Looking to boost morale and create stronger, more successful remote teams? Never underestimate the importance of virtual team-building activities. Ideal for fostering a culture of collaboration and clear communication, team-building exercises provide your employees with a multitude of soft skills like emotional intelligence that everyday training doesn’t cover. Don’t have time in your schedule to dedicate to a full day of team building? Why not incorporate 10-minute team-building activities into meetings and other regular get-togethers instead?
Why Are Short Team-Building Activities Important?
Hosting regular team-building activities is important if you want to maintain workplace wellness and productivity. The more care and attention you show your employees, the more they’ll commit to you as an employer. Even short activities can prove effective for team engagement, so there’s no excuse for not folding in a game or two into your next weekly meeting.
Tips for Choosing the Right Quick Activity
Online activities for remote teams come in many forms. To get the most out of your next team-building session, make sure you’re picking activities that are relevant to your goals. Are you looking for remote team engagement activities that will create a more cohesive virtual workforce? Perhaps you’re looking to boost productivity and introduce your employees to essential time management skills.
Sometimes, it’s as simple as breaking the ice and making firm friends and colleagues of relative strangers. Fun activities for remote teams are a must if you want healthy team dynamics and a positive working culture.
Best 10-Minute Team Building Activities
Looking for last-minute team-building ideas? Need something a little more substantial than the 5-minute virtual team-building activities you’ve been using? These team-building activities can be completed in as little as 10 minutes.
1. Silent Line-Up
Without saying a single word, your team needs to arrange themselves in a line-up based on specific criteria. Going alphabetically is always a good option.
2. Two Truths and a Lie
Each participant reveals a trio of secrets about themselves, but only two are truthful. Will the rest of your team be able to identify the lie?
3. Emoji Quiz
Recreate the titles of legendary literature, blockbuster movies, and iconic songs in emoji form and see who can crack the code.
4. Virtual Scavenger Hunt
Host a remote-friendly scavenger hunt by concealing clues and riddles in online folders and across your company website.
5. Dance Party
Nothing breaks the ice like a virtual dance party. If you’re combining this with an online happy hour, expect some seriously embarrassing moves.
6. Online Escape Room Challenge
With a bit of creative thinking, escape rooms can work incredibly well virtually and are ideal for raising morale.
7. Logic Puzzle Relay
Test the problem-solving ability of your team with a fiendishly difficult logic puzzle relay. Great for encouraging collaboration and is guaranteed to raise the spirits.
8. Marshmallow Challenge
Ask everyone to assemble a haul of marshmallows, then task them with creating the tallest structure possible.
9. Would You Rather?
Give your team two options and ask them to pick their preferred scenario. Stick to simple topics like food and drink, or get a little left-field with your ideas.
10. Shared Memories
Encourage your team to see each other as real people by sharing their favorite childhood memories and earliest anecdotes.
11. Never Have I Ever
Players take turns saying something they’ve never done. If anyone else has done the thing in question, they raise a finger. The first person to have ten fingers and thumbs outstretched wins.
12. Virtual Trivia
Virtual trivia games are great for boosting morale and bringing a team together. What’s more, you can frame your questions around just about anything.
13. Pictionary or Draw It!
Drawing games make great icebreakers and are very effective at enhancing team dynamics and boosting morale. If you’re hosting a larger group, think about splitting people off into smaller breakout rooms.
14. Word Association Game
This classic game is guaranteed to lift everybody’s spirits. Start with a random word, then toss it out to the crowd so someone else can reply with an associated one. The game goes on until someone stumbles and draws a blank.
15. Anonymous Appreciation
Nothing beats hearing that you’ve done a job well done. It’s even more special when the note of thanks is anonymous. Ask your team to send in notes of appreciation before your get-together, then reveal a selection of them during the event itself.
16. Quick Fire Questions
Get to know your team quickly by reeling off a list of quickfire questions. Rather than pry into people’s personal lives, keep your questions focused on work and career growth.
17. Team Charades
This classic parlor game works wonderfully online. If you’ve brought together a big group, don’t be too surprised if things get a little chaotic. To bring some sanity to proceedings, breakout rooms are the way to go.
18. Find Hidden Talents Within the Team
Most of us have a hidden talent, but we usually need a little nudge of encouragement to reveal it. Why not ask your team to reveal their secret gifts or think about hosting a virtual talent show?
Tips for Running Smooth and Engaging Activities
No matter whether you’re hosting virtual trivia, a round of remote charades, or online music activities, you’ll need to ensure you’re using a reliable video conferencing platform. Once you’ve confirmed a platform has all the features you’ll need, don’t forget to take it out for a test drive before launching your actual team-building event.
Even with a great platform, you’ll need to ensure everyone is on the same page as far as tech is concerned. At a bare minimum, every attendee will need access to a high-quality webcam and microphone so they can readily communicate with colleagues.
Of course, this all only matters if everyone turns up on time. Make sure you’ve added plenty of mentions in your company newsletters and sent out email reminders about an upcoming team-building event. If participants are expected to prepare anything in advance, make a note of this to avoid disappointment.
Transform Online Team Building with Gloww
Nothing kills productivity like dwindling employee morale. Fortunately, you don’t have to suffer consequences like high turnover rates and continuous burnout. If you’ve noticed that team morale could use a lift, it’s time to leverage the potential of team-building games.
With the right games and activities, you can engage any team. Is communication a sore point? Fill your team-building sessions and online meetings with icebreakers so everyone can get to know each other. Does your team need to unwind after delivering a big project? Let them know they’re appreciated with an online event where they can really let their hair down.
Searching for a video conferencing platform to host your next team-building event? How about Gloww? You can use ready-made templates to quickly create sessions or create one from scratch. Customize slides with your company logo and colors, incorporate multimedia content and more. You’ll also find a great selection of classic games and team-building activities you can use to engage your team and make low morale a thing of the past.
Get started with Gloww for free today. Want to unlock Gloww’s advanced features? Take a look at our premium pricing tiers. Do you still have questions about the platform? Feel free to get in touch.
