Making sure that everyone works well together and that they feel like a cohesive unit (rather than disparate individuals) can be as important as any technical skills that your individual team members might have. One way to ensure that your team members work well together is to host a team building activity.
What is a Virtual Team Building Activity?
Virtual team building activities cover a huge range of different kinds of activities, since it is basically any group activity that you and your team members participate in while online. This means that everything from a group icebreaker meeting to a team online escape room to a virtual cooking class can be a virtual team building activity, meaning that you’ll have a lot of different options available to you when it comes to choosing the best team building activity for your team.
What Kinds of Virtual Team Building Activities Can You Host?
Holiday events: When the holidays roll around, you may want to consider hosting a virtual holiday party or gift exchange. These events are excellent ways to celebrate the end of the year with your team members and have a festive and social event to reward your team members for a job well done. These events can include everything from fun art activities to virtual gift exchanges like white elephant exchanges and secret santa events.
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Virtual Escape Rooms: Escape rooms are popular team building activities, since they encourage team members to work together and engage in lateral thinking, while still being enjoyable activities to do together. However, they run into problems of logistics, since you need your team members to all go to the same physical space and they become unwieldy even at 8-10 participants. Virtual Escape rooms address this by giving your team members the chance to solve puzzles, gather clues and move through expertly designed games in a virtual space hosted and organized by a professional game master.
Tasting events: Tasting events are great ways to reward team members and introduce them to new and interesting artisanal goods (and thereby improve participation in the event). In a virtual tasting event, which can offer tastings like chocolate, cheese, wine or even whiskey, your team members will receive a shipment of relevant samples and a host will guide your team members through a tasting, explaining the science and history of their samples and teaching them how professionals taste and judge a given sample.
Cooking and Mixology Classes: You can also host a cooking or mixology class in a virtual space. These events feature step-by-step instructions from a professional chef or mixologist and hands-on practice making the chosen dish or drinks in the comfort of your team members' homes. These events are good ways to bring your team members together for a shared experience that also doubles as a practical lesson that will help make your team members more engaged. These events also offer a wide range of different menus and dish options for organizers to choose from.
Art Classes: Art classes, which can be as simple as a drawing class or as elaborate as a terrarium building workshop, are a good way to give your team members a chance to participate in a relaxing and fun event together without a lot of stakes or sense of competition. Everyone will have the chance to express themselves creatively and show off their finished project at the end of the event. These events are excellent for letting your team members get to know more about one another in a relaxing, low-stakes environment.
Games and Trivia: Another fun option for a virtual team building activity is to host an online game night. These games, which include block building competitions, scavenger hunts, bingo or team building friendly versions of popular game shows, are easy-to-understand and fun to play games that everyone on your team is bound to enjoy. Regardless of what kind of game you choose to run, a virtual game night is sure to help bring your team members together.
Trivia: There is a reason that bar trivia has become such a popular group activity and, for large teams, a virtual trivia event can be a good online substitute. In a virtual trivia event, you’ll be able to put your team members’ knowledge to the test in a general subject or themed trivia event. These trivia events blend competitive fun with collaborative team work and are sure to be a hit amongst your team members as they vie to demonstrate who amongst them has the most trivial knowledge on hand.
Great Options for Your Next Virtual Team Building Event
The options for virtual team building activities are essentially endless, but some of them tend to rise to the top in terms of accessibility, affordability and popularity. Here are just a few of the best of the best when it comes to running a virtual team building event.
Private Virtual Trivia: Test your team members’ knowledge of history, science, popular culture and more in this fun alternative to bar trivia. These trivia competitions will see participants working in teams to determine who has the most esoteric knowledge in your office and learning who knows more about certain subjects than you might think. Plus, since it is virtual, everyone can relax and enjoy a beverage of their choosing as the event takes place.
Virtual Wine and Cheese Tasting: If you are looking to celebrate your team’s accomplishments, consider a virtual wine and cheese tasting workshop. In this event, everyone will receive a curated box of artisanal wine and cheese and a professional sommelier will guide them through the process that a professional taster uses when judging these kinds of goods. Participants will also learn about the history and science of wine and cheese, so the event doubles as an informative experience.
Feud Frenzy: Have your team members telling each other ‘good answer’ in this virtual spin on the classic game show format. Team members will compete to see who has their finger on the pulse of the common man and they’ll do so while having some laughs with a skilled host who will ensure the event runs smoothly. This event can accommodate larger teams that will compete in multiple rounds against one another.
One of Dozens of Virtual Escape Rooms: When it comes to virtual escape rooms, you have a surfeit of options. Whether you want to solve a mystery, rewrite history, go on an arctic adventure or escape a particularly unpleasant holiday party, you can sign your team members up for an online escape room and solve puzzles, gather clues and piece together solutions to the overarching challenge. These events are run by experienced hosts and are sure to provide a challenging and thought-provoking activity for your team members.
Terrarium Workshop: Experience a unique artistic event in this live online terrarium building workshop. Using rocks, mosses and succulents, your team members will create a living work of art that doubles as a fully functioning ecosystem that they can put on display in their home or office. Most of your team members will never have been part of an art workshop like this, so the event is sure to attract some attention.
Virtual Clay Hand Building: If you are looking for a more traditional art event, consider this clay hand building workshop. Your team members will receive all of the clay they need to create their own planters, pots or mugs and they will have the opportunity to show off their creations to the rest of their team members at the end of the event. Since this workshop uses air drying clay, there is no need to do anything beyond wait a little while before you can start using your personalized clay creation.Â
Virtual Game Show Bingo: In this revised take on the admittedly stale game of bingo, team members will compete to fill out their bingo cards by completing tasks around their home, doing miniature scavenger hunts and answering pop culture trivia. Your team members will be sure to have fun in this competitive spin on the classic game that will see them putting a host of different skills to the test.
Virtual Mixology Workshop: Bring happy hour to your team members’ homes in this hands-on mixology course. Everyone who participates will get all of the equipment, syrups and bitters they need to create a trio of artisanal cocktails at home. The menus are flexible and there are plenty of options for substituting spirits (or making non-alcoholic versions of the cocktails), so everyone will be able to participate. EVeryone will leave the class with their drinks in hand and the skill and tools they need to recreate them again and again.
White Elephant Gift Exchange: Ring in the end of the year with a white elephant gift exchange. In this classic holiday event, your team members will take it in turns opening gifts or stealing those gifts that their team members have opened. At the end of the event, everyone will know the gift they have received and it will be shipped right to their homes. A talented host will keep the event moving and everyone is sure to have a great time. Premium versions of the event are also available.
Brick Building Challenge: If you are looking for a more tactile game for your team members to play, the brick building competition might be right up your alley. Everyone will receive a box of LEGO bricks and a host will guide them through multiple, fast-paced competitions that require creativity and three dimensional thinking. This event is perfect for any team looking for a unique, fun and slightly competitive team building workshop.
Virtual New York Style Pretzel Making: Learn the art of making perfect oven baked pretzels in this team-building cooking workshop. Your team members will receive all the ingredients they need to make their own pretzels from scratch and they will get step-by-step instructions in everything from making the dough, toppings and dips. In only one workshop, everyone will have their own collection of delicious pretzels and be ready to start experimenting with other baked goods.
Paint & Sip: If you are interested in hosting an art event with the lowest-stakes imaginable (keeping your non-artists in mind), consider a paint and sip event. These popular events are easily held online, and everyone on your team will get a pre-drawn canvas (of your choosing) and the paint and supplies they need to join their team members for a night of light-hearted socializing, painting and adult libations. You can also have those drinks shipped straight to your participants if you are feeling generous.
Mini Game Showdown: Why choose just one game for your team’s virtual game night when you can do a lightning round of different options, including rounds of trivia, speed typing, feud frenzy and escape room puzzles. These fast-paced events come as quickly as they go, so you’ll be moving quickly as your team members compete on a wide range of different skill sets. Everyone will find something to love in this lightning mini-game showdown.
What Are the Advantages of Hosting a Virtual Team Building Activity?
This is really two different questions: What are the advantages of hosting a team building activity and what are the advantages of hosting that team building activity online.
The advantages of hosting a team building activity are straight-forward. You want your team members to work better together as a team and holding an event where they can socialize, learn more about one another and work on a shared project or goal is an excellent way to do this. They are also excellent ways to reward team members for a job well done or the completion of a difficult project, which will help to make your team members feel more connected to their joint successes.
The advantage of hosting these events in a virtual space is primarily logistical, since it will make it far easier for many of your team members to attend the event, particularly if they are working remotely. In addition, there are several kinds of team building events, like cooking classes, scavenger hunts, online escape rooms or mixology courses, that either work better in a virtual space or are built from the ground up to be run in a virtual space.
Running the Event in a Virtual Space
Running a team building event online will come with a few considerations you’ll have to make, but these can be easily addressed with the help of event organizers.
Supplies: One of the significant problems of a virtual team building activity is making sure that everyone has the supplies on hand for the event, particularly if it is an art or cooking event. In these online team building activities, all of the necessary supplies or dry ingredients will be shipped directly to your team members’ homes.
Hosting: For many online events, it is important to have a skilled host who can keep the event moving and make sure that everyone is engaged. In addition, some online events need to have instructors, be they chefs, mixologists, artists or sommeliers. In one of these team building events, your team members will work with an experienced host or instructor who can ensure that everyone is having fun and participating. For large enough groups, you may even work with multiple hosts running different events.
Organizing: Finally, you’ll need to consider how you intend to organize the event, since scheduling can be somewhat difficult. While you will be tasked with finding the day that works best for your team members, the service provider will handle issues like launching the digital workspace, doing prep work for the event and handling things like assigning roles for games or gift exchanges.