While some of us are heading back to the office as our cities and states “phase in” to getting back to normal, many teams are still working from home and will be for the foreseeable future. BrunswikSt. put together some of the virtual team building that we have done in the last few months to keep us feeling connected while we were apart.
One idea that keeps your virtual team building fresh is to have a new member of the team plan an event every week. This gives people a chance to get creative and you may be surprised what the individuals on your teams come up with. It is also easier to stay engaged when everyone has a chance to do something as opposed to only having one or two people plan every event.
Our team building recommendations include:
Plan a scavenger hunt: Have a list of 10 things that everyone has to find, inside or outside, within a specific timeframe and then everyone will present their picture or items back to the group. Our hunt was 20 minutes outside and people had to take a picture of a specific list of things like a bug, a blue flower, something green, a dog, green house, a red car etc. Once everyone was back, the list was randomly assigned points and then everyone got to present their picture. The team decided a winner of each item and they got the points.
Scattergories: has an online scattergories generator that you can customize to make things easier or harder by adding more lines and changing the time. For this game, one person will share their screen so everyone can see the categories, the assigned letter and the timer. Once the timer buzzes, everyone will say what they wrote and original responses get 1 pt.
Origami: Have some on your team lead the group on how to make basic origami like cranes or money shirts.
Madlibs: has a number of madlibs that vary in length with some needed only 4 words, to others in the 20’s. The team works to choose one word for each adjective, noun or verb asked and then you read the story after. You can decide how ridiculous you want the team to get.
BINGO- has free numbered bingo cards or you can create randomized bingo cards with words specific to your team/company. The website manages the bingo caller and there is a”winner checker” so that you can virtually verify each winner.
Learn a dance: Tik Tok is all the rage these days, so your teams can learn a virtual dance that everyone can do. YouTube also has tutorials from films or a hot song of the moment.
Zen doodles: Google has a number of different ways that you can guide your team to zen via doodling. One person leads the group and then everyone shows their masterpieces at the end.
20 questions to get to know your team. Icebreakers has a great list of 147 questions that are categorized so you can pick which ones are the best for your team .
Pictionary- Have one team member open up Google Draws or Paint 3d on Microsoft and the team will try to guess what they are drawing in a minute or less. There are a number of pictionary lists available online and some are pre-set with points based on how hard they are to draw.
For some of these teambuilders, if you want to play for a winner I recommend a digital prize like a $10 giftcard to keep it fun while not breaking budgets. Giftcards has a ton of digital gift card options, but it’s worth taking a look ahead of time as some do have higher minimum than $10.
If you would like ideas on how to make these, or other virtual team builders, work for your team, reach out to us and we can give you additional tips specific to your group. Happy team building from BrunswikSt.!