Team Building Exercises You Can Do While Remote Working

Group tasks are a fundamentally important aspect of a business. They help boost team morale, offer problem-solving tasks and can even increase productivity.

In a typical office, there were always several fairly established group tasks that many businesses would incorporate to help build a team's collaboration and trust. This included exercises such as scavenger hunts, escape rooms and building challenges (i.e., Lego, or the Marshmallow Challenge). These in-person events promoted teamwork and goal-oriented tasks.

Now, with more people working remotely from home, the concept of team-building exercises has evolved. Employees have to think of innovative group tasks that can be achieved online while most of the team is working at a distance.

It may seem challenging or pointless to the uninitiated to try to conduct exercises that promote the same collaboration and problem-solving skills as in-person tasks, however, many different online activities can deliver similar values and opportunities.

Collaborative Virtual Experience

There are many ways to promote collaboration while working from home. Social and Relationship building can be achieved with such events as a virtual ‘watercooler’ or ‘coffee breaks’, which are informal calls with no agenda. They are set only to be casual check-ins where employees can get to know each other, similar to the conversations people would have in an office hallway.

Some businesses choose to incorporate a mix of physical and virtual activities. For example, virtual crafting sessions can take place where teams are sent DIY kits (candle-making, origami, or painting), and then go on a call so they can create in a collaborative setting.

Another activity in the same vein is virtual cooking classes, a guided session where teams can cook from prepared meal kits sent in advance.

More interactive team meetings can include feedback calls, such as ‘Room 101’, where at the start of each meeting, each member says something negative they want to get rid of. There are also "shout-out" channels, which are dedicated chats for public recognition of employees, helping boost morale.

Incorporating Digital Aspects

Bosses can also utilise online party games for older audiences such as Tabletopia or Jackbox for fun collaborative sessions. Jackbox includes minigames like ‘Quiplash’, which allow the team to get to know each other by respondents delivering a humorous answer to a prompt, whereas Tabletopia includes board games that require more problem-solving methods.

Video games have historically been a fantastic method to foster strategic thinking in a group. Other sorts of games such as you'd find at a live casino online can be good options as well because multiple players can join a single stream and chat with each other throughout the process, while utilising their spatial and pattern recognition skills to recognise winning combinations.

Not only are there games you can utilise, but there are also online escape rooms which offer flexible 360-degree virtual setups, with different themes to choose from. These encourage both critical thinking and attention to detail. Employers can set specific time limits and even add in their own tasks that wouldn’t be possible by going to an in-person escape room.

Incorporating digital elements into group tasks means that employers aren’t just finding online replacements for these activities; they are adding brand-new elements that only digital experiences can offer.