09 Nov 60 Virtual Team Building Exercises, Ideas and Games

In 2019, a Gallup study found that the productivity of a business could be impacted up to 21% by employees feeling isolated. Since 2020, workplaces have had to adapt at least for a while to completely new working environments, with the risk of employee isolation growing.

To avoid the potential derailment of productivity within the new mostly-virtual workplace, businesses opted for using video conferencing technology to create a sense of community. This also serves to boost productivity while keeping employees feeling connected to the business and their roles within it.

Illustrating the value of video conferencing for businesses can be easily done with a few figures: in 2019, the sector’s market value was $3.85 billion. In 2020, it jumped to $7.87 billion, and it is projected to end 2021 at $6.03 billion.

The profitability of video conferencing technologies reflects their importance in helping workforces navigate these changing times. Keeping employees connected to the workspace and to each other has various advantages that benefit both the company and its people. Primarily, it keeps the risk of employee burnout reduced by eliminating the feeling of isolation. In addition, according to a study conducted by Staples in 2019, 90% of the workforce believed that a flexible work schedule would improve morale across the board.

Since remote working became necessary for most, both the advantages and disadvantages involved in the practice have been highlighted. 28% of the workforce feels far more challenged by the current conditions and more likely to develop burnout, according to GitLab.

These issues can be exacerbated by the disconnect felt by the employee in relation to the work environment. In this era of transition, virtual team building has become a powerful tool to combat the vast potential for loneliness and isolation.

From games to bonding exercises, virtual team building can improve collaboration, productivity, and overall performance. If you’re interested in keeping your business successful and your workforce happy and productive, take a look at all these exercises you can implement.

Icebreaker Virtual Team Building Exercises

Virtual work meetings can have a long adjustment period. For those new to remote working, switching to a virtual environment can be awkward and counter-productive to communication, especially at the beginning.

It can be hard to know when someone should be talking, and technical issues may increase stress levels while decreasing the chance for natural conversation to occur. To prevent these issues, you should consider starting meetings with an icebreaker activity.

Spending 10 to 15 minutes on these activities can enable communication and immediately boost morale. This will lead to a much more efficient meeting. If you’re interested in reducing the potential awkwardness in team meetings, test out some of the activities below.

Playlist Sharing

Most of your employees will love music and have plenty of favorites. Start a meeting by asking team members to share their current most-played song choices with the rest of the attendees. This will help them get to know each other better while creating immediate and immersive collaboration about something important to them.

Team members can use their personal music streaming services, like Spotify, to share their choices with everyone else. Collaborative weekly playlists can even be created, and once a week, each contributing member can talk for a few minutes about why they chose their current song and what it means to them.

Your team member will be able to easily share details about each other while getting the time to showcase their preferences and bond over them with others. It’s also a great sharing experience that can lead to new favorite discoveries.

A great icebreaker choice for more informal meetings.

This or That

An icebreaker designed for groups of people that aren’t well acquainted with each other. This is a quick and lighthearted way of establishing preferences by asking people to choose between two options.It can be done as a way to begin meetings when time is of the essence.

Team members can choose between dogs or cats, Paris or New York City, summer or winter, trips to the beach or to the mountain, and many other options. The tradition of this or that icebreaker can continue even as the team starts knowing each other more, but there can be a curated selection of questions created from team suggestions.

This will help easily establish a fun and open tone for the meeting while increasing collaboration and communication.

Pet Presentation

The pandemic has shown that pets are a great way to make people bond. With the rise of remote working, virtual meetings have allowed employees to show off their pets live, right from their homes, while on video conferencing platforms like Zoom.

If team members have pets that are around them and don’t mind being shown on camera for a few minutes, there can be a short impromptu pet parade. Everyone will be able to introduce their pet, if applicable, and talk about a few details concerning them or share photos.

Once the team pets become well-known, the icebreaker can continue with weekly or daily updates about the pets. If there are adoption drives from shelters in your area, you can use a few minutes during the meetings to talk about the available options.

Many animal shelters are offering looks at adoption choices through Zoom. In addition, you can easily check events hosted by Pedigree across the country. This can lead to increasing team bonding while also helping animals in need.

Murder Mystery Icebreaker

Team games are a great way to break the ice by making everyone immediately have to collaborate in an entertaining way. Murder mystery icebreakers like Detective Ness’ Murder Mystery Company will put everyone in problem-solving mode from the start.

Many of these murder mystery games are now developed specifically for virtual team meetings, so no one will have to put in any extra effort into running them. Begin the day with a quick case to get everyone engaged, alert, and having a great time.

You can creatively split teams into groups to see who will get to the goal first and how everyone involved will collaborate to achieve it. Team members will turn into private detectives and get the case solved while having huge amounts of fun.

Escape Room Icebreaker

Another popular choice for collaborative and immersive virtual meeting icebreaker games is an escape room option. Physical escape rooms are always used for team-building exercises, and now they have been adapted to be used for the same purpose online.

These will feature all sorts of puzzles that will have your employees working together to succeed at their escape. With options like The Grimm Escape and Wildly Different, teams can engage in the best of what escape rooms have to offer without the need to attend them.

Teams will have to use their quick thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills to be able to defeat this challenge. For meetings that only have a short time allocated to this activity, you can use a quick puzzle for a virtual escape room as an icebreaker. This will bring the point across, even when there’s not enough time to indulge in the full experience.

Two Truths and a Lie

This is a great icebreaker for fully new or partially new teams. There are a few easy steps to follow when playing this game:

• Each team member will use either three post-it notes to write down two true statements about themselves, with a lie thrown in as a wrench to throw others off. The post-it notes can be physical and shown to the camera or used in an online collaborative workspace dedicated to the meeting.
• Once everyone has written their statements, the voting can commence. Each team member should vote on everyone else’s post-its, and they should all keep a tally of which statements are getting those votes.
• After the voting round, everyone can disclose their real two truths and a lie.

This is a very entertaining game for all participants, with straightforward rules and low effort involved. It enables collaboration and communication. The team members will end the session knowing more about each other, which can lead to further conversations.

The icebreaker can be repeated once the team members have become more familiar with each other to see how they perform after getting more information.

Trivia Questions

Trivia is a fun way to start the workday off. Scores can be accumulated either in groups or individually, and there can be a team scoreboard that keeps track of progress too. Questions can range from beginner level to advanced. Teams can choose topics for each round.

This is a great icebreaker for any sort of meeting, no matter the time. There can be short or long rounds, depending on availability. Even a short burst of trivia questions will enable a productive and engaged mood while also getting the team members to communicate and support each other. Groups can collaborate to achieve the best results.

Trivia questions are also a great learning opportunity, where each team member will leave the round knowing one more tidbit of information than before.

Scavenger Hunt

Virtual scavenger hunts have become a popular team-building activity that is equally fun and engaging. A study by SMARP revealed that companies with higher levels of employee engagement get 22% more profit. It also uncovered that no more than 33% of the workforce feels engaged during the workday.

Scavenger hunts are highly-engaging team games that involve collaborating to find a list of objects. It can also involve challenges and other puzzles. This will require collaboration between members, as it is usually a timed challenge.

The entertaining factor of virtual scavenger hunts doesn’t take away from how they enhance productivity. On the contrary, they require quick problem-solving skills, analytical thinking, and plenty of teamwork.

There are plenty of ideas for virtual scavenger hunts online that only require tools you already have access to, like other streaming platforms. You can use moments from episodes of Netflix shows to find items or even various YouTube videos.

Personality Tests

A fun way to enable collaboration and communication between team members is to set some time aside for personality tests. This is an excellent icebreaker because each member will have to share information about their personality when sharing their results.

These personality tests can be used as an interview-style activity or as a way to talk about strengths and preferences once the results are achieved. In addition, team members can learn from each other and understand each other better.

You can provide short tests your team when participating in this icebreaker activity, so they won’t have to take up too much of your meeting time unless there is enough to spare.

You can use follow-up meetings to further discuss these results and have a more in-depth conversation about the team’s personal experiences and how those influence them in the workplace.

It will also easily enable like-minded individuals to get to identify each other and create long-lasting work relationships.

Check-Ins

A team should always be invested in the well-being of its members. For more established teams, regularly beginning meetings with a check-in session is a great idea. You can implement a session during which each team member can talk about something positive they’re experiencing and a challenge they may be facing.

If someone is struggling, they can feel the support of their team around them. Everyone can get help solving any challenges, whether they’re at work or whether they’re comfortable talking about their personal experiences.

Check-ins are a great way to establish a harmonious and positive work experience, regardless of virtual or physical presence in the workplace. These should be a frequent occurrence at regular meetings.

Tests to Establish Project Strengths

This is a quick and efficient icebreaker for established teams to tackle when a new project is on the horizon. Everyone can take a quick test that will establish their strengths and preferences for their roles in the project.

An icebreaker like this can help leadership assign the best roles for the project that will help the morale and the productivity of the whole team. This can be a simple form questionnaire that can be filled in 5-10 minutes either on paper or in an online survey.

Team members who want to tackle challenges or progress in different skills can also volunteer to fill roles they normally wouldn’t to achieve new things.

Virtual Water Cooler Corner

Water coolers are usually the place in the office where coworkers gather to have a chat, especially during breaks. It is a meeting space that is universal to most workplaces, and the loss of it in remote work can make employees feel disconnected from their colleagues.

You can implement a virtual water cooler corner in any team software you’re using, from Zoom to Trello and Slack. This will allow team members to spend time together discussing topics that aren’t necessarily related to work. They can have time to talk about the latest news and their personal interests.

A water cooler corner will work wonders even virtually because it allows team members to disconnect and to have a moment to themselves even during a hectic workday. This is even more of a useful tool during stressful projects that are taking a toll on the team.

Quick Questions Round

A simple icebreaker can be a quickfire questions round. You can prepare a selection of questions ahead of time and then start a meeting by asking team members to reply to them via post-its or response boards.

These answers can then be shared to establish commonalities and how each team member approaches different topics. It will also enable collaboration and will provide a great opportunity for easy communication.

It’s a fun ice-breaking opportunity that works best at the beginning of the week to set a positive note for the rest of it. Give team members a moment or two to reply to questions such as ‘what career would you be making instead of this one?’ or ‘if you were an artist, what would be your preferred style?’.

These are questions that have some depth but can be answered quickly. It’s a simple way to get insight into the mentalities of different team members.

Share a Photo

In this icebreaker, team members can each share a photo of something that is meaningful to them or that has particular relevance to them on that specific day. It can be a memento from their travels, one of their family members, an important event like a wedding or a special birthday.

It is a fun way to learn about the personal lives of each person and who they are outside of work.This is even more important for remote workers who can only interact virtually because it is a way to form tangible connections.

It will also allow each team member to feel heard as an individual, which is a great way to establish a positive workplace.

Share the Story of an Item

Team members can take turns to show off an item on their desk or in their immediate proximity. They can share the story of the item’s importance to them, which will allow everyone else to get to know them better.

This can be a book, a special postcard, a part of a collection, or anything else that they find meaningful to share. An icebreaker such as this will give the team a boost, and it’s very suited to the beginning of the week or whenever it feels like the spotlight should be placed on the people forming the team.

It will get people to find even more hobbies they have in common while providing a safe and supportive space for their stories.

Sketching Corner

This can be a fun icebreaker that can be done at the beginning of meetings to relax the atmosphere and bypass any potential awkwardness. Team members can draw small sketches or leave each other little notes.

They can use them to start an informal conversation that can squeeze into the formal part of the meeting.You can use a real-time online whiteboard like Sketch Together for this purpose, which everyone can have easy access to at any time.

This icebreaker is not exclusive to those with artistic skills. It is meant as a casual point of connection between team members.

What/Where/When

These easy-to-answer questions are always a hit as an icebreaker. You can start the meeting with casual talking points like ‘what was the last movie you watched?’ or ‘where was your last trip’ or ‘when did you last spend time with your family?’.

People can easily share hobbies and relate to each other based on the answers to these questions. It will also make it easier for conversations to start because they will be on topics that engage team members.

You can use this icebreaker in combination with others when you have an extended period to cover. Your team members will then get to spend a significant amount of time talking to each other and getting to know each other better. This will boost the performance and productivity of the team as a whole.

Book Club Icebreaker

While working virtually, your team can create a group book club, and time can be allocated at weekly meetings to discuss their progress and their selections. It can be an initial icebreaker for new teams as they collaborate to choose books that cover all their interests.

Books can be a great way for different types of people to connect, and they can also help people have an easier time during stressful periods.This will provide another great way to bring teams closer and keep them engaged while taking care of their morale.

Charades

Zoom charades are a great icebreaker to use whenever casual meetings can happen. It’s a fun way for teams to unwind, and it can set a positive tone for the rest of the meeting. It will get team members to collaborate with each other from the get-go while having lots of fun.

It will also help them communicate with each other in non-traditional ways and learn from each other. Laughter is a great way to start a meeting, and it is a powerful icebreaker to use.

Zoom is a platform that makes it easy to implement a charade tradition into regular video meetings with the team.

Mapping the World

Working virtually in these times has also gone hand in hand with being forced to stay at home and unable to travel for extended periods. This icebreaker can be a fun way to feel like the team is exploring the world together.

You can use something like Google Maps to create team maps that show where everyone has been or where they want to be. Team members can add pins, and each speaks about places around the world that are important to them.

This will allow communication to flourish and individuals to bond with each other over their travel plans.

Fun and Collaborative Virtual Team Building Exercises

There are numerous standard virtual team-building exercises that you can implement as part of your regular meetings. These can be used for formal and informal meetings, depending on the occasion.

Time can also be set aside specifically for some of these events so that they don’t interfere with work. They will allow team members to relax and stop thinking about their roles within the company for a while, creating a stronger team.

Engagement Quizzes

You should always make sure to check how your employees are feeling and how they are engaging with the work and with the team. To make this easier, you can use surveys on a weekly basis to check in with your team.

This is a great way to keep track of remote teams that can only connect on a primarily virtual basis. You can use platforms like PulseMate to easily create employee surveys that allow you to see how they’re feeling.

The surveys can be set up with questions such as how each employee feels they’ve been performing individually and how they feel the team has been doing as a whole. The overall team mood will be calculated from the percentages used by the team members.

These surveys can be kept anonymous, but they will accurately reflect how the team is feeling no matter the level of privacy used. The questions in the surveys can then be used in team meetings as a building exercise.

Everyone will be able to talk about how they’re feeling and how they are feeling in their team. This will, of course, depend on each person’s level of comfort with how much they want to disclose, but it can be a very beneficial exercise for a team’s progress.

Photo Challenges

Weekly photo challenges are a fun way for teams to bond on a regular basis. When the week begins, the team can vote on a theme for the challenge. Then each member will get to fill the challenge theme during the week.

These challenges can have themes such as ‘black and white photos of pets’ or ‘best flower you see during the week’ or ‘quirky photo of your hobby,’ and numerous other topics.This can be a creative and entertaining way of bonding the team while sharing more of their personal lives.

You can use Slack to set up specific channels for this challenge where all the photos can be shared as they are taken. All team members will be able to enjoy them at any time. As an extra boost, everyone on the team can vote on the best choice at the end of the year.

This can then receive a small and personal prize, like a beautiful frame of the winning photo.

Remote Retreats

Retreats used to be a huge perk that companies offered their employees. Since many teams have had to go remote, that has taken a backseat. Now that group activities are becoming more available once more, small team-specific retreats can be arranged as a way for team members to connect.

Hiking is a great activity for teams to bond together. This can be a very useful activity for remote workers to feel connected to each other beyond virtual meetings. Teams can also go camping together, and small holiday resorts for limited groups can be a more high-end option. Companies can also treat remote teams to cruises or trips to theme parks.

All these options involve plenty of team-building activities that can be done while relaxing with peers.This is a good way to motivate remote teams even while separated from the physical workplace.

Pictionary/Jackbox

If you’re looking for an entertaining team-building exercise, you can always opt for a round of Pictionary. You can use platforms like Skribbl or Drawize to get your team to draw specific prompts and guess what each other’s work is meant to reflect.

Private rooms can be created for the team’s specific use if you’re looking for a space just for the group. For informal meetings with more time for entertainment, you can also consider other options like setting up a Jackbox Games session.

The team can have fun together through the Jackbox packs and in online games such as Drawful, Quiplash, and Fibbage. There is also Trivia Murder Party, which is a great group game for casual occasions.

Group Yoga Sessions

Everything has become even more available online than before since many workplaces have had to go remote. You can easily organize mindful activities for your team online that can be done as a group activity.

This can help relax them and give them a way to feel connected to their other team members. In addition, setting up a yoga session or a meditation session at the beginning or end of a long week can help boost productivity and increase the whole team’s morale.

It is even more important than usual to take care of the well-being of your employees if they’ve had to transition to a virtual team. Well-being activities such as yoga are a great way to make sure that you are offering relevant team-building options to your teams.

Music Quiz

You can use tools like Shazam to get your team to engage in music challenges together. They can tackle these in groups and collaborate to identify songs based on snippets of music or lyrics.

This can encourage some healthy competition, but also a lot of communication and entertainment. It can also help identify the different musical tastes of each team member, which can start plenty of conversations and bonding over shared interests.

You can set different musical challenges at the end of the workweek or even boost the team morale at the beginning of it.

Joke Challenges

This is a short and easy virtual team-building activity that can be done at any time. It should only take a maximum of ten minutes, and it’s recommended as a weekly exercise. Joke challenges are a great way to learn more about team members and what makes them laugh.

It is also a collaborative activity that involves every individual and gets them to have fun with each other. Unwinding as a team is a fundamental activity for virtual teams, and this is one of the easiest and most time-saving ways to achieve it.

If you’d like to provide an extra boost to the team, you can have them vote on the best joke at the end of the month. The winner can then be rewarded with a small prize that they can enjoy as proof of their excellent sense of humor.

Virtual Happy Hour

This virtual team-building exercise is a great way to bring everyone together for a fun time separated from work. It is usually celebrated at the end of the workweek. Apart from Zoom, it can also be hosted on platforms like Google Meet or Webex.

Virtual happy hour can involve specific themed online parties or games like Happy Hour Trivia, which can be played as a tournament with winning teams.

There are also drinking games that can be played either with or without alcoholic beverages. Some of these games use specific phrases or words to trigger the action, which ends in everyone drinking at the same time.

Team Meals

Going virtual doesn’t mean the end of team lunches. These can be arranged as an online event. For example, managers and supervisors can arrange for each team member to get a pizza delivery or an equivalent meal. Everyone can then share food and a conversation via video conferencing.

Team meals can play a significant role in the well-being of your employees. Teams will feel more connected, and they’ll get to relax together outside the context of work meetings. Getting treated to a meal and enjoying it as a team will be a nice boost to everyone and to the overall performance.

One-on-One Breakfasts

Supervisors and managers can arrange to continue one-on-ones with team members in a relaxed and informal setting. In addition, arranging one-on-one breakfasts with individuals is a great way to connect with them while also approaching conversations about their performances.

You can have delivery of breakfast arranged to the employee who’s due for a one-on-one, and then have the meal with them over a video call.

Whether the feedback is positive or constructive, this is a harmonious way to have a conversation about performance and targets. As a result, your employees will feel taken care of and appreciated, which will boost their morale and their performance.

Coffee Hour

Team coffee hours are a simple way to arrange daily catch-ups for team members. These can be set before or after formal work meetings. They should be kept as a casual setting, during which employees can have a chat with each other and catch-up.

This is a good exercise to keep everyone feeling connected to the company and to the team. Everyone can enjoy their coffee in company with their peers and discuss what they are doing with their lives outside of work.

This will set the tone for the team’s performance during the week while allowing team members to unwind a little during the workday.

Team Stories

Each member of the team should feel appreciated and heard during the week. Especially in a virtual context, the specific time has to be allocated for listening to what each employee has to say. This can be easily achieved by giving a specific time for each team member to tell a story that matters to them.

The story can be related to their careers, personal lives, families, or anything they wish to convey. Each week, each team member can have 10 to 15 minutes to speak about whatever they wish.

The rest of the team can then have a conversation with them about their story. This boosts interaction and communication while allowing everyone to get to know each other better. Assigning this time for teams will be hugely constructive in building the relationships between each member and their overall performance.

House Tours

Teams working remotely have home offices, which can make them feel limited. Allowing each team member to conduct a house tour of their place can be a great bonding activity. Offices can be shown off, and then further glimpses can be given into employees’ personal lives by following them into their living spaces.

Team members can take this opportunity to show their interests, their movie collections, their pets, their bookshelves, and whatever else they wish. In addition, they can take the time to talk about their families or their hobbies.

The more extroverted team members can lead the house tour by imitating classic shows like MTV Cribs for extra entertainment.

Baking Challenges

Bake sales are a huge part of the workplace culture at most companies. For remote teams, they can feel isolated from company-wide events. Organizing baking challenges for those who wish to show off their skills can still be done as an online exercise.

Team members can challenge each other or take video tutorials of their baking process. They can then all show off the results of their efforts once they have finished creating their baked goods. From muffins to elaborate cakes, teams can challenge each other in this fun and creative hobby.

A team challenge can be issued for those who wish to participate in a competition, with appointed judges and prizes. This can go on for specific intervals of time, depending on team availability.

Baking is a creative process that can be very relaxing. It is a recommended hobby for employees and a great exercise to instill in a team.

Culture Hour

Teams include individuals from diverse backgrounds. Some may come from different countries and speak different native languages. This creates a culturally rich environment that all members can benefit from by learning from each other.

Individuals can speak about their own experiences and teach other team members about their cultures. Language exchanges can be done too. A diverse environment makes teams better and more versatile.

Learning from each other and understanding each other will create a harmonious work culture. Each team member has strengths that they can bring to the company and to the ensemble.

These exchanges should be encouraged whenever they can be done. The diversity will enhance the team’s performance in it, and it can be an easy way to encourage learning about other experiences.

GIF Challenges

Social media has enabled the use of GIFs as an easy and entertaining way to react to everything from international news to personal tweets. Within a virtual team, this can be a fun way for individuals to communicate with each other.

You can arrange a Slack channel that is dedicated to this specific purpose. Team members can engage in whole conversation threads that are carried out just through GIFs.There can be challenges about how long a conversation thread can become before the reactions can’t convey a proper response.

This can bring a bit of fun to the routine, and it will keep your team connected to each other in a laidback way that can bring it all together. Thematic GIF challenges can be organized depending on the time of year and the personal interest of the team member running them.

Team members can even battle each other in GIF competitions, while others can vote on their performance. This is an easy way to enable the team to have fun together.

Future Plans

A great team-building exercise can be to create space for team members to share presentations on how they see their future in the company evolving. Their ambitions and personal career goals can be discussed at length, while their leadership skills can become apparent.

The rest of the team can discuss their options, and several paths forward can be explored. Finally, the team can work together to achieve the goals of their members, which can create a great support network that will boost morale and performance.

A well-working team will be an asset to the company, especially when they are encouraged to work together and help each other.

Giving this space for each team member to talk about their plans allows them to feel like both the company and the rest of their team have their back. It is an effortless team-building exercise that shines the spotlight on each individual.

Holiday Celebrations

Working from home may not feel as festive, but you can create virtual celebrations for your team so that they can still feel like they’re all sharing in it.You don’t have to just stick to Christmas and Thanksgiving.

If you have team members from diverse backgrounds, ask them if they have any specific holidays they celebrate and organize an event for them. You can also host parties for smaller holidays during the year.

This will allow teams to relax and celebrate together, and they may also learn about important days that they haven’t spent time thinking about before. Team members won’t feel as isolated during the big holidays, and they can even arrange to send gifts to each other.

You can even host a successful Secret Santa event, with team members mailing each other gifts and arranging a time for everyone to get to open them at the same time through Zoom.

Pub Quizzes

Pub quizzes are fun team events that can provide a great deal of entertainment for remote workers. They can be hosted via platforms like Zoom or Houseparty, and the whole team can get to enjoy them.

Team members can form groups of participants to collaborate to get as many points as possible. The manager can be the host of the event and the one reading the questions.

These events are best suited for the end of the workweek and can be enjoyed with an alcoholic beverage or with a shared team meal. This is a great way for teams to hang out together virtually and to play to their strengths while learning more about each other.

Virtual Bingo

Game nights are favorites among teams, and what better team event can there be than virtual bingo. This is a lighthearted and entertaining game that all team members can enjoy in each other’s company.

This version of bingo can include statements specific to each team member. The moderator will read them out, and each individual will be able to cross it off their online bingo card until they get bingo.

These statements can include things like ‘I wear socks to bed’ or ‘cut my own bangs’ or ‘cooked an elaborate recipe for dinner.’ Things that each team member can suggest but that can be very relatable to the whole group.

Virtual bingo is a fun activity that can bring the whole team together effortlessly.

Best Software for Virtual Team Building Exercises

To achieve the best results from virtual team-building exercises, you will need the right tools. Luckily, there are plenty of platforms that can help you manage remote teams successfully.

These platforms include specific team-building tools and benefits that make it easier to provide the most relevant exercises to teams. They will reduce the amount of organization time you will have to spend on planning everything, which will allow you to focus on what is most important: the well-being of your team and the individuals in it.

Caroo

Caroo is a platform with excellent overall features for team building, but the best assets are their team-focused boxes. They include an icebreaker box, an unplugged box, and a mindfulness box.

You can use these to treat your teams to relaxation and increased productivity. The mindfulness box includes stationery, a stress ball, healthy snacks, and select team activities. The unplugged box includes a scented candle, playing cards, a puzzle, healthy snacks, and a specific rejuvenation activity that the team can do together.

The icebreaker box is ideal for new teams and includes a wine tumbler, a cocktail kit, a full team icebreaker exercise, a party horn, a greeting card, and healthy snacks. This can be used in team happy hours.

Confetti

Confetti is an excellent resource for all your virtual team-building activity needs. It includes classes about hand pie baking, hand lettering, meditation, fitness, acrylic painting, cooking basics, vegan cooking, composting, cookie decorating, and many more.

It also includes activities such as museum storytelling tours, zero waste workshops, laughter yoga, vision board workshops, tie-dye workshops, tea or chocolate tasting, tarot card readings, coffee readings, candle making, and origami.

If you’re more interested in games for your team, Confetti can provide you with those too. It includes the escape room-based Escape Quest, trivia games like Team Hunt and Murder Mystery Party, Charades, and various mini-games that are meant for team participation.

You will also have access to Pictionary, Jeopardy, and Taboo. So no matter your preferences, your team will always be entertained with Confetti.

TriviaMaker

TriviaMaker is a great resource for virtual team-building trivia games. You can select from different types of game styles to narrow down your preferences and create a personalized experience for your team. These styles include grid layouts, multiple-choice layouts, list layouts, and wheel layouts.

You can also select a pre-made game that suits your needs for your team, or you can even get team members to vote on what trivia topic to choose. This can be a great icebreaker activity but also a regular part of team building.

The person creating the trivia game will also have the ability to host it to the team and include everyone in on the fun at any time.

It will also work on various devices, from phones and tablets to TVs and projectors. Streaming trivia quizzes through TriviaMaker is a straightforward process and a fun way to enhance the entertainment factor of team meetings.

QuizBreaker

QuizBreaker is a platform that easily boosts team morale and performance through the use of curated questions. These can serve as icebreakers or generally as ways to bring teams together.

This tool allows you to create quizzes specific to your team that will allow its members to form connections with each other. It can also shed light on the strengths of the team and how performance can be made even more efficient.

QuizBreaker allows the use of custom questions, and it applies them through automated quiz rounds. These will easily make teams communicate with each other more while getting to know each other better.

Bonusly

Bonusly is a great recognition and rewards platform that can be used for virtual team-building exercises. The rewards system offered by Bonusly allows team members to give boosts and bonuses to each other for behaviors they display.

Whether they are providing exceptional performance or helping other coworkers with their workloads, team members can be easily rewarded for the little things that make teamwork smooth.

These bonuses can add up until the team member can purchase value rewards with them. Thus, the system encourages rewards to be given often, and it facilitates the whole process by empowering team members to use them in recognizing each other.

NectarHR

NectarHR puts employee recognition at the heart of its platform, making it easy to create meaningful virtual team-building exercises with meaningful rewards. Recognizing the efforts of each team member in displaying exception behavior rich in company values while supporting each other is an easy way to boost a team’s performance.

This platform will keep your team connected and engaged while providing meaningful rewards from services like Amazon and branded gift cards. Once employees get recognized through NectarHR, their rewards start adding up until they can receive tangible gifts for them.

ProofHub

ProofHub offers a range of tools that make it easy to manage virtual team building. It allows efficient and practical control over remote teams through easy planning, collaboration, and organization access.

It keeps your teams connected through boards, workflows, and charts while providing an in-depth level of personalization through the use of custom roles. Collaborative tasks can be set for the teams, and every member will have access to see them.

This can keep a schedule for team-building exercises easily accessible and suggestions and group boards that can be used to collaborate and communicate.

Range

Range is a service designed specifically for remote teams. It allows teams to have fewer and more efficient meetings by providing a wealth of organizational tools that members can use together.

You can use weekly planning that allows a custom schedule for team activities. It includes GIF reactions and a forum for conversation between team members who don’t only discuss work issues during official meetings.

Team members can help each other through status updates and connected goals. They can also check in on each other on a personal level to ensure their well-being.

Thriver

Thriver is a one-stop platform that easily boosts employee engagement and provides an excellent resource for virtual team-building activities. These include unique experiences that you won’t be able to find through any other platform.

Thriver adapts to the preferences of your team. It can offer you mixology classes, cooking classes, volunteering options, arts and crafts workshops, and even interactive learning experiences.

It even includes game activities like online office Olympics, Sherlock Holmes-based murder mystery events, virtual escape rooms, musical bingo, workplace variety hour, and a customized scavenger hunt. You can even go for a virtual team battle of the bands.

Toggl

Toggl is a great resource for managing virtual team-building exercises. It has an integrated planning feature that makes scheduling extremely straightforward. You’ll be able to easily keep track of how much your team is working and when each team member is available for group events and meetings.

This will save you a lot of time on planning, and team members can contribute to the tool to make things even easier.

Best Apps for Virtual Team Building Exercises

While platforms are great for virtual team-building exercises, there are also numerous apps that can make life easier for this purpose, especially in combination with other resources. Slack, in particular, makes excellent use of other apps to help manage virtual teams while also allowing them access to entertainment.

The Go Game

TheGoGame is a great platform for creating virtual events. It allows you to easily connect your remote team and to participate in various events together at any time. This grants easy access to games, classes, and workshops that the whole team can enjoy.

JukeBot

JukeBot connects to Slack and Spotify and allows you to create a comprehensive playlist that is specific to your remote team. Members can customize the song choices until they create a soundtrack that represents the whole team.

This team jukebox is easily accessible, and it makes use of the familiar Spotify controls while enhancing Slack’s collaborative tools. Your team will get to enjoy this collaboration and learn about each member’s music tastes and how they relate to the workplace.

Donut

Donut is a great Slack app that is excellent for starting conversations between coworkers. It makes socialization a breeze, even between team members who’ve never met each other before.

Donut works by adding it to Slack, then creating a channel for specific team members, and then allowing it to easily get to know each other. Team members can add some of their preferences to the conversation, and Donut can create icebreaker questions.

Donut also makes posts with conversation prompts for the whole team that can be used to start in-depth interactions that create lasting connections.

Evergreen

Evergreen is a Slack app that allows your remote team to easily connect while also counting these interactions towards a set goal of planting real trees. The app encourages team members to give each other recognition.

This is done through a currency of ‘seeds.’ Each seed counts toward planting a real tree. The environment-friendly aspect enhances the great collaborative tool that this app provides.

While you use the app, it will also show you the individual carbon offset you are producing and the team. You’ll be able to track your impact on the ecosystem in real-time.

BirthdayBot

BirthdayBot is a highly useful tool to add to your team Slack. It will keep track of every important date that has an impact on your team. This includes birthdays and anniversaries specific to each member and also milestones for the company and the team.

All team members can add they’re important dates to the tool, which will then keep track of them and provide reminders when the time comes. You will never miss a team member’s birthday again!

The tool also allows team members to congratulate each other and to check up on birthdays with enough time to plan a joint gift.

IdeaKeep

IdeaKeep is an intuitive tool for Slack that will help your team keep track of ideas, concepts, and plans. This tool assists your team with brainstorming and efficiently making use of collective ideas. It also encourages and enables all employee participation.

It can also collect feedback reports and allows anonymous idea creation from all team members.

Trello

Trello is an exceptional organizational tool that makes use of Kanban boards and lists to keep everything on track. It can easily be added to Slack, but it is also an independent platform.

Trello provides easy access to team boards and collaborative workflows. This is a great way to share ideas and schedules for virtual team-building exercises that all team members can view and edit at any time without a need for any other special permissions.

Zapier

Zapier is an app that allows you to easily automate work, making virtual team-building exercises much more manageable. In addition, Zapier has special integration with Slack that allows it to connect to numerous other apps and automate even more workflow.

The integrations Zapier uses with Slack are called Zaps, and they are an absolute time-saver when it comes to virtual team building. Zapier provides customizable triggers and actions that create a response across integrations.

Zapier is the app that will get you to use Slack in the most efficient and practical ways possible.

Loom

Loom is an app that grants users an easy way to create video clips for work.It also lets you record your screen so you can provide your team with the necessary information as you see it.

Loom has integration with Slack available, which makes it even more straightforward to use. The videos are immediately shared with the rest of the team via a handy link or a message in the appropriate Slack channels.

Sending videos will save a lot of time on having to type up messages, especially when the schedule doesn’t allow for that sort of thing. Loom simplifies the process of connecting with your remote team.

OfficeVibe

OfficeVibe is an app designed to include all your virtual team’s needs in one place. It has a comprehensive suite of tools that allows you to manage and connect with your team, from planning the next one-on-one to time management for activities.