It’s never easy working with people spread across different geographical locations. It’s even more challenging trying to bring them together to unplug them from work and brainstorm new ideas while having fun. While a virtual team offsite is one of the best ways to bring remote teams together, it can turn into just another Zoom meeting without proper planning and execution. To succeed at these virtual events, teams should be ready to add a tool like Bar None Games to their favorite video call, so that they can have games, icebreakers, and trivia. Aside from this, we’ve also outlined five inspirational activities that any remote workforce can implement to host a successful virtual team offsite.

Breakout rooms for an engaged and productive event

During a virtual team offsite, breakout rooms have the potential to provide a better environment for brainstorming and problem-solving. Divide participants into groups of two, three, or five, with each group having its own breakout room. Provide each group with a topic or theme and leave them to come up with ideas. While this is especially effective for large remote companies, small teams can also use this activity to strengthen their remote employees while also giving introverts (who may be shy speaking up in large groups) room to air their views.

Special skill learning hours

While a virtual team offsite may focus on brainstorming and just taking your team’s mind off work, it’s also important to help your team learn a new skill. During a virtual team offsite, teams should invite professionals to come and teach them about new skills or help them unearth their hidden talents. Some themes worth exploring include knitting, origami, coffee tasting, yoga, magic tricks, and cocktail making. The idea here is to help teams learn new life hacks and skills while having fun.

Entertainment hour

Almost all the activities you do at a virtual team offsite may already contain some sort of entertainment, but this shouldn’t be an excuse not to create entertaining moments throughout the event. Whether it’s a three-day or one-week virtual offsite, it’s important to include a few fun and exciting activities throughout. Some things to include are playing online games, hosting an online karaoke, organizing virtual trivia games, doing scavenger hunts, and more. They bring lots of fun and separate the offsite event from your everyday Zoom meetings.

Virtual trivia games

According to psychologists, enjoying the thrill of answering random facts through trivia provides people with a dopamine rush. Trivia is good for mental health and should be a part of your virtual team offsite if you want to uplift the team and make them happy. It’s also a fun way to test the team’s knowledge of random facts. Using Bar None Games, teams can create many trivia questions around sports, pop culture, film, and any other topic that interests members.

Online polls and virtual suggestion boxes to collect feedback

At the end of your virtual team offsite, there should be a suggestion box (it could be a slack channel where teams leave their views) and a poll to gather how they feel. Through these, your company can gather ideas on which activities were beneficial and which ones you should review. This feedback section will be even more effective if team members can post anonymously about their suggestions and views.