The concept of conventional work is evolving day by day. The COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled this rapid change pace, as staying indoor is the new norm. Thanks to technological advancement, all the workers practice remote work during this health emergency across the globe. A new virtual team is the newest advancement in the professional world.

The concept of management also revamped as per the need of the situation. Those who all manage virtual teams need to communicate and collaborate with them over video or audio calls. The room for virtual team building activities is getting limited in terms of the previous work method. Earlier, it was possible to meet with your team members in person, so the ice-breaking session or the team activity session used to occur.

The Need of Virtual Team Building Activities

Now during this COVID-19 time, working remotely and managing the entire team has become a bit hectic even for a skilled manager. Being available over skype, video, and audio calls on the official hour are required for sure. Virtual team building activities help a manger bring the most out of their task force, working remotely.

Let’s scroll down to know about ten most-effective team building activities that can be proven significant in increasing your virtual team’s productivity.

Importance of Virtual Team

Many team leads and managers think that virtual team members are sitting miles away from the office. So, there is no need to connect with them. Sometimes, they may think that the virtual team is not keen on getting connected with their colleagues and higher management. As a team leader, your primary responsibility is to understand communication benefits with virtual teams and prioritize team-building among your remote workers.

Here are the main benefits of building a virtual team

· Increase Productivity

 Engagement motivates virtual teams to be more productive and often outstretch their shift timing as per the requirement. That’s how they will be able to cheer each other and reach their team-related goal and individual goal.

· Fight against Loneliness

If your team members work separately and not get a chance to communicate with each other, they may be getting defocused, monotonous, and less engaged at work. They will feel less satisfied with the current job role. Unfortunately, it would be best if you kept finding out replacements more often than usual.

· Create Strong Relationship

Your team members can be based out of different offices. But, it won’t stop them build a strong bond with one another. Remember, they can be divided by projects, but the same organization which unites them. When your virtual team members start collaborating, they will share their thought processes. Maybe you can set it as a schedule in your virtual team building activities planner.

The Effectiveness of Virtual Team Building

There are two main parameters to create an excellent virtual team. The first one is to the entire team members should be able to begin a conversation. The second one is that there should be room for real-time alike visualization. It’ll help them to treat their colleague in a much realistic way. While typing some message or joining on call, they should never feel less warmth as it may decrease the virtual team’s effectiveness passively.

Most Famous Team Visual Building Activities

After understanding virtual team building activities’ value, all a team leader can do is put it into practice. This piece of writing will make you understand the 10 most useful tips for virtual team building activities.

Favorite Things

Those who all are clueless about how, to begin with, this step can be an ice-breaker for them. As a team lead, you can tell your virtual task force to talk about their favorite things. It can be anything from nurturing their favorite hobby to favorite things about work from home. In this way, you can understand their opinion.

Birth Map

This fun-filled virtual team building activities let you learn something new about your team members. You can share a world map in a group chat. You can use Google Maps and then invite your team members to mark their birthplace. After that, you can tell them to share their favorite thing or a memorable experience from their native.

Chartroom for Lighter Talks

Another on-going team-building practice is to keep your employees engaged and productive regularly. For this regard, as a leader, you can dedicate a separate talk space for your employees for lighter communication. You can keep posting GIF, Meme, Funny Videos, and quotes to keep the light ambiance intact.

Community Break

Remember those days when all your team members used to take coffee breaks regularly? You can arrange something very similar to those mass breaks as a part of your virtual team building activities. Allocate 10-15 minutes daily or weekly for your folks to have a cup of fuming tea or coffee together and discuss something other than work.

Gaming Session

Who will say not to gaming, especially when someone is working remotely? As a team lead, this is probably one of the most predicted and popular virtual team-building activities. You can also bring it as one of your fun activities for the team. Ask your teammates which game they would like to play and start playing the same weekly once or as per the preferred time slot suggested by them.

Virtual Team Movie Time

How about hosting a movie party to give your teammates some relief from the 9-5 life daily? Well, you can tell your virtual teams to arrange a poll on which film they want to watch. Once the result has come, you can open a chat channel to share their opinion about the movie or interact with each other. It is bound to increase team efficiency. So, this method can be proven effective in terms of creating virtual team building activities.

Sharing Pictures

Picture sharing may sound simple, but most organizations widely practice one of the most effective virtual team building activities. Invite your team members to share a picture from their workspace and ask them to describe the same in a nutshell. This activity will lead to instant employee engagement by giving them a chance to communicate with each other.

Summing Up

There are various methods to engage your virtual team members into conversation with virtual team building activities. Always remember, an inter-connected, satisfied virtual team will be your treasure in the long run as they will always try to stick to your organization because of the positive work environment. You’ll also be able to turn your taskforce into a forever cherished asset of the company.