Team-building has gone virtual as isolation and low morale in remote and hybrid work models can challenge team collaboration, communication, and connectivity.

I collected the 16 best virtual team-building activities in two categories: activities to incorporate into virtual meetings and more extensive activities your team will love. 

Fun ways to incorporate team-building games into virtual meetings

Spending little time before your regular meeting can immediately boost your working relationships. 

How about starting a team meeting with:

1. Virtual Trivia

As the saying goes, “There’s nothing like a little bit of friendly competition to bring people together.”

I love virtual trivia as a virtual team-building game because it lets teammates show off their knowledge while they engage in an energizing activity.

The best part about trivia as an activity for virtual teams is that the subject can change over time.

You can return to Virtual Trivia as a monthly activity without it going stale.

You can prepare a custom trivia game on a website like Mentimeter for office or holiday-themed play. 

For example, Christmas has lots of fun facts to play trivia with your team, which we suggested in detail in our Work Christmas Party Ideas list.

Want to up the ante?

Excite your team by giving them something to compete for. 

A fun badge to tack onto their email signature that declares them the winner of Team Trivia, an e-gift card, or a virtual certificate are all great prize ideas. 

2. Playing Photo Games 

Photo games are a fun way to get personal, invite storytelling, and boost a team's morale.

In this virtual team-building game, team members share a photo, and the team will guess who the picture belongs to. 

Upon revealing the answer, the team member whose photo it is will get to tell the story behind the photo.

You can copy our Photo Collage Icebreaker template for a beautifully designed platform to submit photos and screen sharing on Teams or Zoom when playing.

You may have heard about ‘Guess the Baby Photo’ style games, which provide funny baby photos, great stories, and sometimes shocking surprises.

I love Guess the Baby Photo, but this activity's replay value isn’t always great. 

Great themes for photo games are:

• Pets
• Embarrassing Moments
• Favorite Memory
• Biggest Accomplishment
• Favorite Celebrity or Childhood Celebrity Crush
  
  

3. Two Truths and a Lie

Too often, teams only bond over commiserating about work. 

Create room for the team to play activities that help them build meaningful connections and dissuade any chance to form collective emotions over the negatives.

Fun question-based virtual team-building games like Two Truths and a Lie are a great way to take the focus off work and open up new avenues for socialization.

All you have to do is ask each person to come up with two truths and one lie about themselves. 

Then, have the other team members guess which one is the lie!

To make the game more challenging (and more fun), allow probing questions to uncover the absolute truth and score the winners. 

This is how Two Truths and a Lie can quickly turn into a game of wit, deception, and cunning detective work.

The rules then will be:

• Each person will take turns to share their three statements. The rest will have three question tokens each. 
• They can use their question tokens to ask the owner of the statement additional questions to determine the truth. And yes, they must answer honestly. If someone guesses the lie correctly, they earn a point.
• Keep track of points to see who can uncover the most lies and score the highest.

You will each learn something new about your team members, guaranteed! 

Two Truths and a Lie is perfect for newly formed teams who need to know more about each other.

Other get-to-know-you games could be:

• Fun Facts Sharing: Invite each person to reveal 1-3 fun facts about themselves that the team still needs to discover. To make it more interesting, you can have a theme, such as work habits or childhood memories.
• Never Have I Ever: Everyone begins with five fingers held up. Taking turns, people share something they've never done; if someone else has done it, they lower one finger. Who keeps their fingers raised the longest is the winner.

4. Drawing Games

Drawing games are a fun way to challenge your team to use their creativity while doing an activity with their team members. 

I’ve played thousands of online drawing games with my team. 

We’ve done everything from guessing words to playing online telephone. These games always make us laugh and learn new things about each other every time we play. 

I recommend drawing games like Skribbl.io, Gartic Phone, and Pictionary for creativity and team communication.

These virtual team-building games are a great way to facilitate team bonding without asking your team to divulge personal details.

Some people in your team might not enjoy drawing, but these games have nothing to do with artistic talent. 

You just need to find interesting, fun, or unique ways to express your idea, and it’s worth trying once!

How to Set Up This Game: 

• For Skribbl: Simply send out the private invite link to your team. Skribbl allows you to upload your own words to use in the game.

Tailor a word list surrounding your team, company, or work environment to encourage your team to draw work-related words and boost the fun factor.

• For Garctic Phone: There are different modes to choose from. We usually go with the “Normal” mode, which models the typical Telephone game rules with drawing!
• For Pictionary: We use this version, which allows you to create a private invite link and start playing in an instant! 

Don’t be afraid to get silly with this activity! 

Laughing with your team members is one of the best aspects of playing a game.

5. Take Personality Quizzes

From fun celebrity quizzes to more serious analysis, personality tests will tell you more about yourself and your team.

Turn these tests into a team-building game by letting your team members take the test beforehand and then inviting the team to discuss. 

During the meeting, compare and contrast your findings to identify similarities in category assignments.

Interesting Personality Tests to try:

• 16 Personality Tests (offers similar celebrity and character personality types)
• Enneagram Test (sorts into nine personality types)
• Big Five Personality Test (great for work!)
• DiSC Assessment (perfect for teams)

6. Play Charades

Who doesn’t love charades? 

This classic virtual team-building game is a great way to get hybrid and virtual teams to have fun together.

It’s silly, simple fun, and helps people break out of their comfort zones! 

The game lets you act out words and phrases for the team to guess. This game works well for small and large groups.

The closer your team is, the more fun the game will be.   

For larger teams, you can add an extra layer of competition by dividing your team into two smaller groups.

Then, have two people act out the word while the other team members guess.

The first team to successfully guess the word wins!

P/S: Have you ever thought about adding some work terms into the mix? Acting out things like  "replying to emails at midnight" or “cringy boss” could make it even more hilarious for your team.

7. Unique Virtual Icebreaker Questions for Remote Teams

The easiest thing you can do to let your remote team connect on a personal level are icebreaker questions and work get-to-know-you questions.

There's so much about our working-from-home lives and perspectives we'd never share unless asked. 

Like how many times you've worked in pajamas this week or a new hobby you picked up.

I recommend asking icebreaker questions once or twice a month to catch up on what's happening in your teammates' WFH lives and build stronger bonds. 

Get the inside scoop on their productivity tricks or TV binge sessions!

You can also try posting questions of the day in your team Slack channel. Pick one lighthearted question each morning and make a thread for people to chime in randomly throughout the day. 

It's an effortless way to spark conversations and surface the quirky details that make your team unique!

Click here to try remote-work-only icebreaker questions to discover hidden WFH facts about your teammates.

Great Virtual Team-Building Games that Your Team’ll Enjoy 

8. Tiny Campfire

Ever wish you could take your virtual team on a camping trip?

Going camping is a great way to promote bonding. With marshmallows roasting, campfire discussion, scary stories, and more, a camping trip with your team would be a blast.

Tiny Campfire is a company that created a package specifically for virtual Team-building and camping style!

They promise a gourmet s’mores kit, which gets delivered to each team member for roughly $70 per person, complete with a planned itinerary and games.

The entire event is hosted by Camp Counselors, who MC, organize, and promote conversation among your team members.

Tiny Campfire has over 5,800 reviews with an average rating of 4.96/5 stars.

Click here to sign up and get a customized quote for a virtual campfire event for your team.  

9. Virtual Book Club

Personal development doesn't have to be dull.

Sometimes, you might find that your team dreads these meetings because they can't be focused on the task at hand, such as the project you’re working on or their workload. 

Expectations to read literature or watch speeches individually might be killing your team's development engagement. 

But you can reshape it!

Let’s shift it from individual tasks to collaborative learning to reinvigorate everyone's enthusiasm for development. 

It's like playing and learning together. 

You can make personal development a group activity like that by hosting a virtual book club.

This activity promotes conversation about a topic and puts meaning behind your personal development meetings.

What You’ll Need to Set Up a Virtual Book Club Session:

• Pick a date and time for book club day at least two weeks in advance. Your team needs enough time to acquire and read their books without feeling rushed.
• Have each person submit a book they want to share. Telling expectations to others upfront fosters commitment.
• On event day, first, have each person briefly summarize their book and key learnings. Others can ask questions and discuss the topics together. 

With ten different books, this will be a rich learning session where insights bounce around, and we all gain new perspectives.

• Repeat until everyone shares their books. 

This guide is for a one-time session. If you want to continue your book club, simply repeat the process for each new meeting!

10. Human Bingo

BINGO! 

Doesn’t that word just remind you of fun?

Human bingo is an interactive activity that helps remote teams learn interesting facts about each other. 

To play, each person receives a bingo card with random attributes or facts in each square. 

Slightly different from the traditional version, the goal of human bingo is to identify team members who match the items on your card to get "bingo" by completing a row vertically, horizontally, or diagonally.

This game is a great virtual bonding experience for several reasons.

First, it allows team members to make connections and realize how much they have in common. 

The lively, conversational format also makes it more engaging as people ask each other questions and interact. 

Additionally, human bingo uncovers unique or unexpected details about coworkers in a casual, enjoyable way. 

How to Set up Human Bingo:

• Create bingo cards listing fun facts, hobbies, skills, etc., that apply to team members.
• Distribute digitized bingo cards to each participant via screen sharing or email.
• Set a time limit for people to mingle and complete their cards by asking coworkers if the facts relate to them.
• The first person to complete a row and confirm the connections wins!
• Consider giving small prizes to winners and runners-up.

11. Jackbox Party Pack Games

Jackbox Party Pack Games are an accessible way to play fun, interactive online party games, especially for small teams.

Each Jackbox Party Pack has many games like drawing games, fill-in-the-blanks, trivia, etc.

We recommend this activity for small teams of 4-8 people, but there are Jackbox Party Pack Games that can accommodate larger teams of up to 12 people.

The best part about Jackbox Party Packs is that they are an affordable and easy way for team members to play together with high-quality, unique games.

Only one person must purchase a Jackbox Party Pack, which typically costs (price) and includes (amount) of games.

There is no additional cost for the amount of team members playing.

How to Set Up Jackbox Games:

• Set up a meeting on your chosen virtual meeting platform.
• Open Jackbox Games and select which game you would like your team to play.
• A code will appear on the screen.
• Share the code with your team.
• Then, your team can navigate to jackbox.tv on their mobile or desktop device and play along.

12. Random PowerPoint Night

Random PowerPoint Night gained popularity on TikTok as a hilarious way to learn about random topics with a group of friends.

We love this idea for teams because it can be a great opportunity to learn with one another about what everyone is interested in.

How to Set Up Random PowerPoint Night:

• Instruct your team to create a short, simple PowerPoint about any chosen topic. The more silly, the better!
• Then, gather together on your chosen virtual meeting platform.
• One by one, present your PowerPoints and let hilarity ensue!

Unsure what topics for random PowerPoints should be like? Here are my suggestions: 

• Your colleagues as characters from The Office
• Ranking fast food chains
• Your favorite comfort movies
• Workplace superlatives
• Rename your colleagues’ job titles

Alternatively, if making your own PowerPoint sounds like too much work for your busy team, you could always try PowerPoint Karaoke.

PowerPoint Karaoke is a fun improv game that provides you with random slides. Then, you present the random slides as if it is a carefully rehearsed presentation.

13. Tea Vs. Coffee Tasting

Make getting something in the mail more fun!

Our teams are used to getting bills, political ads, and junk mail, but what about a fun package for work?

If your team is full of caffeine lovers, the Tea vs. Coffee package is perfect for virtual team-building. 

We especially love this idea for teams that are spread out because they can all have the experience of opening up a present together remotely.

Tea vs. Coffee delivers each team member a care package with a planned itinerary.

The entire virtual event is hosted as a Tea vs. Coffee Ceremony by Tea vs. Coffee, whose MCs teach your team about the drinks and promote conversation among your team members. 

Pricing varies based on team size and location.

Click here to sign up and get a customized quote for a Tea vs. Coffee party.

14. Plan a Work-Themed “Team Vacation”

Embrace the diversity of your remote team with this fun happy hour idea that will never get old! 

It can come as a surprise to remote teams that they don’t know much about the locations their team members call home.

How to Go on “Team Vacations”:

First, start with happy hours, which reflect the locations of your team. 

People will take turns sharing their customs, traditions, or culture. 

This location or culture will be treated as the team’s “vacation destination.”

Team members can dress up, change their video background, play music, or choose activities that match the themed country or place.

Bonus Activity: Once you run out of places to “visit,” you can always open up this idea to a general team vacation!

Explore Hawaii, Bali, Antarctica, and more!

15. Scavenger Hunt

Put your heads together and practice your problem-solving skills as a team on a non-work-related task.

I see many teams use this activity as a warm-up for a big project meeting just to get the team in the zone!

But the main reason I’m a fan of it is that we can play it completely virtually with any household items.

How to Put Together a Virtual Scavenger Hunt:

• Create your list of household items (add some challenging ones!). Alternatively, you can use one of these templates for a scavenger hunt.
• Then, call out an item and watch as your team scrambles to find it in their home.
• You may score your team on completion or who is the fastest to return to their laptop!

If you make your template, include items that show people’s personality. 

I suggest items like furry friends, favorite sports team gear, favorite movies, or favorite breakfast food. 

16. Create a Team Vision Board

We all want to align on goals and missions as a team, don't we? 

Rather than isolating our ambitions, a shared vision board lets us discover overlapping goals and cheer each other on. 

For example, multiple people may want to complete a critical project this year, or several team members aspire to become managers one day.

The vision board gives visibility into our personal growth and aspirations at work. 

By uniting our objectives, we can draw on the collective power of our team. Our unique strengths complement each other when working toward shared purposes.

How to Set up a Team Vision Board:

• Find a digital template where people can design a vision board together, like this one from Canva or this one from Figma.
• Ask team members to submit an image(s) that coincides with their upcoming goals.
• Host a meeting to discuss the goals of the vision board.
• Have team members share the meaning behind their goals.
• Try to connect those with similar goals.

Virtual Team-building Activities: Frequently Asked Questions

Why are Virtual Team-building Activities Important in 2024?

Team-building used to mean rope courses, trust falls, and escape rooms - activities to bring coworkers together in person. 

But in 2024, Team-building has gone virtual in today's remote and hybrid work world.

Virtual team-building activities are online experiences aimed at improving team collaboration, communication, and connectivity, even in different locations.

Why have virtual team-building activities become so critical? 

A 2023 SHRM survey found remote workers feel more isolated and disconnected than their in-office colleagues.  

And, in fact, your people won’t tell you that.

“Loneliness is a taboo subject. We’re happy to say if we aren’t sleeping well or eating badly or are upset. But we won’t say, ‘I’m lonely.’ Even among friends or family – it’s just not something we say.” - Petra Velzeboer, founder and CEO of mental health consultancy PVL

As a manager, you need to read between the lines. Observe your team members for signs of isolation and low morale, even if they don't speak up. Then, some thoughtful virtual team-building activities at the right times will help you bridge the gap. 

Through these fun online interactions, your team members can get to know each other better and feel more bonded.

Virtual Team-building takes many forms - escape rooms, cooking classes, trivia, and games are popular options. The key is choosing activities that allow coworkers to collaborate and reveal their personalities. 

Instead of just staring at faces on Zoom, virtual Team-building lets you see your colleagues strategize, joke, and compete. Those shared experiences build the rapport essential for an engaged, supportive team.

So don't write off Team-building as a relic of the pre-pandemic office. Thoughtful virtual team-building activities allow remote teams to connect in meaningful ways. 

What platform should be used to host a virtual team-building activity?

There are many video platforms where you can host your next virtual team-building activity. From Zoom to Teams and beyond, the choice is up to you!

I suggest using whichever video platform your company currently uses, but if you need more ideas, visit our suggestions on Virtual Meeting Platforms!

How to organize a virtual team-building activity?

Organizing a virtual team-building activity can be as simple as setting a meeting time and picking an activity or as complicated as planning an original idea from the ground up.

Our list of virtual team-building ideas has plenty of fun ideas with complete instructions from start to finish. 

How long does a virtual team-building activity last?

Your virtual team-building activities should last long enough for your team to have some fun but not too long that it takes away from their workload.

We recommend a minimum team-building activity time of 30 minutes and a maximum team-building activity time of 90 minutes for virtual teams.