Team-building doesn\u2019t require a physical water cooler or even sharing office space. There are plenty of ways your remote team can get to know each other and gain value from virtual team-building exercises. What value is there to be gained? How does team-building contribute to productivity? It\u2019s all about building trust.<\/p>\n
As\u00a0MindTools.com noted<\/a>, \u201c[<\/em>a]\u00a0team without trust isn\u2019t really a team: it\u2019s just a group of individuals, working together, often making disappointing progress.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n A team that has built trust learns to:<\/p>\n Sure, team-building activities can briefly detract attention from job-specific tasks, but they contribute to fortifying your team and the long-term benefits outweigh the ten minutes it takes for employees to have a positive interaction that leads to building trust.<\/p>\n How does it work? Virtual team-building? Generally, I post a new team-building exercise each Monday morning in our #team-building channel. Most of these activities only require a few minutes to participate, but there are some that span multiple days, such as the Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament.\u00a0Virtual rock, paper, scissors?!\u00a0<\/em>Yep.<\/p>\n Here we go\u2026 28 virtual team-building activities for your remote team:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a><\/li>\n <\/a><\/li>\n <\/a><\/li>\n For competitive activities, it\u2019s always fun to give away some company swag as prizes. If you\u2019re working with a small budget, you can enlist the help of a Designer and give intangible goodies away such as: photoshopped images of the winner with a company mascot, company-themed desktop wallpaper, screensavers and other digital prizes.<\/p>\n Have another idea for a virtual team-building exercise? I\u2019d love to hear it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Team-building doesn\u2019t require a physical water cooler or even sharing office space. There are plenty of ways your remote team can get to know each other and gain value from virtual team-building exercises. What value is there to be gained? How does team-building contribute to productivity? It\u2019s all about building trust. As\u00a0MindTools.com noted, \u201c[a]\u00a0team without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sherryumlah.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sherryumlah.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sherryumlah.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sherryumlah.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sherryumlah.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sherryumlah.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":535,"href":"http:\/\/sherryumlah.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions\/535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sherryumlah.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sherryumlah.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sherryumlah.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n<\/strong>Most of the team-building exercises I\u2019m about to share can be executed via synchronous chat, using an app like Slack. That said, several of these could also work asynchronously. You could solicit answers\/input and then share in an email\/newsletter, for example.<\/p>\n\n
\nNothing creates team-building like a little competition! This one also encourages your team members to get or stay healthy through physical exercise (something with which many remote workers can struggle) and tracking steps. Although there are apps out there like Fitbit, MyFitnessPal, and SparkPeople, it\u2019s simplest to have team members track their steps weekly in a shared Google Sheet like\u00a0this template<\/a>. People use different devices and apps for tracking. Using a generic template and having employees manually add their steps each week allows everyone to participate. It\u2019s device- and app-agnostic.<\/li>\n
\nRequirement:\u00a0<\/strong>The RPS Slack Add-on found\u00a0here<\/a>.
\nWith the RPS add-on installed for your Slack team, you can easily facilitate a virtual rock, paper, scissors tournament. I recommend having a channel specific for this purpose (or a team-building channel) so the noise doesn\u2019t interrupt those who aren\u2019t playing. A little planning goes a long way\u200a\u2014\u200ayou\u2019ll want to determine match opponents for the first round in advance. You can use this\u00a0Google Sheet template<\/a>\u00a0for planning matches and determining who moves on to the next round. This exercise can span multiple days as players advance through the tournament.<\/li>\n
\nMost companies have a unique identifier for URLs that helps attribute traffic to advertisements or other referrers. You can assign each employee a unique ID that they can add to any URLs they share (e.g.\u00a0www.YourCompany.com?id=123<\/a>) and then track who generates the most unique visitors or pageviews for a given period of time. Turn it into a competition with a fun prize and you might generate some significant new traffic to your site!<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: Upload the last photo you took and tell the team all about it!<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: Find someone in the company you would like to get to know better and interview them by asking these 3 questions (share the answers with the entire team):
\n1. Do you have any hobbies\/interests?
\n2. If you could pay someone to let you do or be anything, what would it be?
\n3. Name one of your favorite songs or movies.<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: If you could take a vacation anywhere in the world, right now, where would it be? Share a web site URL about the place.<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: What is the most bizarre thing that you can do? Capture it via video or photo and share it with us.<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: Tell us 2 truths and 1 lie about yourself and let us guess which is which!<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: Upload a younger photo of you that you regret. (You in your glorious blunder years!)<\/li>\n
\nA situation puzzle (sometimes called a lateral thinking puzzle) begins with the facilitator giving a sentence that describes a scene that is unusual or intriguing. The facilitator knows the answer to the question, \u201cWhat\u2019s going on here?\u201d The other team members attempt to find that out, by asking only yes-or-no questions. Here are some examples:
\nhttp:\/\/puzzlewocky.com\/brain-teasers\/situation-puzzles\/<\/p>\n
\nThe PowerPoint Game is all about improvisational presentations! Form teams of 2 and battle it out for the funniest unplanned presentations. Jump on a Zoom.us call, share screen, and have each team present their slide deck (which they\u2019ve never seen before). For more information visit:\u00a0http:\/\/www.group-games.com\/stationary-games\/the-powerpoint-game.html<\/p>\n
\nInstructions for team members: Take some photos or videos of your office space and show us where you work!<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: What\u2019s your favorite phone app? Provide a link to it and tell us why it\u2019s your fave.<\/li>\n
\nDonut is a\u00a0Slack add-on<\/a>\u00a0that automatically pairs people in your company up for a non-work-related 1-on-1 call. These are fun calls that give an opportunity for remote employees to get to know people they normally wouldn\u2019t be working with on a daily basis. Create a channel like #tea-time, #coffee-buddies, #lunch-pals, or #donut-friends-forever. Install the Donut Slack add-on and invite team members to join the channel. You can set the cadence for having the chatbot pair channel participants. Once randomly paired, team members can schedule a 15-minute chat to get to know each other better. Anyone who wants to take part can join the channel (or leave the channel when going on vacation). Learn more\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: Share a link to your favorite YouTube video.<\/li>\n
\nCreate a public Spotify playlist to which others can add songs. This works best if you have a theme in mind related to work, such as the release of a new product or a campaign. Ask team members to add a song that\u2019s in line with the theme.<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: Share a favorite song or soundtrack that energizes you.<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: DECORATE YOUR WORKSPACE\u200a\u2014\u200aWho can decorate their workspace as creatively as possible? Decorate and share a photo\/video and we\u2019ll vote!<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: Find an object that you\u2019ve owned for 15+ years, take and share a photo of it, and tell us: 1) How long have you owned it, 2) Where did you acquire it?, and 3) Why have you kept it for so long?<\/li>\n
\nThis activity requires having a facilitator who collects all the photos and shares them anonymously with the team.\u00a0Instructions for team members: Share a younger photo of you (baby thru teenager age) with the facilitator and the facilitator will post the photo. Everyone try and guess who it is!<\/li>\n
\nThis exercise requires a little more planning and participation. Divide your team into groups of 5. Create a Slack channel for each team so they can discuss strategy. The goal here is to rank a list of 15 items\u2019 importance to your survival. Team members first do this individually, then they must collectively rank the items in agreement. The team that ranks the items most similarly to the U.S. Coast Guard\u2019s ranking of the items wins.
\nMore information about this exercise can be found here:\u00a0https:\/\/www.mindtools.com\/community\/pages\/article\/team-building-problem-solving.php<\/a>
\nYou can also use\u00a0this template<\/a>\u00a0for each team to help track individual ranking, team ranking, and overall score.<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: Post a picture of you enjoying your favorite hobby\u200a\u2014\u200askiing, beer brewing, fishing, knitting, etc.<\/li>\n
\nCreate a company recipe book (PDF) with submissions from your team. Instructions for team members: Post your favorite recipe, complete with pictures and directions. Team members who submit a recipe will receive a copy of the company cookbook! With a simple search, you can find an existing cookbook template for Adobe InDesign or other programs and populate quickly. E.g.:\u00a0https:\/\/pagephilia.com\/suriblossom\/simple-life-cookbook-template-PP6TB1FP<\/p>\n
\nSome time around June 22nd, is \u2018Take Your Dog to Work Day\u2019\u200a\u2014\u200athat\u2019s a good time for this activity. Instructions for team members: It\u2019s bring your pet to work day! Share a photo of your pet(s) with the team!<\/li>\n
\nGive everyone homework to go out and find the best local burger (meat, bean, veggie) EVER\u200a\u2014\u200athe more toppings the better! Provide pictures and location details. Vote on the burger pics!<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: If you were going to give a presentation in front of a large group at a conference, what song would you want played as your intro while you\u2019re walking up to the stage? Share a link to the song!<\/li>\n
\nInstructions for team members: Use Trip Advisor to find the number 1 rated attraction within 15 miles of your house. Go there and take a selfie. Post a short description about it.<\/li>\n
\nThis one will require giving your team members some time to write. Instructions for team members: Write a poem about the company. Share it with the team!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n