10 Team Building Activities During Lockdowns

An increasing number of employees are working from home globally due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak. The biggest challenge that HR leaders and managers are facing is keeping their employees engaged in the workplace. In this article, we share ten team building activities that your virtual team members will love absolutely.

1. What’s brewing inside?

Let your virtual team members know each other a little better. In this game, each team member will open up his/her home for a virtual tour of the team members. This game works great for small teams. But if you have a large group, you can still play this game. Let one member take the team on a virtual tour every week. This way, you don’t need to spend too much time watching each other’s house.

2. Virtual lunch

Do you feel your employees are missing all those lunch breaks and team dinners? Bring on a virtual lunch session. Get linked up on the last Friday of every month over video conferencing for chitchat and enjoying lunch together. Order a takeaway or cook a quick meal. Don’t have more than 15 minutes to spare? Connect over a virtual coffee session. Spice it up by sending café coupons for your employees to connect from their favorite coffee shop or order pizzas for everyone and get it delivered at their homes.

3. The aliens’ land

This is an exciting game that tests the communication skill and creative thinking of the employees. Talk about a scenario where aliens have landed on the earth and want to know about your company. But since they don’t know the languages spoken on the planet, employees have to communicate through drawing symbols and pictures. Divide the employees into groups and let each team come up with their version. Keep it time-bound activity to make it more fun.

4. The guessing game

This is one of the classic games that you can play with your team members on a Friday evening. It can have different themes. For example, it could be a personal fact guessing game. Every employee will have to share personal details about themselves with the game coordinator, who will then compile everything in an excel without revealing the employees’ details. During the game, each employee will have to pick up a fact from the sheet and have to guess the correct employee name against it. You can also tweak the game where employees can share their childhood pictures instead of sharing personal details. Others have to guess it correctly.

5. Story building game

This may sound more suitable for kids, but trust us, your employees will love it because everybody loves stories. It would be a good opportunity for them to unwind and think of something different apart from work. You can have it over a virtual call where everyone sits in a circle virtually. Start the story with an opening line like “On the first day of the job, Tina’s car broke down on the road. She was looking around for help when…” let the next employee take a turn and add the following line. This process can go for 2-3 rounds before you conclude the story.

6. Messy Thursdays

This activity is just for fun and some good laughs. You can have a Slack channel named Messy Thursdays, where every employee shares a picture of their messy workstations. Get some ROFLs on some of the messiest workstations!

7. Haiku challenge

Haiku is a form of Japanese poems that have three lines and 17 syllables total. Although they are written about nature, you can get your own Haiku theme. Let each employee post their Haiku on Twitter with #haiku and your company’s unique hashtag. Decide a winner based on the maximum number of engagements.

8.Blind Origami

This is a fun team activity that helps to develop listening skills and the habit of asking for feedback. Pair up two employees as a team where one member will have access to origami instructions. Let the other member get hold of a paper and follow his team member’s instructions to fold the pieces to get the desired shape. Meanwhile, the other teams can cheer or distract! Go create some chaos and have fun!

9. Tele Yoga

While working from home, employees often tend to neglect their health. Long hours, sitting at the couch for extended hours, improper sitting arrangements, can lead to different health conditions. Arrange a weekly virtual yoga session for your employees, where all the employees can stretch out together.

10. Catch uptime

Your employees are missing those friendly water cooler chitchats. Set up a time for them to come on a virtual call. And chat with one another about anything except work!

Virtual team building activities are fun, help team members bond, and stay engaged and motivated. Managing remote teams may sound challenging, but 79% of employees report increased productivity and better focus when they remain engaged at work. For more employee engagement initiatives to boost team morale.