Engagement Activities For Remote Teams: 25 Ideas For 2025

I nearly always start any presentation or facilitation session with mindfulness. I try to design for time and activities for people to pull out laptops or phones to have the notes searchable, accessible and useable after the event. If I can, I love facilitating a workshop so people capture notes and actions into existing workflows. Even if it means simply allocating time at the end to summarise them from a workbook. But I really need to sit down in advance and consider it from a first timer’s point of view to make Talkliv sure they’re clear. I recently shared a story about a deeply uncomfortable situation of being challenged directly in group environment and how I resolved it.

You can also use this call to answer any last questions the team might have. One of the gold rules of workshopping is to start strong…and end even stronger! Don’t wrap up the workshop without showing the team how much they’ve accomplished.

• Players must use creativity and precise language to help their teammates guess the target word within a time limit.
• Give people clear advice on what they need for the meeting and plenty of notice so they can work from somewhere with good internet and have their equipment in order.
• For ready-to-go game ideas, your remote teams will love these team building game templates.
• “Everyone in my team is feeling more connected. Remote Social has given our team and founders the right tools to build on their relationships and improve engagement overall.”

How Do You Choose The Right Remote Engagement Activities For Your Team?

Ask everyone to zoom out a little bit and summarize everything that they’ve done. This gives people a really nice feeling, and ensures the workshop ends on a high note. Energy is a KEY component in facilitation generally, but is actually even more important in  remote facilitation, because you won’t have the ‘buzz’ that’s generated from people working in the same space. Discover skills and tactics to make remote facilitation as smooth and enjoyable as in-person.

Furthermore, technical issues, large groups or sound quality can also slow down the communication process inside a workshop. Individuals or groups prepare a collage of photos, icons, or quick art that reviews the concepts and skills previously learned in the program. Others interpret what the art and images mean based on their own learning. The Hybrid Team Canvas is a framework and tool to design a hybrid or remote-first team culture. We also ask the participants how the workshop felt and what their main takeaways were.

These games are often artistically driven like painting, crafting, or designing something fun and unique. Your remote employees will solve riddles and complete challenges that’ll have them tapping deep into their critical thinking skills. A Team Building Hub survey found that 73% of employees wish their company would invest more in team building. Set aside an hour for teams to ideate solutions to fun challenges or small work-related prompts.

Mix images taken from the web with pictures snapped directly at the event to really capture the feeling of a hybrid gathering! This activity will not only be fun, but also provide for lasting documentation to be used in reports or presentations (or just as a memento!) after the event is over. A Conversation Café is a template for structured conversations in which everyone has their turn to speak, and can be useful to enable a group to reflect together and delve deeper into a topic. How can you organize participants so that everyone speaks in a “round”… if everyone is in different places and situations?

Virtual Bingo Bash

No matter how hectic things get on the job, your team can relax and gain focus through guided meditations offered on free apps like Calm and Headspace. Set a timer for 10 seconds and have each team member take turns complimenting another colleague. This quick, uplifting exercise is a fantastic way to boost morale and foster a positive work culture. You can also try a virtual scavenger hunt to add some friendly competition.

When remote employees feel engaged through fun and purposeful activities, their employee morale is positively impacted. Celebrating achievements, milestones, and personal wins creates a sense of accomplishment and appreciation. When remote team members feel recognized, supported, and connected to the company’s mission, they are less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere. Discover 25+ engaging team building exercises that boost morale, foster collaboration, and strengthen remote work relationships. Something in Common is a team-building activity where small groups aim to discover unique shared experiences or characteristics. Participants mingle and start conversations with the purpose of finding surprising connections and things in common.

Use breakout rooms or collaborative docs to capture ideas, then regroup to share. It’s a fun, low-pressure way to promote wellness while celebrating small wins together. End the week with a light session where teammates share one win and one “fail” or lesson learned. Run it live or start a Slack channel to keep the culture open and growth-minded. For example, Deloitte and Accenture use virtual escape rooms to connect global teams, while Google integrates them into remote onboarding to quickly build rapport among new hires.

Participants joining online and those in person have different tools at their disposal. From a computer, it’s easy to do quick research, for example to create an online collage of images. In person, participants can use objects and move around in space, e.g. to create sketches and role plays. Having a map of “who is in the room” (and which room!) accessible to everyone is a fabulous way to support inclusion and participation. Create this on a virtual whiteboard and have a copy in view of people in the physical space. See our guide to hybrids for more tips on how to work in small groups in hybrid settings.

If you plan to run regular online meetings with your colleagues, ask your company to help provide the proper equipment for all remote colleagues. If people need to learn a tool to contribute to the meeting or create a log-in to a new video conferencing app, make sure this is done ahead of the workshop. Fifteen minutes spent at the start of a workshop to help everyone get connected can ruin your schedule or kill the momentum of your workshop. A well-designed online workshop can help remote teams align, generate ideas and solutions, build trust and relationships, and strengthen remote team culture. In these scenarios, online sessions are not only a bonus, but they’re a necessity for teams that wish to be productive while also being distributed.

Managers of distributed teams are starting to recognize that they have a level of responsibility for facilitating these social interactions between team members. Some workshops might ask for breakout sessions to be private and that’s fine too! Just be sure to consider whether the learnings from such breakouts might not benefit the whole team and create space to share those learnings. Feeling like a session was a waste of time can be massively deflating for both participant and facilitator. Avoid potential issues and ensure the meeting gets off on the right track by sharing your expectations and having the group set their intentions for your virtual event. Getting a read on how your group is feeling is important for any meeting.

In this collection of hybrid-friendly activities, you will find ideas to support your design every step of the way. Start with ice-breaker games and energizers that help everyone feel welcome. Once the team is working well, face the obstacle of how to reach convergence and take decisions with these activities and tips for hybrid decision-making. And finally, find out how working collaboratively on virtual whiteboards helps hybrid teams co-create visual records, document progress, and wrap up their work together. Virtual team building activities & events have the power to transform your remote team members, making them feel connected, engaged, appreciated, and happier at work. “The most successful virtual team events at our company are those that encourage collaboration, personal storytelling, and shared experiences, like the outstanding career chart exercise.