Begin by asking your group to stand-up and let them know you’ll be giving them instructions for where to look. Lead them through a round of randomly saying directions icebreakers for virtual meetings while they follow your instructions. Next, make a change and let them know that down now means up and up means down while left and right remain the same.
Some people may not have grown up with board games, so ask if they played any video games instead. There have been decades of games to choose from, so everyone may have an answer. If people in your workplace don’t prefer laughing at memes, you could always ask them to submit an icebreaker joke.
Your team members might attend trivia night in their hometowns or play it with their families. Get everyone to mention a topic they could excel at in a trivia contest. The team will instantly get to know each other, and you can collect topic ideas for a team trivia challenge later in the year. Prompt your coworkers to get to know each other better by describing their hometowns or nearest city. Instead, everyone should pick a name, city product, or another notable fact. Your coworkers can pitch ideas while a timer counts down to develop their confidence, communication, and relationships.
When you’re creating your questions, just make sure to keep it fun and avoid political or divisive questions. For this team-building activity, your employees will have the chance to envision what your company’s future will be like. Ask your employees to create a news headline of what your company will be doing in five years and publish them on your intranet. Before your meeting or training, come up with 5 to 10 questions for your employees to answer. These should be a mix of fun, random, and difficult questions.
You can use a Slido word cloud for that, but instead of words, your participants will submit an emoji. This works best with larger meetings and events when a large number of emojis gets submitted. There will be a lot to talk about, maybe even some arguments about which candy or which movie is the best. You’ll start a meeting with some laughs and get your colleagues in a good mood before a meeting. If your teammates are scattered around the world, kick off your meeting by sending a virtual hi to each one of them.
If you are looking for more guesswork-based virtual team icebreakers, then Name the Tune as a great option. All you need to do is compile a list of instrumental tracks from popular tunes. These could be latest pop songs, retro-themed numbers, movie soundtracks, classics, and more. These icebreaker questions get everyone to pay attention right when the meeting starts. It also primes people to be empathetic as they hear others reply as human beings, not just as coworkers. Apart from the ever-popular game of trivia, Bored has games in which you roast your colleagues, or play a game of accusations and deception.
Once each employee has an item in their hand, explain that they are now going to try to sell it to the other members. They can set the price and have one minute to deliver a sales pitch and one minute to answer questions. Just be sure to break employees off into small groups if you have more than 5 or 6 employees for the sake of time. Unfortunately, 52% of companies are not conducting any team-building activities with employees who are working remotely.
