5 team building activities to boost morale for remote teams

Team building activities to boost morale are a great way to elevate the happiness levels in teams, increase productivity and create stronger bonds between colleagues. As human beings, it’s only natural that our morale drops from time to time. A survivor of low morale right here 🙋‍♀️.

This is why we have created a list of our favorite five team building activities for remote teams to improve morale. The activities are easy to organize, do not require too much effort or time, and apply to teams of various group sizes. The best thing is that you can include these activities in your daily/ weekly/ monthly repertoire of team building activities to keep your team healthy, connected, and content.

Our favorite team building activities to boost morale

Read on to discover our favorite morale-boosting activities. We have tested some with our own remote team, and they were a huge success!

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1. Guess What?!

Time: 15 - 30 min.

Group size: 3 - 8 people

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‘Guess What’ is a great activity to get to know your team better and have fun – A guaranteed way to boost the morale amongst remote teams. The name is quite self-explanatory; you let the coworkers guess your answers.

First, you need to choose a question you want your team members to answer about you. Once the question has been selected, your colleagues will try to guess the right answer to the question, and after all the replies are locked in, you choose the correct answer. The most fun part is seeing who had the right answer! That's it. Done. This activity is a definite conversation starter, plus who doesn't like a good laugh or two?

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We also offer this activity on Gomada. We have tested ‘Guess What?!’ with dozens of teams, and the verdict is clear: after the activity, teams had fun, felt happier, and learned something new about their colleagues. You can try it out for free.

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Our tip: In case your group is too big for the activity, you can create multiple sessions and divide teams into separate groups. You can also add this activity to your team building repertoire, especially for bigger teams.

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Check out this video for an insight into our Guess What?! activity

2. Compliment me

Time: 20 - 30 min

Group size: 5 - 8 people. Smaller groups work better for this activity, as writing compliments can take some time. The bigger the group, the more time you will spend writing down the compliments.

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This team building activity is another definite way to encourage a positive attitude in your remote team. The activity is easy to set up and play; each person takes time to note down a compliment for everyone participating in the session. Once the complements have been written down, you will get 2 minutes with each person in the session to exchange compliments.

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All you need is a video call tool you use daily, with the option of break-out rooms. The game master of the activity will explain the rules to everyone in the call and then take care of pairings in the break-out rooms when the time for exchanging compliments comes. This is a great activity to make your team members feel appreciated for the work they do. Or you can try Gomada's activity, 'Appreciation Shower' for free.

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Our tip: A great activity if you need to work on affirmations within your function, conflict resolution among your team members, or cross-functional interaction. Think about how to pair the compliment groups, depending on the goal of the activity.

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3. Guess my workspace

Time: 15 - 20 min.

Group size: 5 - 20.  Keep in mind that the bigger the team, the longer it will take to complete the activity. Hence, we recommend carrying out this activity in smaller groups.

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‘Guess my workspace’ is an image-based activity. Each person from the team will take a picture of their home workspace. Once the images have been taken, they will be sent to the game master, who will share images one by one with the rest of the team. The rest of the team then votes on who they believe the image of the workspace belongs.

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We recommend using a poll tool such as Mentimeter or native poll options like in Veertly to assist with the voting process. This is a great way to have a fast ‘pick me up’ activity with the team, especially if you feel that the team morale is dropping.

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Our tip: This activity is straightforward to organize and does not take too much of your time. It could also come in handy to learn more about your coworkers' likes if you need some gift ideas for the future.

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4. Gartic Phone

Time: 30 - 40 min per round.

Group size: 4 - 30 players

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‘Gartic Phone’ is a spin on the broken telephone game many people know and love. Each player writes down a funny sentence which is then passed on to other participants. The participants need to draw the given sentence, whose depiction of the sentence is passed to other players. The game ends when everyone has had their turn, and you go through all the drawings together.

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This game will invoke laughter amongst your remote team, making it a perfect fun team building activity to boost morale. For more fun and immersive experience, have the whole team in a video call while playing the game, or perhaps embed it into your next team event on Veertly. You can access the game here. You can also try Gomada's 'Random Fairytales' activity for free (it is fairly similar to Gartic phone).

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Our tip: Great activity to add to your monthly or bi-monthly team building activities. You can also download the photo album with all the drawings at the end of the game, so you can share it with your team on Slack, Teams, or any other tool you use daily.

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5. Walk With Me

Time: 15 - 20 min.

Group size: No limit

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While ‘Walk With Me’ is not a game, it is a great way to get your remote team to take a break, get out of their home office, stretch their legs and chat with colleagues in a relaxed manner. We have tested this activity with our team, and it has had the highest participation rate! All you need is a blocker in a calendar for all of your colleagues for 15-20 min and Google Meets, Teams, Zoom, or any other video call system installed on your phone. It is a great way to take a break, breathe in some fresh air and show your surroundings to the team. Guaranteed to boost the morale of the team!

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Our tip: Make it a weekly, biweekly, or monthly activity to encourage your team members to take a break, get out and connect with their colleagues.  

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Why are regular morale boosting activities important for remote teams?

Morale is the main component of productivity and engagement in a workplace. When teams are happy and content, the company can reach its full potential and goals.

While working remotely has its benefits, teams are no longer able to have daily causal interactions in an office. Without regular interactions, team morale can suffer. Hence team leads need to put extra effort into keeping the morale high in their respective remote teams.

This is why organizing regular morale-boosting activities is important. Morale boosting team building activities will increase happiness and engagement and make sure that the teams feel more connected. We recommend you have regular team building activities with your remote and hybrid teams. Your teams will thank you.

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What are you waiting for ?! Start your morale boosting team activities today!

This heading might sound a bit too dramatic. Is it, though? We don't think so. We just explained how important morale boosting activities really are; they keep your teams healthy, strong, content, and happy. Not only that, morale is an important component of team productivity and engagement in your workplace. When morale is high, teams are able to reach company goals. Hence, we cannot argue more than regular morale boosting team activities are important to invest in.

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Check in daily/ weekly with your team. Establish open and honest communication between your team members. Assess the levels of morale and make sure to act on time if you sense that the morale is dropping. Use the above activities to boost the morale of your team, but also for preventive measures. Remember, regular team building keeps teams strong and healthy!

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We are keen to hear about how these activities have worked for you, so make sure to drop us an email or leave a comment below with your thoughts and experiences.

In case you are looking for some more ideas for remote and virtual team building activities, check out our blog posts about free virtual team building activities and team building activities to improve leadership skills.

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