Key Takeaways:
- Virtual team-building activities, especially poker, are effective for fostering employee engagement, strategic thinking, and camaraderie.
- The best virtual team building activities can be tailored to meet different groups, depending on your goals.
- Charity-based games offer excellent opportunities for team building. Strategic games can be used to develop leadership skills, while virtual team-building activities provide a fun and engaging way for teams to connect and collaborate.
Looking for the Best Virtual Team Building Activities?
Hey, hey, Poker People. Lara here. I know that you have been reading every blog I’ve posted in the last year on virtual team building. You have, right? Well, if you’ve missed a post or two, I’ve put together a Cliff Notes version to help you find the best virtual team building activities and ideas for your remote team.
What is team building, you ask? Back when employees had to walk to work uphill both ways in the snow, companies decided to make them do trust falls once they got to the office. Just kidding, mostly. While formal team building programs date back to the 1920s with the Hawthorne Experiments (and we all know how those turned out) team building didn’t really take off until the groovy 1970s. Outward Bound programs came on the scene and by the 1980s every major company was preaching “Team Dynamics” and sending their staff out to the woods to learn how to make fire and whittle.
Fast forward to today and the buzz words have changed, but the goals and the true benefits for employees have not. What follows are some of the best virtual team building ideas that are tailored to charity goals, leadership, and just plain fun.
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Make Virtual Team Building Activities Fun and Meaningful
The most effective team building ideas have a purpose. A great way to build team cohesion is to tie your virtual activity to a good cause. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is more than just a buzzword; it’s an opportunity to engage your team while making a positive impact. Integrating CSR into your virtual team-building activities not only boosts morale but also gives your remote employees a sense of purpose. If you’re looking to create meaningful bonding experiences for your team while supporting a cause, here are our top recommendations:
Charity Poker Tournament
How It Works: Adapt your existing fundraising program to culminate in a team building virtual charity poker tournament. Employees are invited to participate because of their personal donation, volunteering, or other company milestones. Anyone can join the party and play Texas Hold’em online. The Poker People will host your event with real dealers leading the way. Learn more and watch a game in action.
Why It Works: Poker encourages strategic thinking, emotional control, and friendly competition, all while allowing employees to bond in a relaxed setting. Tying it to charity adds a meaningful layer, motivating players to compete for a good cause and enhancing the overall team bonding experience.
CSR Bingo!
How It Works: Create a virtual bingo game where each square represents a task or activity related to a cause, such as donating, recycling, or volunteering. Teams work together to complete their bingo cards, with proceeds or prizes donated to charity.
Why It Works: This game blends light competition with meaningful CSR actions, making team-building fun and purpose-driven. It can also be completely customized to your individual company’s values and messaging.
These are our top two choices. If you want to learn more about how to host a charity poker tournament or other online team building charity events, read the full article here: Virtual Charity Team Building Activities for a Good Cause – The Poker People
What Are Good Team Building Ideas for Developing Leadership Skills?
The shift from authoritarian leadership to more collaborative styles has developed over the decades. As offices became more focused on the human element, old methods were proven ineffective in modern workplaces. This led to the rise of leaders as “facilitators of change,” placing emotional intelligence, collaboration, and empathy at the forefront of leadership skills.
In today’s post-pandemic world, resilience and adaptability are essential for leaders managing distributed teams. To foster success in these environments, leaders must first focus on improving their own effectiveness. Leadership-focused team-building activities emphasize strategic thinking, risk assessment, and emotional control — all skills necessary to lead in complex situations, and which should be fostered in the next generation. Our top picks for leadership games dive deep into strategy-based virtual activities.
Texas Hold’em Poker
How It Works: Okay, I know I listed it before too but hear me out. Poker players face decisions that require strategic thinking, risk assessment, and emotional control. They must evaluate their hand, predict opponents’ moves, and take calculated risks. That is a leader’s bread and butter.
Why It Works: Poker teaches leaders to think strategically, manage risks, and maintain composure in uncertain situations — key skills for effective leadership. The game helps develop patience, adaptability, and the ability to read others, which are essential traits when leading teams in dynamic environments.
Risk
How It Works: Risk is a strategy board game where players aim to conquer territories through careful allocation of resources and calculated attacks. Players must balance offense and defense while forming and breaking alliances.
Why It Works: Risk teaches leaders the importance of resource management, strategic planning, and diplomacy. It helps develop the ability to assess risks, make critical decisions, and adapt to rapidly changing circumstances — crucial for leadership in competitive environments.
The benefits of games like Risk can also be achieved with chess, Go, and backgammon. All require long-term strategic thinking. For a more extensive list of virtual team building games that build leadership read the full post here.
Did you know that Susquehanna International has a poker room IN THEIR OFFICE? Yep, the multi-billion-dollar investment firm was recently featured in this WSJ article on using poker to help new traders learn the critical thinking skills necessary to make them better traders.
Name the Best Virtual Team Building Ideas for Remote Employees
Our final category of online games for remote employees brings us back to the core idea: what are the best games for virtual team building (aka, using the power of the Internet to do more than watch cat videos and argue with strangers)? Whether it’s outsmarting your boss in a friendly poker game or beating that know-it-all from accounting with a winning hand, these activities help foster camaraderie. Most importantly, they allow you to engage with coworkers as real people, not just as email senders. Here are my top picks for virtual team-building games:
Play Poker
How It Works: You knew it was coming. Of course, I am going to choose poker as my best virtual team building idea. Our live dealers make the game so accessible that anyone can play from anywhere in the world. Players can chat and interact while playing, creating a relaxed yet competitive atmosphere. The game can be organized as a friendly tournament, with prizes or bragging rights for the winner.
Why It Works: Poker is a great team-building activity because it encourages strategic thinking, communication, and emotional control. It provides opportunities for employees to interact in a fun, low-pressure environment, fostering camaraderie and engagement. Plus, the conversational nature of the game allows for casual bonding as players get to know each other outside the usual work setting.
Virtual Pictionary
How It Works: Pictionary is a virtual drawing game where one team member draws a word or phrase on a virtual whiteboard while their teammates try to guess what it is. The team with the most correct guesses wins. It is an easy game to host because there are many online platforms that offer a digital version of the game.
Why It Works: Pictionary promotes creativity, quick thinking, and communication. It helps team members improve their ability to interpret non-verbal cues and collaborate under time pressure. The light-hearted nature of the game makes it perfect for breaking the ice and boosting morale in a fun, stress-free way. Don’t worry, no one can draw well on a Zoom whiteboard.
We have a lot more information on how to improve morale, communication, and overall job satisfaction through virtual team building games. There are more games in this post on Fun and Effective Virtual Team Bonding Activities. With plenty of games to choose from you can’t go wrong. People who know and trust each other work better together. It’s win-win.
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A Wrap Up On the Topic of Virtual Team Building Activities
You have reached the end of my advice on the best virtual team building activities around. I hope you enjoyed the read. Please do give poker a try. I think you will have fun, and I know you will feel closer to the people you are playing with.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Best Team Building Activities
Charity-based team-building activities, like virtual poker tournaments, boost morale and provide a sense of purpose by supporting a good cause. These events foster genuine friendships and make employees feel more connected.
Poker encourages strategic thinking, emotional control, and risk assessment, all of which are key leadership traits. It helps players improve decision-making skills, adaptability, and the ability to read others.
Yes, activities like CSR Bingo can be tailored to match your company’s specific values and causes, making the experience more meaningful and aligned with your organizational culture.
Virtual activities like poker and leadership games promote interaction, trust, and camaraderie in a fun, low-pressure environment, helping remote teams bond and work more effectively together.
