Teams that collaborate and communicate better, work better. With teams working remotely and in hybrid patterns, it is all the more important that organisations plan fun and effective virtual team building activities to help teams bridge the gap and increase trust, collaboration and engagement.
Virtual Team building activities, when designed and organised well, can also prove effective in increasing team productivity. A rule of thumb is to make online activities easy for remote workers to participate in — and not make them stressful or skill-dependent.
Check out this list of 7 easy-to-organise and fun online team activities.
1. Virtual Bingo
Bingo is a classic game and an old favourite. This virtual version is light-hearted, easy and fun, and gets teams to bond with each other.
The Virtual Bingo board has a number of action items on it. Each player has a bingo template with a list of statements. The moderator picks out random statements, and people who match have to put a cross in the action box.
How to run it
- Build a statement list drawn from everyday work life — for example “did chair yoga” or “created a workday playlist”
- Give every participant a template before the call starts
- Have one moderator call statements at random
- The first player to get three in a row, and then a full house, wins
Virtual bingo works particularly well as a recurring format, because the statement list can be refreshed without changing anything else.
2. Two truths and a lie
In this game, every participant tells two truths and one lie about themselves. The objective is that the lie has to be convincing and realistic. The other participants guess between the truths and lies, gaining points for correct guesses.
This game is a great way to get to know each other and discover a fun side to your colleagues — which makes it one of the most reliable trust-building activities for virtual teams.
How to run it
- No preparation and no materials required
- Works in 10–15 minutes as a meeting opener
- Scales down well for small teams where everyone gets a turn
3. Pictionary
Pictionary is a top favourite amongst virtual games. You can make your own list of words inspired by your organisation’s values and product offering. Alternatively, there are plenty of websites or apps you can use to run the game virtually.
Use a simple spreadsheet to keep the scores between teams.
How to run it
- Build a custom word list, or use an app that generates one
- Split into teams so nobody is drawing alone in front of the whole company
- Keep rounds short — momentum matters more than difficulty
4. What’s Cookin’?
Cooking is a common creative outlet for people working remotely, and a natural thing to share with colleagues.
Invite your employees to participate in a recipe submission where they submit their favourite recipes and photos, and get to try out someone else’s. This can lead to the discovery of cross-cultural experiences across a distributed team.
Participants can also do a live cooking challenge where they recreate their versions of one single dish.
How it’s scored
- Time management
- Completion of the dish
- Plating
This one needs the most lead time of the seven, since submissions have to be collected before the session.
5. Trivia Nights
If teams are missing the experience of socialising after work at a bar or restaurant, that can be relived virtually.
Organise a trivia night on various themes — popular TV shows, movies, science facts, general knowledge — and invite everyone to a social hour session with their favourite beverage, whether that’s tea, coffee, beer or wine. The host plays quizmaster, and teams answer to earn points.
How to run it
- Pick two or three themes rather than one, so the knowledge spread is fair
- Run it in teams, not individually — that is what makes it a bonding activity rather than a test
- Keep it outside core hours if it is framed as a social
6. Back to the Future
Invite all employees to a virtual costume party with a theme — for example, Future Self.
Ask guests to get creative with their attire based on what they already have in their wardrobe. Every participant gets 30 seconds to talk about themselves in the present tense, while imagining a scenario twenty years from now. They can talk about where and how they see themselves, and what they are doing or have achieved.
Through this activity, participants gain insight into their colleagues’ goals and get to know them better. Most creative costumes and answers win prizes.
7. Boot Camp
Working remotely sometimes causes employees to overlook their fitness. A weekly online session of a chosen fitness activity can help teams stay fit while keeping each other motivated to exercise.
Employees can also connect on health apps and set daily, weekly or monthly challenges — for example, who can do the most steps or burn the most calories.
As a recurring format, this is one of the better ways to foster community in remote teams, because the connection builds across weeks rather than in a single session.
Making Virtual Activities People Actually Join
Attendance is the real constraint on virtual activities, not the activity itself. Three things move it:
Keep the barrier to entry low
The rule at the top of this post is the operative one: easy to participate in, not stressful or skill-dependent. Anything requiring preparation from participants will lose people.
Put it in the calendar, not the chat
Recurring formats — bingo, boot camp, trivia — outperform one-offs because they stop competing for a decision every time.
Don’t run in-person formats over video
Activities designed for a room translate badly to a call. The seven above are built for the format. For teams split between office and remote, hybrid team building formats are designed so remote participants have equal agency rather than watching a room they cannot join.
For a fuller planning framework, see how to organise an impactful virtual team building event. If low engagement is the underlying issue rather than activity choice, managing employee stress in remote teams is the more useful starting point.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the easiest virtual team building activities to organise?
Two Truths and a Lie, Pictionary and trivia. None requires materials collected in advance, and all three can run inside an existing meeting. Virtual bingo needs templates prepared beforehand but almost no facilitation.
How do you play virtual bingo with a remote team?
Each participant gets a bingo template listing statements about everyday work life. A moderator reads out statements at random, and participants cross off any that apply to them. The first to get three in a row, then a full house, wins.
How long should a virtual team activity last?
Short formats such as Two Truths and a Lie run in 10 to 15 minutes as a meeting opener. Fuller sessions such as Pictionary or trivia work as a standalone slot. Recurring formats such as boot camp are designed to repeat weekly rather than run long.
How many people can join a virtual team building session?
Rush-A-Way runs virtual team-building events for anywhere from 5 up to 1,000 participants, with participants divided into teams through an online video interface and each team assigned a live moderator.
Do virtual activities work for hybrid teams?
Partly. Fully virtual formats work when everyone joins from their own device. When part of the team is together in a room, hybrid-native formats are needed instead, so remote participants have equal contribution rather than observer status.
What makes a virtual team activity fail?
Two things: activities that require skill or preparation from participants, and in-person formats run over video without being redesigned. Both reduce participation, which is the only metric that matters for these sessions.
Conclusion
Virtual team bonding increases employee motivation, efficiency and collaboration. It makes employees feel connected and valued, which in turn makes them more dedicated to their tasks and to the organisation.
At Rush-A-Way, we offer fun and effective team building activities to help organisations increase workplace efficiency and employee engagement. Get in touch if you would like to know more about our virtual team building offerings. Contact Us
