Online meetings and virtual conferences have become the new normal and with them comes the importance of virtual team building activities. In a remote workplace it is more important than ever to foster a culture of engagement and cohesion that keeps teams together. Virtual team building has the power to make remote teams feel as connected as on-site teams.
Before we get into the virtual team building ideas let’s have a look at why it is important for your company.
Why Virtual Team Building is Important
Onyx Events have seen huge success with live events and team building activities. Just because we are working virtually now does not mean that team building is any less important. In fact, it could be more relevant than ever. There are many reasons to prioritise team building among your remote workers. The list is long but here are a few of the main benefits.
Keeping a connection
The chances are that the majority of your employees are working remotely. This means they may be communicating less with their colleagues. As a result, they will likely feel less connected and may even be less engaged.
In addition, there is also a risk of lower levels of job satisfaction. All of these can point to a reduction in productivity, creativity or worse. You might find yourself recruiting to replace team members. Not ideal when what you really need is stability and a collective team effort to achieve the company objectives.
Relationship Building
Stronger relationships in the workplace will help collaboration and productivity. Your team members might not all work in the same office. In fact they might not all be working from an office at all nowadays. But that means the focus on building relationships should remain a priority to companies. Your remote workers will have an easier time collaborating, challenging and communicating if they have a stronger work relationship.
Improve Productivity
Collectively, there’s more of an opportunity to achieve your company’s objectives. There’s no reason why remote workers can’t be (more) productive and get their workloads done. They just need to keep focussed and engaged with their work. They should be able to support each other and celebrate successes. In doing that they’ll feel more motivated to reach their individual and team goals.
Top 20 Virtual Team Building Activities
Now that you have a better understanding of the value of virtual team building, let’s take a look at some of the most popular ideas. Our 20 fun and effective team building activities will help your team members work together better, keep connected and be more productive.
Our Virtual Team building topics at a glance:
- Virtual Reality
- Sustainability Team Challenges
- Interactive Team Challenges
- Team Building Stings
- Workshops & Shared Experiences
- Food For Thought Culinary Challenges
- Motivational Speakers
Virtual Team Building Activities – Virtual Reality
Bringing teams closer together with virtual reality. Bridging gaps in geography has never been more important. Whether it’s an immersive networking event with over 20 people, a virtually-enhanced sports event or an exploratory cultural tour the possibilities for colleague and client engagement are endless. Virtual reality is quickly becoming the most dynamic medium to deliver meaningful and realistic engagements online.
Sporting and Team Experiences
The sporting world has been hard-hit by the effects of the pandemic, but with various sports slowly returning, we are looking at new and innovative ways to bring the sporting action to our clients. We create bespoke challenges and competitions for teams to bring back the team ethos and cohesion everyone knows and loves, whilst introducing some healthy competition!
- Live-streamed sporting events with a celebrity host
- Interactive and competitive virtual sports
- Sustainability-based challenges
- Team competition
Watch live events as a virtual team with a celebrity host and goodie bags to indulge in. Invite your friends and family to make a day of it, and throw yourself back into sport.
Virtual Team Building Activities – Team Sustainability
Set your teams a sustainability challenge and a timescale in which to achieve it. Maybe tie it in with a global theme or event, such as Climate Week. Teams can decide how best to achieve the challenge(s) but it must be sustainable. They can track team progress and share content online.
A live virtual Opening Ceremony and Closing Ceremony will be held, with regular virtual events to align with the international teams’ progress, using virtual break-out rooms to host different teams, and celebrity athletes and sustainability industry leaders to give talks and tips.
Virtual Team Building Activities – Team Challenges
Company Eurovision
Perfect for those companies with international teams. Each team across UK and Europe is randomly allocated a nationality and sent a hamper of national goodies for the evening event.
Hamper to include: national dress, national dish and drink ingredients, and national anthem lyrics. The evening event will be hosted by a well-known compare, with song, a timed cooking session, a display of the national dress and national trivia throughout
Murder Mystery
A murder investigation has been launched, after the body of internationally renowned lawyer, Laura Norder was found last night at Cadaver manor. Your team has been brought in to investigate the murder. In this team building activity, participants work together to unlock and examine key evidence such as witness statements and suspect interviews, using augmented reality and image recognition technology.
Escape Room
An amazing remote team building experience. In groups, you must work as a team to decipher all kinds of clues, riddles and challenges in order to escape the virtual room. It’s a tense head to head experience against the clock, where your teams have to share ideas and answers to progress and avoid getting locked in.
Around the World
Take your team on a virtual globe-trotting trip around the world, visiting 22 countries across 40,000 virtual miles while putting your teamwork, collaboration and creativity to the test! Setting off, teams will encounter a series of tasks and challenges in each country that you arrive in, subsequently earning your team Travel Credits to make it to the next location.
Master of the Tasks
The activity starts by teams selecting their first challenge. The task can either be a live challenge or a practice challenge. Live challenges take place straight away meaning the team have to think quickly on their feet. Practice challenges give the group 10 minutes to plan their strategy. The games are so varied you will literally not know what’s coming next.
Interactive Quiz
On a shared screen with a live host, all participants will answer questions on their devices with the aim of winning a grand prize! Questions can be written to your specific request and include rounds on general knowledge about the team or more specific questions from the conference. We can record individual scores from a live feed sent to us and announce the winner live at the end of the quiz.
Dragon’s Lair
This challenge sees teams pit their wits against some ruthless investors. Get your brains ticking, create your brilliant ‘Ideas’, then conclude as a team which option you plan to take to market. Once you have your winning idea it’s off to the ‘Dragons Counsel’ to face the tycoons. It’s your turn to shine in the ‘Pitch’, which must include your watertight budget plans and a well researched design.
Virtual Day at the Races
A fresh and exciting event for all your delegates. Your time at the races will comprise of a medley of themed racing action. Using ‘Fun Money’ and a themed race programme you will be guided through the racing action. The event can be run as a team competition or on individual merit. All the action takes place in our virtual paddock, with our virtual ‘bookie’ hosting each race.
Crime Detectives
As the jurors, you will have the chance to interview Mr Harry Briggs who’s the main defendant through the trial. Harry holds important information that’s not in the evidence files. You’ll need to use your intuition to carefully question him. He’s a chameleon of a character and can be tricked, befriended, coerced or even flattered. The live actor experience makes this a really immersive experience that brings teams together.
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Virtual Team Building Activities – Stings
Magician
This interactive act includes moments of comedy, audience participation, magic and everything in-between. Keen to keep your audience’s energy up over the course of a full day? No problem. This sting is focussed in connecting with the audience as active participants.
Comedian
Proven to release tension and leave your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes, comedy is the perfect sting for any conference. We will work with you to ensure that the show exceeds expectations and hits the points you want. Comedy is also a great method of using subliminal messaging, ensuring the theme of your conference gets across to each and every participant.
Virtual Team Building Activities – Workshops & Shared Experiences
Creating virtual experiences help us to enjoy learning new skills or doing things we love with others so we still get our social fix. The following examples focus on shared experiences, sharing a moment, re-building relationships, virtual socialising and learning new skills
Movie/Advert Creation
Teams and individuals are tasked with making a collaborative movie or advert about the company, product, brand or initiative. Individuals use their own phones or iPads to record footage in collaboration with their team members. Footage is then shared with our professional editors who will edit and piece together the final production. We then host a final with drinks and food to view the teams’ films and decide on the winners.
Photography Masterclass
Learn how to use your camera like a professional to create stunning images.
- Composition
- Lighting
- Shooting in manual
- iPhone techniques
- Editing
Tie this in with a theme and let the teams unleash their creative minds.
- The company culture
- Wildlife through lockdown
- Home schooling heaven or hell
- Back to work
- Family life in lockdown
Virtual Team Building Activities – Food For Thought
Take your teams culinary skills to the next level. Learn the techniques that have earned celebrity chefs and master mixologists their reputations. For all of the food related workshops we can provide branded hampers, bespoke packages and engaging services for corporate clients throughout Europe.
Gin Masterclass
This online masterclass will celebrate some favourite gins, full of flavours that remind us of better times. We will send you various gins, the garnish & the perfect gin glass.
Cookery
For the cookery workshop we will send you the required quantities of spices, any ingredients you might need plus a branded apron. Learn the techniques that have earned celebrity chefs their Michelin stars as well as dishes inspired from restaurants around the world. Once you’ve mastered those skills, you’ll be able to learn how to cook the perfect recipes to host the ultimate dinner party. The host will be a talented chef who will run the bespoke class for you.
Wine Tasting
Inside your hamper you will receive 3 expertly selected wines with tasting notes, a platter of complimentary artisan produce and tasting information.
Bakery
We will send you any ingredients you are struggling to find e.g flour… which, as we all know, has been like gold dust throughout lockdown! Plus we will send you a branded apron and rolling pin!
Virtual Team Building Activities – Motivational Speakers
The world is changing around us every second, and with this new era comes an amount of uncertainty and fear as we learn to adapt and refocus.
With this in mind, we propose a range of motivational speakers that deliver inspirational talks, workshops and sessions for teams around the world. We have a vast network of business and celebrity speakers that can be integrated into a virtual event or as a standalone showcase. Motivational speakers can come from the worlds of:
- Business
- Sports
- Show business
- Political
- Wellbeing
- Mental Health
The Power Of Virtual Team Building Activities
Virtual team building activities have the power to make remote teams feel as connected as on-site teams. Virtual team building helps to maintain communication and engagement while reinforcing your company’s shared identity.
There are lots of ways that you can help remote employees build stronger connections. These team building ideas will help your employees get more out of working remotely. They’ll feel more comfortable collaborating on and contributing to achieving your company’s objectives. It’s not just a benefit to the teams. These activities can help you get to know your team members, stay connected and improve your leadership of them too.
If you need help, inspiration and ideas for connecting with your teams, motivating them and improving their remote working productivity, get in touch with Onyx Events today.
Your event
Expect the Extraordinary.
Get Inspired. Get Creative. Get Connected.
Build Your Event Today.
