15+ Fun Team Building Activities for Remote Teams
Looking for some group fun with team building activities for remote teams?
Kipwise is a 100% remote team, and working alone at home can feel lonely. Regular team building activities help teammates feel connected, so below are 16 ideas for remote teams, with tips on how to run them and tools to use, including the ones we run at Kipwise.
Set up a social channel on Slack and a social calendar
At Kipwise, we have a #social-watercooler channel on Slack (read more tips on how to organize your Slack channels) where teammates can share non-work conversations. For example, we have teammates in different countries and we often share fun facts about our countries and history behind local customs when it’s the day of a special festival in our country. We also use this channel to plan our regular team building activities together.
To make it easier to organize our team building activities, we have linked our #social-watercooler channel with a shared calendar called Kipwise Social Calendar where teammates can create activities and invite teammates to join.
Bigger companies can add social channels by hobby (for example #social-foodie, #social-sports and #social-music) so people find others who share their interests.
Ideas for fun team building activities for remote teams
Decide first which activities are live and which are asynchronous. A live event only works for people who are awake and free at that hour. Noon GMT is lunch in Europe, dinner in Asia and breakfast in Brazil, the slot we use for team meals, but it is 4 or 5 a.m. on the US west coast. If your team spans more time zones than one slot can cover, make asynchronous formats such as picture of the week or playlist sharing the default, and rotate the live events between time zones.
1. Picture of the week
Sharing small pieces of daily life helps teammates get to know each other. Every week, we take turns choosing a topic for everyone to share a picture. Topics we have used:
- Your remote working desk
- Your favorite dish
- The favorite place you have traveled to
- The funniest picture of yourself
To keep people posting, you can add a prize, such as one for the most votes each quarter.
2. Cultural / fun facts sharing
Our teammates come from different countries. Every week, each teammate shares a cultural fact or a fun fact about their country or local customs, so everyone learns about each other’s culture.
3. Board games
Many board games have online versions you can play with remote teammates. Some of our favorites are Werewolf, Spyfall and Avalon.
Read more about Twelve Board Games You Can Play With Friends From Afar.
4. Video games
Some video games also work well for remote teammates. For ideas, see The 24 Best Online Games to Play With Friends.
5. Remote breakfast/lunch/dinner
As our teammates are located in different countries, we found around 12 noon GMT is a great time for us to have meals together. So it will be lunch time for our teammates in Europe, dinner time for our teammates in Asia and breakfast time for our teammates in Brazil. (We use World Time Buddy to find a time that works across several time zones.)
During our remote team meals, teammates will order food and eat in front of the camera together. It’s a good chance for us to have some casual chit-chats, and we also learn a lot about food in different countries through these team meals.
A team meal or a happy hour assumes everyone eats or drinks at that hour. Teammates who fast (during Ramadan, for example), avoid alcohol or follow dietary rules may quietly skip it, and a noon slot that is lunch for you can be the middle of a fasting day for them. We recommend inviting people to join with whatever they like, or nothing, and swapping in a no-food format, such as picture of the week, when many teammates are fasting.
6. Lunch & learn
Instead of only chatting during a remote team meal, you can invite an expert or have a teammate prepare a short learning session on a topic the team cares about, so people eat and learn at the same time.
7. Remote coffee run
This is like a remote team meal, but it can happen at any time. When you need a coffee break, call into a Zoom meeting and walk to get a coffee with whoever joins.
8. Kids meetup
If some of your teammates have kids, you can host a virtual family meetup where the kids hang out together and teammates meet each other’s families.
9. Movie night
Poll the team on which movie to watch (Polly is a good app for polls), then host a virtual movie night where everyone watches together. Stay on after the movie to chat.
10. Happy hour
Host a biweekly happy hour in the last hour of Friday’s workday, so teammates can relax at the end of a long week (or sprint!) without giving up an evening.
11. Exercise together
Working from home can mean not leaving the house all day, and not moving much either. Host a video call where everyone exercises together, with stretching, a short workout or a walk-and-talk. It is easier to keep going when others are on the call.
12. Interest classes
For example, you can organize a chocolate making class before Valentine’s Day and a floral arrangement class before Mother’s Day. You can hire an expert to run an online class, or your team might already have the talent: ask teammates to fill out their Teammates Profile and list their secret skills.
13. Secret Santa
Teammates in different places can still exchange gifts at the holidays.
Set a gift price limit that includes shipping, and ask teammates to buy something special to their country and culture, so the gift also teaches the receiver about another culture.
14. Donut calls
Donut is an app that regularly pairs up team members who don’t know each other well for a chat or coffee, so they get to know each other outside of work.
15. Book club
Start a virtual book club where teammates read the same book and meet in sessions to discuss it.
16. Share your playlists
Share your playlists with teammates. With teammates in different countries, you often find music you would never have heard of otherwise.
Pick one asynchronous idea and one live idea from this list, run both for a month, and keep the one your team actually joins.
