What is a Remote Team? Tips & Tools For Successful Remote Teams

The activity may inadvertently highlight differences more than commonalities. Virtual Bingo might lack the depth and interaction found in more complex team-building activities. It’s largely a game of chance, which means there are limited opportunities for skill development or strategic thinking. Virtual bingo is a fun and easy way to get everyone involved and realize what they have in common. Is a fun, engaging activity that can break the monotony of routine work and doesn’t require extensive planning or resources. By offering a glimpse into each other’s daily work environments, the game can spark conversations and stories.

It sounds overpriced until you realized how labor-intensive it is! About 50 members of our marketing team learned this first-hand when we did a virtual boba-making session. Each participant received a kit containing all the ingredients (we used this one).

Virtual Scavenger Hunts

With this in mind, we will go over the 12 best practices on how to manage a remote team. From large multinational corporations to small-scale web development agencies, many businesses worldwide have implemented work-from-home policies. Working remotely has become popular since it has many advantages, from increasing productivity to achieving a better work-life balance.

Then, an expert guided the whole group through the process – it really does take two hours to make a batch! But that provided plenty of time for icebreakers and general chit-chat while ingredients cooked and/or cooled. If you’re ready to go beyond surface-level connections with your team, this is the activity for you. Each person will prepare for the session by taking an online strength finder assessment such as Clifton Strengths. During the group session, everyone hops on a video call and takes turns sharing their results. Choose a topic related to your work that you want to learn more about – anything from SQL to leadership styles to trends in recruiting practices – and find colleagues who share that interest.

virtual team building activities and games

„We’ve designed a 100-day programme specifically to train new starters in adapting to remote-first working,” says Flannigan. „It includes networking opportunities, where we encourage team members to meet in a collaborative space, introduce themselves and build their working relationships.” Virtual team building involves engaging remote teams in an online format to deepen bonds within the team. These are some common questions that come up when people have to manage remote employees for the first time. Toggl Plan has got you covered and improves managers’ and team members’ time management by giving easy access to everyone’s workload and availability.

• Some common issues include miscommunication, social isolation, and home distractions, which require much effort and time to solve.
• This activity is especially beneficial for remote teams, as it visually represents the global spread of team members, highlighting the team’s diverse composition.
• Setting up a dedicated Slack channel for this challenge creates a casual, ongoing platform for interaction, separate from work-related communication.
• Just as important as helping your remote team connect is giving them permission to disconnect.
• We hope you’ve liked our list of the best virtual team building activities for remote & distributed teams.

Something we haven’t touched upon yet is that not all businesses are fully remote. If you fall into the category of a hybrid workplace (where you have some people working in the office and others dispersed) then how to hire a remote team it’s important to make sure that you treat everyone equally. According to data by Wildgoose, 22% of employees feel more productive when working alongside friends and 21% feel that it makes them more creative.

Five Simple Ways To Help Your Remote Team Feel Connected

It’s important to stay connected with your team and lead them to the best outcomes, but if you check in with your team too often, they might believe you do not trust them to complete their work. Reinforce your confidence in your team by giving them the space to complete their work and trusting them until they give you a reason not to. Learning how to manage remote working for your team will require you to step up to the leadership plate in some big ways. Some of these ways will be familiar, but some will feel completely new.

Trusted by millions, ProofHub will put everything you need at one place. You can use ProofHub tool for chat, task management, proofing, project management and many more. Each teammate works from a separate location, living in different cities, and working across time and space. Working remotely is one thing and managing a remote team is another challenge. You’re going to feel a bit vulnerable and exposed, so it works best if there’s already a sense of psychological safety amongst teammates. But because you’re discussing each other’s strengths, the conversation tends to be very positive and affirming.

Toggl features simple, easy, color-coded formats to project plans and set timelines. Create comments and share attachments to allow for fast and clear communication all through one tool. Its goal is to build stronger and happier teams through appreciation and positive commentary.

Department heads send news, shout-outs and GIFs to keep people reading. The newsletter is sent on Friday afternoons, offering an inspiring recap of the week so that employees can head into the weekend with a good feeling about all that the team accomplished that week. It’s easy for employees to fall off the bandwagon if they’re off doing siloed work day after day.