17 Hybrid Team Building Activities (That Aren’t Awkward)

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If you’re a manager, then you know how important team morale and connection are. It’s not surprising that professionals are more engaged and effective at work when they have friends in the office. 

All else equal, who wouldn’t prefer a job where they like their coworkers? And where they feel a sense of camaraderie, companionship, and trust with their workmates?

But fostering this sense of connection at work is a fine line. If you’re too heavyhanded, then you end up with cringey, “mandatory fun” meetings that people dread. But if you make no effort, then you end up with remote workers who view each other as nothing more than a faceless name in their inbox.

I worked as a leader in HR for over two decades, and in this article I’ll teach you what I know about virtual team-building activities for work. I’ll share some principles for running a successful team-building meeting and give you the best activities out there. 

The 4 Scopes of Team-building Activities

There are four primary ways to build remote team chemistry outside of people’s job descriptions:

1. Meeting openers: Short team-building activities to start off a longer business meeting

2. Full meetings: A full-length meeting whose sole purpose is team building

3. Online Communication: Creating channels for connection and humanity on Slack, Teams, Chanty, Mattermost, or whatever you use

4. Retreats: Setting up an annual in-person retreat to dive deep.

In this article, I’ll give you ideas for 1, 2, and 3. 

If you are planning to run a full-length meeting, it will require some nuance so that people don’t feel awkward or resentful that they need to join. But I’ve got some tips to help you.

How to Ensure that Your Team Building Activities Aren’t Awkward

The main key to a successful team-building meeting is to get buy-in from your team.

“Buy in” refers to the level of commitment and willingness your team has to participate in the meeting. 

If people are bought in, things are almost guaranteed to go well. However, if people trudge into the team-building exercises feeling skeptical and disgruntled, it’ll be a feat to win them over.

Here are seven ways to get buy-in for your team-building meeting:

1. Make the meeting during work hours. If your team building meeting is after work, employees may become resentful that they need to spend more time at work instead of with their family or friends, and it might even cause them to feel more burnt out than restored.

   
   

2. Share the why. Give people a purpose to motivate them. This meeting isn’t just about playing games; it’s about learning to collaborate better, strengthening team connections, and making a more cohesive team.

   
   

3. Get your team involved in the planning. People are much more likely to go along with something if they feel like they had a hand in it, rather than if it’s been imposed upon them. You could propose a menu of possible activities and let people vote on their top picks.

   
   

4. Start small. Try starting with shorter icebreakers before business meetings before pulling out the big guns with a 90-minute connection call. If the icebreaker games go well, then you can slowly ramp up.

   
   

5. Speak to their resistance and invite an open mind. When you start the meeting, it can be a powerful disarming tool to name the resistance people may be experiencing and then to invite an open mind. 

   
   

   Try something like this: “Some of you might be excited and ready to play. And others might feel awkward or even frustrated that you have to spend your valuable work time doing ‘forced fun.’ I get it. I appreciate you being here, and the only thing I ask is that you try to come with an open mind.”

   
   

6. Try opt-in meetings.  If you make your teambuilding meeting optional, then everyone who shows up has chosen to be there. The downside is that you won’t get full attendance. You could try out both ways and see what works for you. But if you do run an opt-in team meeting, make it truly optional rather than a meeting with covert pressure to attend.

   
   

7. You need to model. If you’re asking people to give a personal reflection with a touch of vulnerability, then you should open up first. If you’re asking people to be creative on the spot, then you demo first. It can be uncomfortable and scary to reveal ourselves, especially at work. So if the team leader does it first, then this precedent paves the way for others to feel safe.

Teambuilding Activities for Teamwork and Collaboration

Try one of these activities if your main goal is to give your team novel opportunities to practice collaborating and to achieve a sense of unity.

1. Swap User Manuals

Group size: Any size

This activity is good for: Insight, empowerment, vulnerability

Expect it to take: 30 minutes 

You can do this activity: Just once

Your “user manual” is a guide on how to effectively work with you and get along with you.

Think of it this way—when you buy a new car, it comes with a manual on what type of gas to put in, its features, and how often to get tune-ups. Without the manual, you’re blindly guessing how to operate this complex piece of machinery.

Think of how helpful it’d be if you had such manuals for people! 

Well, now you can.

In this activity, give about 15 minutes for everyone to sketch out the key points of their user manual, and then give a few minutes for each person to share and field questions.

Here are some prompts to help people create their user manual:

1. How do you like to communicate?

2. What’s your work schedule?

3. How do you best receive feedback?

4. What tasks do you thrive at?

5. What are ways people commonly misinterpret your behavior?

6. What motivates you to perform well?

7. What situations stress you out or frustrate you?

8. How do you best learn?

9. How do you want to grow (personally and professionally) in your role?

Alternatively, you could try out Manual of Me, a company that streamlines the process. 

Feeling understood by the team can be great for employee morale.

Quick Explain:

• Give everyone 15 minutes to write their user manual

• Give everyone a few minutes to share and field questions

2. Virtual Escape Room

Group size: 4+

This activity is good for: Problem-solving, fun, collaboration

Expect it to take:  60 minutes

You can do this activity: As often as you’d like

Have you ever done an in-person escape room? The premise is that you and your team are trapped in a room in a themed world (think “Museum Heist” or “Lost in Atlantis”). Together, you have to solve a variety of puzzle challenges within a set time to get out.  

If you at all like puzzles, they’re genuinely pretty fun! Winning as a team can give a shared sense of accomplishment.

And the good news is there are plenty of virtual escape room platforms.

Try The Escape Room.

After you finish, make sure to take a few minutes after to debrief and have people reflect on what they noticed about the role they took and any other team dynamics.

Quick Explain:

• Purchase Escape Room package

• Solve puzzle together

• Talk about what worked

3. Map Race

Group size: 4+

This activity is good for: Collaboration, effective communication skills, flow state

Expect it to take: 25 minutes

You can do this activity: Just once

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Split your remote employees into teams for them to fill out the world. This is a game of quick memorization and teamwork. 

Of course, it doesn’t actually matter how many countries they know. But you’re giving your team members an opportunity to create a strategy and take different roles on the fly.

After the time is up, it’d be a good idea to give everyone a chance to debrief and talk about what they noticed. 

If you want to segue into a more chill conversation space, then give some room afterward to talk about any travel stories, dream vacations, or fun facts that popped up when they were filling out countries.

Quick Explain:

• Split teams into breakout rooms

• Give them a map to study for 5 minutes

• Give them a blank map to fill out for 5 minutes

• Have teams grade each others’ maps

• Debrief

4. Team Riddles

Group size: Any 

This activity is good for: Problem-solving skills, employee engagement, strategic thinking

Expect it to take: 5-30 minutes 

You can do this activity: As often as you’d like

For a brainy team building game, you can put on your riddlemaster hat. 

Split the group into small teams, and dole out a riddle. Then see if each group can put their heads together and use teamwork to solve the riddle.

You can also make yourself available to answer questions to help them through the riddle.

To give you some ideas, here’s an easier riddle:

You need to transport a dog, a chicken, and a bag of rice across a river. However, you can only carry one item at a time in your boat, and there are constraints:

• If you leave the dog and chicken alone together, the dog will eat the chicken.

• If you leave the chicken and rice alone together, the chicken will eat the rice.

• The goal is to get all three items across the river safely.

How do you do it?

And here’s a trickier riddle:

You're walking down a path and come to a fork in the road. One path leads to a beautiful, safe, opulent village. The other path leads to a dangerous pit of despair. 

There are two identical-looking monkeys guarding the fork in the road. One monkey can only tell the truth. The other monkey can only tell lies. But you’re not sure which is which.

In order to figure out how to get to safety, you get one question to ask that both monkeys must answer. What question do you ask?

Quick Explain:

• Split the team into small groups

• Give out a riddle

• Field questions from each team

Teambuilding Activities for Connection and Empathy

When you work remote, most of your conversations with coworkers will just be about projects and deadlines, wiith the occasional 5 minutes of small talk to start a call. 

That’s why it can be helpful to create a deliberate space where your virtual team can get to know each other with some deeper connection and see each other’s humanity beyond just their work roles. These types of activities can really create a sense of community.

5. Curious Questions

Group size: 15 or fewer 

This activity is good for: Connection, reflection, getting to know each other

Expect it to take: 5-10 minutes 

You can do this activity: As often as you’d like

This activity can make a great warmup for business meetings, or a standalone activity as part of a team building meeting.

The idea is simply to ask a question that someone may not normally receive and then give everyone a chance to respond.

You could do a few lightning rounds, where everyone just shares one or two words. Alternatively, you could invite a full-sentence response. Or, for more involved questions, you could put on a timer for a 1 or 2 minute time limit.

Before you ask the question, it’ll be helpful to give guidelines on how long of a response each person should give. Otherwise, things may be either snappier than you hoped, or they might drag on.

Here are some icebreaker questions to try out:

• If you got a yearlong, paid sabbatical, what would you do with your time?

• What’s a favorite hobby (or way you like to spend time outside of work) and what do you like about it?

• What has been a highlight of this past week for you?

• What has been a challenge you’ve faced this past week?

• What’s been a book or movie that impacted you? How did it impact you?

Quick Explain:

• Ask a question to the group

• Tell everyone how long they have to respond (from 1 word to 3 minutes)

• Give everyone a chance to share

6. The Google Game

Group size: 3+

This activity is good for: Curiosity, vulnerability, getting to know each other

Expect it to take: 15 minutes 

You can do this activity: As often as you’d like

This game will show you what can happen if you could Google someone’s mind. It’s a great way to invite authentic sharing and a hint of vulnerability.

It’s best done in small groups of three or four.

One person will ask another, “What do I get if I Google [their name] and [a word].” And then, the recipient will free associate on that word. They may tell a story, share a memory, or flesh out an idea.

The asker can then double-click on any part of the answer, which invites the recipient to expand on that part of their share.

For example, Chris may ask Amy, “What do I get if I Google “Amy” and “adventure?”

And Amy may reply, “The first thing that comes up is an epic hiking trip I went on with my partner last year in Italy. We backpacked for about a week, met some interesting people, and really pushed our limits.” 

Chris may then ask, “Can I double-click on how you pushed your limits?”

To which Amy may reply, “Yeah, because it was really physically strenuous. And at times I wanted to give up. But I was able to find some strength within myself and with my partner to just keep hiking.”

This basic structure is actually a pretty reliable path to meaningful connections.

Quick Explain:

• Split everyone into groups of 3 or 4

• Person 1 asks Person 2 “What if I Google [your name] and [word]”

• Person 2 responds

• Person 1 asks to double-click on some part of the share

• Rotate roles

7. Show and Tell

Group size: 15 or fewer

This activity is good for: Sharing a glimpse into your lives, reflection

Expect it to take: 5-15 minutes 

You can do this activity: As often as you’d like

It can feel pretty intimate to spend time in someone’s home. And the funny thing about remote work is that you are all spending time in yoru homes!

Here’s a fun sharing activity where each person gets 3 minutes to pick something from their home (or bag if they’re at a coworking space) and then share about it.

It could be their favorite board game, their trusty Vitamix, or a crystal from their altar.

Quick Explain:

• Someone picks something from their room and shares for 1-3 minutes

Teambuilding Activities for Creativity and Innovation

It can be nice to take a break from competition and analytical thinking and instead do activities that invite creativity and abstract thinking.  

Plus, studies suggest that doing creativity-priming tasks can make your workers more creative in the rest of the work day. Not to mention, when people do creative acts they report higher wellbeing. 

8. Collective Storytelling

Group size:  Any

This activity is good for: Creativity, spontaneity, play

Expect it to take: 5-10 minutes

You can do this activity: As often as you’d like

Here’s an activity taken from the world of improv comedy.

Set a timer for one minute. You’ll crack off and weave the beginning of a story.

Then, each person gets a minute to add on.

Encourage people to build off what’s been said before. But otherwise, no rules. Let people’s imaginations run wild.

This activity is a great opportunity to encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

If you have a group bigger than 15, consider breaking people into breakout rooms.

Quick Explain:

• Set a timer for 1 minute as you start to tell a story

• After your minute, the next person continues the story

• Go until the last person has spoken

9. Group Painting Class

Group size: Any 

This activity is good for: Shared experience

Expect it to take: 1-2 hours 

You can do this activity: Just once

Online art classes are a great way to provide a memorable shared experience to your entire team.

Try a platform like Painting to Gogh. They’ll ship art supplies to each person’s home. Once you all meet up over Zoom, you can watch a pre-recorded class or bring in a live instructor.

If you do a group class like this, it’ll be helpful to have a chance to debrief afterward. Either by moving people into breakout rooms to talk about their experience, sharing experiences as a large group, or opening a thread on Slack. 

If you don’t debrief, you miss the potential to actually bond over the shared experience.

Quick Explain:

• Third-party company ships supplies

• Meet over Zoom

• Everyone paints by following a recorded class or a live instructor

• Debrief for a few minutes

10. Photo Scavenger Hunt

Group size: Any 

This activity is good for: Creativity, sharing glimpses into your lives

Expect it to take: 20-30 minutes 

You can do this activity: As often as you’d like

Come up with a list of prompts, and then give your team a few minutes to snapshots of each one and upload their pics to a Google drive.

Some ideas for prompts could be:

• A cozy corner of your home

• A unique texture or pattern

• The view outside your window

• Something that makes you smile

• A photo that tells a story

• Something that shows contrast (e.g., light and dark, soft and hard)

• A picture taken from an unusual angle or perspective

• The most interesting thing in your fridge

• A hobby-related item

After all the pictures are taken, share a slideshow of all the photos with the group.

Quick Explain:

• Send out photo prompts

• Give everyone a few minutes to snap and upload pictures

• Go over all the pictures as a group

11. Scattergories

Group size: Groups of 2-6 

This activity is good for: Quick thinking, creativity

Expect it to take: 5-20 minutes

You can do this activity: As often as you’d like

Scattergories is a classic game where everyone receives a letter and a list of 12 prompts. They must then come up with an answer for each prompt that begins with the given letter.

After two minutes, everyone reads what word they came up with for each prompt. You get a point for every prompt that you successfully answered. But if two or more people come up with the same word for a prompt, then neither gets points.

Use this link to play.

Here’s what the game looks like:

Quick Explain:

• Split into groups of 6 or fewer

• Screenshare Scattergories screen

• Everyone writes answers with paper

• When time goes off, everyone reads answers

Teambuilding Activities for Casual Fun

There is undoubtedly value in activities that foster team collaboration or deeper conversations. But sometimes, nothing beats plain and simple fun.

Here are a few ideas for fun team-building activities.

12. Remote Watch Party

Group size: 2+

This activity is good for: Entertainment, casual connection, banter

Expect it to take: 5-60 minutes 

You can do this activity: As often as you’d like

Here’s a team-building event to turn your team into a collective peanut gallery.

The idea is to join a Zoom call, and put a video on. Keep the Zoom text open, and encourage people to chirp, banter, speculate, and react while you’re watching.

Here are some fun suggestions to watch together in a relaxed environment:

• The Office

• Love is Blind

• Survivor

Or if you want something shorter and your team has a good sense of humor, try a YouTube video. Here’s a surprisingly entertaining clip of a hamster crawling through a maze.

Quick Explain:

• Set up a Zoom call

• Watch something together

• Encourage people to use the chat throughout

13. Video Games

Group size: 4+

This activity is good for: Light hearted fun, friendly competition

Expect it to take: 5-60 minutes

You can do this activity: As often as you’d like

One study found that when people played cooperative video games together, they exhibited better teamwork and mutual trust after the games ended.

Interestingly, another study found that when workers played video games together, they were then far more productive when the returned to work. The researchers theroized this was because the games got them in a flow-state that they carried into their work.

There are some pretty fun video games out there that are easy to learn.

Here are the top three platforms I’d recommend for online games for remote participants:

• Internet Game. Internet Game has a bunch of mini-games. From word games to space sumo wrestling. They’re easy to learn and fun to play.

• Among Us! Among Us! Is a cult classic that took off during the pandemic. It’s a a social deduction game where you are either a crewmate who needs to finish tasks on a space ship, or you’re an Imposter trying to sabotage the mission. It’s free on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

• Skribbl.io. Skribbl is similar to the classic game of Pictionary. Players will take turns drawing images on a virtual whiteboard. You get points when you correctly guess others’ drawings and when others correctly guess yours. 

Quick Explain:

• Pick a gaming platform

• Have fun on it with your team!

14. GIF Battle

Group size: 3-10

This activity is good for: Creativity, humor, healthy competition

Expect it to take: 20 minutes 

You can do this activity: As often as you’d like

GIF Battle is a really fun game of quick thinking and wit.

There are several rounds, each with a prompt, such as “That feeling when you spend a half day fixing something solved in 2 seconds.”

Then, everyone submits a GIF to match the prompt.

(Here’s what I’d pick for that one!)

Then, everyone will vote on the best GIF. And the winners advance to the next round.

It’s just the right blend of silliness, friendly competition, and intensity. 

To streamline this game, here’s an awesome GIF Battle template on Trello. 

Quick Explain:

• Everyone sees prompt

• Everyone submits GIF

• Everyone votes on the best one

• Winners advance to the next round

Teambuilding Online Communication Channels (Slack, Teams, Mattermost, etc)

This is the most hands-off way to bring more connection and camaraderie to your team culture. Try out one of these Slack channels or prompts.

If you go this route, it’s probably best to introduce them one at a time to avoid overwhelming people with new channels.

15. Fun Question Friday

Every Friday, post a “get-to-know-you” question for people to respond to.

Questions could be “Do you have any phobias?” Or “If you could instantly learn a new skill, what would it be?” or “What are three items on your bucket list?” or anything in between!

To boost participation, set up a spreadsheet where your teammates can submit questions to the queue. Then, randomly select one to post each week.

16. Shared Playlist

Almost everyone listens to music (93% of Americans, to be precise). So why not use it as an opportunity to bond?

Consider setting up a Slack channel where people share songs they’ve been playing on repeat.

Music taste can be a vulnerable entry point into a person’s emotional landscape, and just sharing a favorite song can create an opening for connection.

And if any coworkers happen across someone with similar taste, that’s an instant point of relating.

17. Traveling Mascot

Here’s a fun way to spark a little team spirit. Buy a stuffed animal or toy to act as a mascot for your team or company. 

Take a fun photo with the mascot and post it to Slack. Then, mail the mascot to someone else on your team. Once they receive it, it’s their turn to take a playful picture of the mascot and post it with a funny caption.

This is a fun idea that bridges the digital world with the tactile.

Just make sure there are enough people participating. If you receive the mascot too often, this fun game could quickly become a hassle.

How to Become a Better Leader and Teambuilder

If you want to build a team where people feel connected, trust each other, and work together like a well-oiled machine, then it could help to invest in your own leadership skills.

One great option to become a better leader is to train your coaching skills. When a leader knows how to coach, they know how to encourage, include, and empower their team members.

If you’re interested in learning more, check out this coaching training, and if you’re on the fence, you can book a free consultation with me.