Do you find it tricky coming up with engaging team building activities for a group of half a dozen people? When faced with a large group totaling 20 or more, your mind’s sure to draw a blank. However, catering to larger groups is surprisingly easy. While certain games are out, things like icebreakers, polls, and surveys can all be deployed effectively.
Worried that a bigger group rules out the games you usually play during these sessions? Most of them can still be used if you split participants into more manageable breakout sessions. At a pinch, you even borrow some all-hands meeting ideas to incorporate into your next team development day. In fact, there aren’t any major differences between team building for large groups and small ones. However, just remember you’ll need online-friendly versions of those go-to games when hosting an event virtually.
Why Do Large Groups Need Virtual Team Building?
If your team members work virtually, they’re not going to have the usual opportunities to interact with colleagues and forge strong social connections. Even hybrid workforces suffer, with those employees who share the same physical space far more likely to engage each other than a virtual team member. With a large group of people, it’s even more of a challenge to encourage interaction and foster a culture of togetherness.
Companies that fail to address this communication problem are asking for trouble. For many virtual workers, an all-hands meeting or quarterly business review is the only time they’ll actually be able to put names to faces. However, you don’t need to wait until this late in the game to make introductions and encourage more open lines of communication.
Team building activities make it easier to engage a large group and get distant employees working together. Even a single team-building session can be enough to break the ice and start reaching out for the support and advice they need. You’ll start to see the benefits to your business immediately.
The more your teams talk to each other, the more productive they’ll be. A colleague may be able to offer a ready-made solution to an issue that’s derailed a colleague’s workflow. There’ll also be fewer crossed wires and misunderstandings, ensuring essential tasks aren’t left unattended or time-consuming assignments aren’t completed twice.
20 Virtual Team-Building Activities for Large Groups You Need To Try
Is a big team building event fast approaching? If you’ve not planned out your schedule just yet, don’t panic. We’ve picked out 20 of the best virtual team building activities you can use to encourage larger groups to connect and collaborate.
1. Group Storytelling
Encouraging your employees to open up is one of the best team building activities around. It’s also well-suited to larger groups. Pick a general theme for stories and ask everyone to take a trip down memory lane by sharing their experiences with the group, or playing ”Who’s that baby?”.
2. Online Assessments
Online quiz and assessment platforms offer a treasure trove of activities for team building events. Just about every soft skill can be evaluated, so decide what you want to test ahead of the day of your event. Rather than send the entire group off to complete a test during your team building session, it’s a good idea to have them complete each one and send in their results before you start rolling.
3. Guess That Song
There are a couple of different ways to play this one. You can play the first couple of seconds of a song and ask participants to buzz in with the name of the track and its artist. Alternatively, read out a single line of lyrics. For more fun, check out our list of music-inspired activities.
4. Who Lives Here?
Ask everyone to send in a photo of where they live. It could be their home office, kitchen, or bedroom. Once you’ve assembled these photos, make a note of which photo belongs to whom. Throughout your team building session, bring these photos into play, tasking everyone with guessing who lives there.
5. Take a Virtual Trip
While you can’t escape a virtual office, you can head off for an adventure within the digital world. Pick a faraway destination and assemble some useful links to live webcams, photo galleries, and interesting reading. You can then guide your team through an online exploration of these dream destinations.
If you prefer to take a trip down the memory lane, we recommend 2000’s musical nostalgia, as well as 90s music team activity.
6. Typing Time Trial
Who’s the fastest typer in your company? After a game of this, there’ll be no more Get everyone to complete an online typing test, then ask them to send in their results so you can compile a quick leaderboard.
7. Virtual Book Club
Most of your employees are probably in the middle of a great book. Reading groups are a great way of getting everyone thinking cohesively. They also work well virtually. However, some people won’t have time for too much reading, so think about assigning short stories or articles instead.
8. Break the Emoji Code
Recreate the names of famous songs, movie titles, and more in emoji form. Everyone else then has to work out what those confusing symbols actually mean. The first person to buzz in with the answer wins the round.
9. Minute to Win It Games
Tight on time? Minute to win it games are perfect for large groups, with just about anything that can be crammed into 60 seconds working. Half the joy of this game is watching everyone scramble around as the timer draws closer to zero and it’s great for team building.
10. Virtual Happy Hour
A happy hour is always guaranteed to break the ice and bring everyone together. While it’s not a great choice for first-time meets with larger groups, it’s worth considering once your employees have bedded in. To host one virtually, pick a theme and tailor your online meeting template accordingly. A cocktail-making activity can also work well here.
11. Personality Quizzes
Most people have completed a personality quiz at some point or other. These tests are designed to help people find what personality type they have, but the results go deeper than that. If you think your team is open to the idea of completing a personality quiz, ask them to do so before your team building session and share some of the results on the day. Again, avoid being specific to avoid embarrassing individuals. Instead, focus on common results and shared statistics.
12. Charades
One person has to act out the title of a film, the name of a song, or a famous person without saying a single word. Everyone else then has to guess the answer based on the mime performance of the other player. Speaking of movies, we also have a dedicated movie trivia template.
13. Online Cook-Off
While you won’t be able to sample each other’s food, an online cook-off is a good way to bring large groups together. To keep it a shared experience, get everyone to complete the same recipe. You’ll need to pick something that’s palatable to everyone, however.
14. Icebreaker Questions
If it’s your first big meeting or many new employees have recently joined, your team building event is going to have to be pretty heavy on those icebreakers. Stick to simple ones about favorite foods, beloved childhood movies, names of pets, and so on.
15. Role Reversal Day
Many virtual roles require no specialist equipment beyond a computer and an internet connection. This makes role reversal experiences a practical option. You obviously don’t want to jeopardize client relationships and project milestones, so don’t ask people to turn over the reins completely.
16. Foreign Language Challenge
To play, simply reel out a list of unusual translations and ask everyone to guess which language they belong to. If you don’t think you can master the pronunciation, simply display the word on-screen instead.
17. Appreciation Circle
Take turns sharing what you’re thankful for. If it’s a first-ever meeting, these things can be general. If you want to focus on business, ask participants to think about what helps them do their jobs on any given day.
18. Team-Building Workshops
You can make events more practical by encouraging attendees to learn a new skill or develop an existing one. Workshops can be used to introduce new concepts and ways of working or even give people a taste of what roles look like in other departments.
19. Online Trivia
Trivia games work incredibly well, no matter how large the group is. To make this relevant to team building, frame the questions around employees themselves. Alternatively, make it a team-based game instead.
20. Team-Building Bingo
Rather than use numbers, your team building bingo board should include a list of experiences and pieces of trivia. This can include things like favorite colors, countries visited, jobs held, and so on. Players then tick off each box if they hear someone give away information about themselves that matches.
Gloww Features for Hosting Large Team Building Activities
There are plenty of ways you can add some variety to team building events for large groups. However, a successful event requires a reliable platform. With Gloww, you have a user-friendly video conferencing solution that allows teams to stay connected. What’s more, this accessible platform provides you with a host of engagement features that will elevate any team building experience.
Templates Galore
Never held a team building event online before? While you’re free to create your own sessions from scratch with Gloww, you can also take your pick from a huge range of ready-made templates. Whether it’s a festive team building event or something more formal, you’re bound to find the perfect template for the occasion.
Browser-Based Convenience
Have you had bad luck with other video conferencing platforms before? Gloww is one of the most accessible solutions around, with our browser-based platform accessible via desktop, tablet, and mobile. Now there’s no excuse for not attending!
Ready-Made Interactivity
You don’t need any advanced development skills to create engaging experiences for your teams. Gloww offers a huge selection of apps and games that can be used to connect with participants, from live polls and surveys to trivia rounds that can be tailored with unique questions.
Enhanced Multimedia
Do you want to bring in your video and image assets? It’s easy to incorporate these when you use Gloww for virtual events. You can also pull assets from our extensive library, or turn to YouTube if you’re in need of a video for team building activities.
Tools for Collaboration
If you want to get your teams working together, put a focus on collaboration during your team building event. Gloww’s digital whiteboard is perfect for when you want to get creative and collaborate.
Ready to Get Started?
If your team building events need a shot in the arm, it’s time to ditch your usual platform and discover the benefits of Gloww for yourself. You can get started today for free. Want to learn about all the other ways that Gloww can help you transform the world of virtual work? Explore our pricing options and premium plans for added perks and advanced features. Have we missed something? Head to the online contact form to send us a message.
Looking for more articles like this? Check out our article on virtual lunches, as well as quick 5-minute activities to make your next virtual team building event a success!
