5-Minute Team Building Activities for Remote Workplaces

If you manage or operate a team that works completely remotely, you may face some new challenges. Not only is communication more difficult in the remote sphere vs. working in a physical office, but you also have to create an inclusive, cohesive company culture.

When your company has a strong sense of culture, workers feel included, motivated, and bonded with their team. Team building may seem unnecessary to some companies, but it can mean a world of difference. When workers build a sense of cohesive, team bonding, they commit more to their work, fulfill obligations to teammates, communicate more honestly, and feel encouraged to express their creativity and leadership skills. Team building activities aren’t just important to remote teams; they’re a necessity. 

How do you achieve these results when you work remotely? You can’t exactly play a team volleyball game together or go on a company hike. Thankfully, there are more options in this modern area, thanks to virtual team building platforms like TriviaHub. Log onto the web conferencing site and host games, icebreakers, and other activities for your remote team. These remote team building activities are your solution to the physical distance between coworkers--and the rift this can create between you all.

You don’t have to commit an entire happy hour or weekend retreat to team building, either (although this couldn’t hurt). There are simple, quick, and 5-minute team building activities that you can incorporate into meetings. In fact, these activities are so quick and rewarding that you can schedule them at the beginning or end of your workday.

Here are the best 5-minute, virtual team building activities that you should try with your distributed team today.

The Activities

Show and Tell

This game isn’t just for kids. Your team members will love the nostalgic feeling of presenting a hidden talent, treasured possession, or unique shopping find. Here’s how it works. First, log onto a web conferencing platform. Then, inform your team members that you’re going to play a quick team building game. 

Start by demonstrating how it works, and present something to your team. Be descriptive, but keep it brief; just a few facts about the object, talent, or skill is enough. Feel free to answer questions, though! Next, randomly generate or select a turn order. Call on your teammates to follow suit and present something to their smartphone or computer camera for everyone else to see.

Quick games like this aren’t just a fun, exciting way to break up a long workday. They teach you important, unique facts about who you work with. This is a crucial first step of team building: getting to know your team.

Listen Up

This is a fun game that actually works on your team’s communication skills. This one also starts on a web conferencing platform. Feel free to take advantage of custom backgrounds and graphics to lighten the mood. Write down a controversial but fun topic on an index card or virtual graphic. Present these topics to the group one by one, then call on a single person to give their views on this topic. 

Here’s where you introduce the twist. Once someone gives their opinion, call on another team member to summarize what the other person just said. The winner is the person who did the best job of recapping another player’s opinion--without giving their own!

As the supervisor or team leader, you get to evaluate your teammates. Who was paying attention, and who was just waiting for their turn to speak? Who has a habit of interrupting others? Who shows visible disinterest in engaging with the team? Who seems least respectful of other people’s viewpoints?

Note that controversial topics shouldn’t include conversation no-nos, like views on politics, religion, or people groups. Examples of appropriate, inoffensive controversies include: “Kale: yum or yuck?”, “Are zoos good or bad for animals?”, and, “Would you actually want to win the lottery?”

Things About Me: A to Z

This is a simple get-to-know-you game, but with a challenge mixed in. In this game, players must take turns naming a fact about themselves but starting with subsequent letters of the alphabet.

For example, the first player says something like, “A former competitive swimmer,” the next says, “Been to Costa Rica,” followed by another player saying, “Can’t whistle.” Take turns until you’ve cycled through the entire alphabet. 

The letters ‘x’ and ‘z’ are mostly for laughs, since they don’t offer much flexibility--although, everyone will learn who has had X-rays.

This or That

This is a very quick and fun way to either begin or wrap up a virtual meeting. The goal is to list two similar people, places, or things and then ask your teammates to choose one. This is similar to Listen Up, but the goal of this game is to move quickly and make impulsive answers.

This or That questions include, “Pizza or tacos?”, “Madonna or Prince?”, and, “Paris or Tokyo?” Go in a rotation and ask everyone a question. Once the game wraps up, feel free to let the team react and respond to each other’s answers. They may even be surprised by their own responses!

As with Listen Up, be sure to keep topics polite and fun to discuss. If anything, a tense conversation will make people clam up--and that’s the opposite of team building!

Word Association

This is a quick and easy one. If you haven’t played word association before, the goal of this game is to take turns listing words--and that’s it! Select an order for your team, and be sure everyone knows--or writes down--the turn order. Start with a random word, like “dog”, and then go in a rotation listing one word at a time.

Players shouldn’t think too hard about what they say, but say whatever comes to mind. So if “dog” makes you think, “cat,” and that makes the next player think, “hair”, and so on, who knows where the game will go? This activity encourages creativity and free-thinking. It’s also a fun way to blow off steam!

In Conclusion

While these are 5 great, 5-minute team building activities, if you have more time to devote to team building, you should! Log onto TriviaHub today to play all kinds of virtual games with your teammates, including bingo, trivia, music games, and more. Get started to explore your options, create an event, and then invite your team to participate. You’ll notice the team building benefits, like better communication, right away!