Finding ways to keep your work colleagues engaged, friendly, and collaborative with each other can be challenging, especially when your employees are working in a hybrid or completely remote arrangement. Remote employees may often feel left out working from home because the in-office comradery isn’t available. It becomes even more important to do team building online so everyone has access to work colleagues, team leaders, and can participate in some team fun. Fortunately, thanks to the rise (and necessity of) remote work arrangements, there are many online team building activities available for virtual team building events and activities.

With more employees working remotely, companies and team leaders needed to adapt their team building strategies to include those off-premises. As activities had to adapt to the pandemic, more organizations changed their formats to now offer virtual team building games. Having a collaborative work environment is important, so here are some innovative virtual team-building activities to help build team camaraderie and to have some team fun. Gone are the days of boring HR team building exercises. Let’s check out some innovative, virtual team building games that will help your employees have some team fun and improve their team bonding. In no particular order, here are our top 4 virtual team building activities.

Before the pandemic, in-person trivia games were a great choice for a team building activity as well as for fun with friends and family. With telework being so popular, many trivia companies have moved their virtual team building games online. Now, online trivia is a popular option for team building activities. Online trivia games can be used as the main virtual team building event or as an icebreaker activity. Colleagues work in teams to answer tough trivia questions. They get to tap into their competitive, critical thinking, and collaborative skills. They are both fun and good for your colleagues’ minds. They help remote employees bond with each other, feel engaged with each other, and learn some new skills and fun facts in the process. Remote employees can relax, recharge, and have some team fun that will in turn boost productivity, achieve business goals, and connect with other remote employees.

Another incredible virtual team building activity is the virtual murder mystery play. With the onset of the global pandemic, theaters had to close their doors and some remained closed permanently. With the rise of online platforms, like Zoom, theater companies were able to adapt and move their plays online. Now, virtual murder mystery plays offer a fun, unique, and interactive virtual team building exercise. Each participant gets assigned a character in a murder mystery play—they may even be the murder themselves! The professional cast members interact with each player. Everyone gets into their role! Both cast members and guests get to immerse themselves into the story, solve puzzles and clues to determine the murder, and work together to solve the mystery. It’s a great way to build trust, improve critical thinking skills, facilitate better collaboration, and importantly, have some amazing team fun! Plus, your crew can participate in a murder mystery play from the comfort of their own homes. They will be talking about this incredible virtual murder mystery play experience for weeks!

A perhaps lesser-known game but a very effective one, virtual icebreaker quizzes are an additional way to promote virtual team bonding online. It is designed to be either a virtual scheduled activity or can be a long-running one, such as over a month or several weeks.  This game can incorporate as few and as many participants as your virtual platform can handle. Remote workers get to know details about each other that they may not be able to gather by teleworking. Many icebreaker quizzes have already prepared questions or you can submit custom-made ones. Then, each participant is invited to the game and then they answer these questions. Some questions may be “Who on the team is from Alaska?” or “What is Kerry’s favorite TV show?” Automated quizzes can be sent via email to your team members to answer. For each round of a game, points, badges, levels, or whatever the scoring mechanism is are unlocked and each person earns their own points. There can be a leader scoreboard too if you want to foster some friendly team fun and virtual competition.

Online, virtual escape rooms grew exponentially during 2020 when their on-premises locations had to close due to the pandemic. Escape room companies adapted to offer virtual escape rooms online so people could still participate and have some fun while being stuck inside. Believe it or not, virtual escape rooms also make an amazing virtual team bonding experience for your team members as well as help build invaluable workplace skills such as critical thinking. Each virtual escape room has a theme— it could be a famous explorer’s adventure across the Pacific Ocean set in the late 1700s or be based on the script of a well-known movie like The Mummy. Team members have to work together to solve puzzles, connect clues, observe patterns, and crack codes. They will need to communicate, collaborate, problem solve, and make good decisions. Usually lasting somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes to complete a mission and “escape,” virtual escape rooms can accommodate smaller teams or larger ones via Zoom or whichever online platform. This team building activity offers a nice respite from the daily virtual office routine and enables some team fun while assisting with virtual team bonding.

Are you a team manager who wants to have a virtual team bonding activity? Interested in virtual team bonding events but are not sure where to start? Check out Live In Theater’s amazing set of interactive murder mystery plays for your next corporate event. Live In Theater specializes in virtual team bonding activities for some team fun. We are a theater company with incredible, dynamic, engaging, and professional actors who love what we do. Live in Theater holds their murder mystery plays via Zoom and can accommodate a small party up to 300 people. Your work colleagues will never forget our incredible virtual murder mystery experience! We also offer our services for private parties and holiday parties. Contact us today to find out more and book your next virtual team bonding activity.