wherever you go, on social media sites or an interacting platform, there are memes all over the place. And we do love them. Then why not include them in a team-building activity? Undoubtedly we can.
Let me guide you on how you can implement this fun game in your upcoming Friday getaway. So, start by dividing the employees into a group of 02, or ask them to participate individually. Then, instruct them to check out any meme page and take some ideas from the same. Then, the best part is to craft an entertaining meme that describes the company or a sarcastic picture to tell all about their work from home experience.
And lastly, collect them all and put them up in a chat for other employees to vote for the most relevant one. Hence, you can find a good memer at your place.
Now, you must be wondering how quoting a meme helps remote employees. Well, the game is all about innovations. You can check who among your team is capable of sharing some innovative ideas. And later, you can include these employees while planning something creative for your upcoming projects.
3. MUSIC IS MY HAPPY PLACE
Number of participants: 10–15 employees
Time duration: 15–20 minutes
Music is so refreshing in itself, and it is always enjoyable to include songs in various challenges, but this game is all about the music itself. Everyone prefers to listen to songs, so why not make the best use of them now? Yes, take up a group of 10–15 employees and ask them to take up a few songs (you can decide the number, of course) and mention the same in the group.
Give your employees some time to listen to them, and memorize the name, lyrics, and most precisely, the artist. Here the fun part begins when you begin the challenge. So, randomly play a track and ask your employees to guess the song name, and artist name, or bring an add-on to figure out the lyrics too.
And by the end, you will have one such employee who is focused on a given task and unquestionably a good listener. And this employee can be one of the most productive employees of your organization. It will be fun to check who is sincere and who is not with this exciting music game.
LARGE GROUPS REMOTE TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES
Takes up nearly an hour and includes unlimited employees.
1. LET’S BREAK THE LANGUAGE BARRIER
Number of participants: Unlimited employees
Time duration: 30–45 minutes
The game we will be unfolding today is a great way to break those communication barriers within your global virtual team. If your organization has employees working from various parts of the world, there might be difficulty recognizing their language. Rather than misinterpreting the same every time, you can work on guessing what they exactly mean.
In this challenge, you need to ask your employees to mention 03 words or more according to your convenience and provide 03–04 options relating to the meaning of the same. Now, the other participants have to guess which word would perfectly fit the meaning of the relevant word. So simple yet so effective to embrace other languages and promote cross-cultural communication.
2. JUST KEEP MOVING WITH GIFS
Number of participants: Unlimited employees
Time duration: Ongoing
The games or challenges you conduct may not always have to showcase the employee’s skills. It can be for fun as well. And what can be more intriguing than creating a GIF considering a given situation? Well, our next remote team-building activity is all about that.
Here in this challenge, you need to provide a theme to your employees and ask them to create GIFs and post on a platform. The best one receiving the highest vote count wins the game. Also, this is an ongoing game. You can keep changing the theme every week and add more participants to join the contest.
3. WHERE’S THE VIRTUAL PARTY TONIGHT?
Number of participants: Unlimited employees
Time duration: An hour
Do you remember when you had an office party lately? Feels like ages ago, correct? But when the situation is not permitting us to have a party together, nothing can stop us from having a virtual one. Yes, if we can get on all the virtual games, then why not an office party?
It is pretty simple. If you have a genuine cause for celebrating the glory of your organization, then go all out, think of a perfect party theme and ask your employees to get dressed accordingly. Ask them to grab their favorite drink and snacks to enjoy the entire activity.
List out a few exciting games and line up a surprise award function too. Also, it must consist of categories beyond imagination (mostly the hilarious ones) and check who sweeps away most rewards.
REMOTE EMPLOYEE RECOGNITION TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES
Includes the entire organization and can last up to months.
1. BEST EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH AWARD
Number of participants: 5–500 employees
Time duration: Months
The employee of the year/ month is a moment for which all of us serve throughout the period. Also, this too can get included in remote team building activities. It helps you recognize your employees in front of the entire organization. Again it serves as a point of motivation for all the other employees.
The instructions are pretty simple. You only need to list down a few categories according to which the employees will get evaluated. And the most productive and efficient one will be receiving the employee of the month award.
Hence, this is one of the best ways to check employee activities and their effectiveness towards the job and projects. And the fun part here is your entire organization will be participating in the game.
2. EMOJI EXPRESSES HOW I FEEL TODAY
Number of participants: Unlimited employees
Time duration: 10 minutes
The last game we will be talking about is a way of building a healthy employer-employee relationship. Do you remember when you attended a meeting or so and your boss asked if everyone was feeling enthusiastic about a busy day at work? And it just reminded us of our responsibilities and assignments.
Well, we can do the same virtually too. Ask your employees to share an emoji that best describes the way they feel right now about working. The happy one is great, and if employers find someone confused or sad, talk to them and get their issues resolved.
MONITORING REMOTE TEAMS WITH EMPMONITOR
The amusing games are great for refreshing the employees towards the end of the week and giving them some fun time to forget their work pressure during the week offs. And this is all because employers are concerned about employee workloads throughout the week. That too from remote workplaces. Hence, it is necessary to track the employees to get an idea of the tasks they perform every day by maintaining the all-necessary employee productivity and efficiency.
So, the best way to track your remote employees is to invest in employee monitoring software, and the best among the lot is EmpMonitor.
EmpMonitor is an employee monitoring, tracking, and managing software that acquires all the required features to track every activity of employees throughout the working hours. It works behind the computer screens of employee workstations and provides a detailed report of the same. Hence because of the stealth mode, it remains unidentified by the task manager. So, once the tool gets implemented in the employee’s workstation, there is no chance of stopping themselves from getting monitored.
Let us dive right in and check the EmpMonitor features in detail.
PRODUCTIVITY ANALYSIS AND MEASUREMENT
When you are working remotely, you are unaware of the productive and unproductive employees in your team. But with EmpMonitor, you can receive a detailed insight into each employee activity. The tool lets you mention the job role of each employee in the dashboard and monitors their tasks accordingly to provide the best possible report.
SCREENSHOT MONITORING
The tool captures real-time screenshots during random intervals and stores them in the cloud. Hence, you can look back at them to check if your employees were busy completing their tasks or were working on something less productive.
KEYSTROKE LOGGING
Employee monitoring just cannot get better as you can now track the keypunches of your employees during office hours. You can check if the employees were working or had left their workstations unattended for some time.
WEBSITE AND APPLICATION USAGE MONITORING
With EmpMonitor, you can categorize which website and applications are productive and unproductive for your team. Hence, whenever any employee opens up an app or visits a site, you receive a detailed report with a productivity remark.
ATTENDANCE MONITORING
When you invest in EmpMonitor, you do not need to get an attendance monitoring tool for your employees. The software marks the clock in and clocks out the time of the employees appropriately.
Apart from acquiring such remarkable features, the tool is pretty inexpensive and also has a free trial. Hence, if you do not have an employee monitoring tool already and having trouble tracking employee activities, get your hands on EmpMonitor today!
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To Wrap It Up
The article showed some of the best games from each category which will be super exciting to execute with your team. Also, we decided to group the activities considering the participants involved and time consumed only make you go through the article once and pick out the most suitable one according to your scenario.
Again, all thanks to the prominent virtual meeting tools like Skype, Zoom, and Webex. They make it more comfortable to connect with the team working from various corners of the world. And how can we not talk about the remarkable employee monitoring tool we came across in the article, which makes tracking remote employee activities so much easier without any effort? Also, with the free trial, it is making itself worth a try.
So, if you wish to try out the extraordinary remote employee managing features of EmpMonitor for yourself, please click on the banner below to get redirected.
I hope the article helped you know about remote team building activities. Is there something that we can incorporate? Please drop your thoughts in the comments below. I would love to hear from you!