Six fun team building activities for remote teams

Remote team building may sound like a contradiction, but there's a lot you can do to cultivate a sense of belonging and community. You don’t have to wait for annual team meetings to invest in team building.

And it is this sense of belonging that improves job satisfaction and is crucial if you want to build an engaged team that works with a high level of psychological safety.

Below we highlight some of the things we tried at Range.

The goal of these activities is to have a little fun, learn more about each other, and build stronger working relationships - even if you're not physically together. These activities aren't for everyone, so take inspiration from them and think of something that's unique and authentic to your team.

As with any new activity, it can take some time to get the hang of - we've opted for a "start and learn" approach: try it a few times, see what works, adapt and keep it or move on and try something else. But most importantly, our team sees these types of activities and the idea of ​​trying a new team building activity as important aspects of our identity and culture.

Playtime

"Play at work?! Stop wasting time."

In fact, a growing body of research has shown that gaming has a surprising effect on productivity. Gaming has been shown to be an important factor in motivation and productivity. One Study showed, for example, that newly formed teams performed 20% better after a 45-minute cooperative game.

It can be a little strange at first, but you'll quickly get into the swing of it and find that it's a great opportunity to connect with teammates, have a little fun and take a break from the pandemic monotony.

There are a whole range of online games that you can play in a group. From trivia games to collaborative puzzles to space murder puzzles. In this post You can find more fun online games for remote teams.

Snack Attack

If you're a leader trying to foster connection with your remote teams, you need to read the room.

If the team is busy with a launch or is going through a series of production emergencies, they may not be as open to another virtual meeting. Efforts to improve morale can even feel forced and exhausting - more like forced fun.

To show your appreciation for the team and add some fun without wasting more time, you can send a gift like snacks. The entire team can choose a basket from a variety of goodies.

With 50.00 CHF you can go a long way. You can then ask your team members to share their loot with the team via Slack or another internal communication tool.

Spirit week

Another popular method is to designate a team or individual responsible for planning a series of asynchronous and synchronous activities throughout the week. A weekly plan could look like this:

• Monday: crazy hairstyle day
• Tuesday: Set your background during meetings to your favorite vacation destination
• Wednesday: Find someone on the team and get dressed right away
• Thursday: Dress as colorfully as possible
• Friday: Speaks with an accent (you can choose French, Indian, etc.)

These are simple activities that make normal meetings and work a little more fun and give people something else to talk about and laugh about. (e.g. the sales conversation that was conducted in costume.)

Team Zine

Vulnerability can be an irritating word for many because it has many meanings. But in the workplace it means the ability to express and show what you really think and who you really are. Vulnerability builds trust and enables healthy conflict and effective decision-making.

When you all work in the same office, it's easy for you to show feelings - even if it's not obvious. You talk to people in the elevator, go to lunch, or go for a beer after work. You tell stories about your life and your history that help others understand you better and build a relationship with you.

When you work remotely, there are fewer opportunities to build these relationships. It's all too easy to get caught up in the flow of work and view all interactions as transactions that only focus on the next task to be completed. This is not worthwhile and does not lead to effective teams. To be creative and achieve the mind-meld required for innovative work, you need to feel open and connected to your team.

This is all a long-winded way of explaining the theory behind our semi-annual team zines. A "zine" is short for "magazine" and is a short, self-published work of original material - usually words and text. Creating a zine is a low-key, easy way to get to know your colleagues better.

You can use a combination of asynchronous and synchronous time, spread over several weeks, where people collaborate and contribute chapters to a zine.

The zines can cover a variety of topics, such as stories from your youth or how you spent your time during the early stages of the pandemic.

Try it. It doesn't have to be a zine either, it could just be a talk or a few slides at a meeting.

How do you cultivate daily belonging?

We hope you’ll try some of these team building activities for remote teams. And if you come across any activities that you particularly enjoy, please let us know so we can add to this list.

As important as team building activities may be, they only get you so far. The positive effects of such exercises wear off over time and must be constantly renewed. Talks about it Daniel Coyle in his book The Culture Code .

That's why it's important to think about how you can maintain company culture and cohesion during normal work flow.