14 Quick Team Building Activities for Remote Teams

It’s not always easy to get everyone together around a table for an afternoon, or to arrange a corporate retreat — especially if you have a remote team. Luckily, you don’t need to be in the same space or have a lot of time to build relationships — all you need is some quick team building activities.

In this guide, we’ll discover:

• The benefits of using quick team building activities
• How to make room for team building activities in a busy schedule
• The best team building activities for remote teams

Let’s dive in and explore why these super quick team building games are worth trying, and which activities are the best ones to add to your upcoming schedule.

The benefits of adding quick team building activities to your schedule

You don’t need to be BFFs with your coworkers, but you should be able to know, like, and trust them. Team building games and activities encourage you to talk, share ideas, and get to know each other in a low-pressure environment.

Effective team building activities and games can help:

• 👏 Foster team collaboration and teamwork
• 💪 Strengthen team relationships
• 💡 Build new decision making, problem solving, and communication skills
• 🧲 Build trust with each other
• 😃 Improve employee morale and happiness
• 🔗 Break down barriers between individuals or departments
• ✔️ Encourage participation and improve inclusion
• 🎉 Improve team dynamics
• 🏢 Increase individual and team productivity

Team building activities aren’t just about breaking away from the work day routine for a few minutes at a time. They’re also a valuable way to build skills, relationships, and trust with each other — and are a must-have for any team leader that wants their team members to thrive together.

How to make room for team building activities in a busy schedule

Many of us assume that employee engagement strategies like team building events require a lot of time, prep work, and energy to plan and facilitate. While some of them do, you don’t need a huge amount of time or space for these quick team building activities to happen.

You could make space for team building regularly as part of:

• 😀 Team meetings
• 🙋 All hands meetings
• 👋 Onboarding process and new hire meetings
• 🚶 Weekly stand up meetings
• 📅 Monthly team check-ins

Don’t feel like you have to wait for your next corporate retreat or team building day to spend some time away from the to-do list with your team members. Schedule some fun, simple virtual team building games into your regular routine with the help of Polly and build a new habit around employee engagement.

14 quick team building activities for remote teams

Games like minefield, pirate’s treasure, and paper airplane contests might be fun in person, but they’re hard to recreate for hybrid or remote teams. You’re not missing out though, as there are plenty of quick team building exercises that you can enjoy together.

Discover the best team building activities for remote and hybrid teams that promote communication, problem solving, learning, and relationship building — no blindfolds or pieces of paper required!

1. Hot takes 🔥

Understand what your team members really think about controversial yet lighthearted subjects with a few rounds of hot takes.

Make a polarizing statement like “Cats are better than dogs” and invite everyone to debate about it. This is a great way to end a team meeting or to drive engagement midweek in a team Slack channel with the help of Polly Hot Takes.

2. Show and tell 🐶

Get to know your team members in a fun way with a remote-friendly version of show and tell.

Instead of bringing an object into the office, take it in turns to hold up an object or photo on camera and tell the rest of the group about it. It’s an ideal way for small teams to feel closer to each other and build new connections based on people’s hobbies or interests.

3. Icebreaker games 🧊

Build a sense of camaraderie, get to know new hires, or simply understand more about your team members’ interests with some easy team icebreaker questions or games.

Host a simple yet engaging game with Polly’s Zoom icebreakers feature, which lets everyone take part by speaking up, voting, or selecting an emoji. This is a useful way to promote inclusivity in remote meetings and give everyone a way to feel seen or heard.

4. Virtual jigsaw puzzle 🧩

Take a traditional favorite and give it a fresh spin for this remote-first world and collaborate on a digital jigsaw puzzle together.

This might not sound like a quick virtual team building activity, but it is if you complete it over a longer period of time. Make it a regular feature in your working week to get together, enjoy a coffee, and work on the puzzle. With a large group it won’t take you long to finish.

5. Team bingo 📣

Learn more about your group members with a game of virtual bingo.

Ask everyone to send you a few facts about themselves, then use these to put together anonymous bingo cards that feature insights about everyone. Invite your team members to complete their bingo card by asking others questions. This is a great team bonding exercise for the entire team, and it’s also a fun way to build communication skills.

6. This or that ❓

Engage your team members in short and sweet questions that promote reflection and give you fresh insights into who they are and what they like.

Ask this or that questions about food, travel, music, and entertainment — and you can even use a few questions to dive into people’s thoughts about your work environment or company culture too. Use Polly to schedule polls (or pollys as we call them!) to ask your employees or team members a new this or that question every week. It’s a fun way to promote engagement and interesting conversations.

7. Mini scavenger hunt 🏴‍☠️

Challenge everyone to hunt around their home office or workspace to find an object before the time runs out.

With this mini take on a scavenger hunt, swap a full list of random objects for one item only. Share what today’s item is, set a time limit, and ask everyone to return and share what they’ve found. This is a great way to get the whole team involved, especially if you choose items or themes that are easy for everyone to find in their work environment.

8. Tell a collaborative story 📕

Promote creative thinking and see if you have any budding storytellers in your midst by working on a collaborative story together.

Grab a virtual piece of paper (aka a shared document) and use it to build a story together, line by line. Every time you meet, add a line to the story, then pass the baton to the next person to work their magic. By the end of the year you’ll have an interesting story that you’ve all created together.

9. Two truths and a lie 🕵️

Learn something new about your coworkers and see how good they are at disguising the truth with a game of two truths and a lie.

Take it in turns to make three statements — two are true, and one is false. Invite everyone else in the group to try and find the lie. This classic office game works just as well in a virtual environment and doesn’t take up a lot of time, making it an easy quick team building activity for any organization.

10. Guess the drawing ✏️

Put your art skills to the test and see whether your doodles are as good as you think they are with this fun team building activity.

Split into teams, then take it in turns to draw an image on a virtual whiteboard based on a hidden prompt. Draw the best image you can within the time limit and hope that someone on your team guesses it correctly.

11. Trivia game 🏆

See who really knows the most with a fun trivia game that invites everyone to dive deep on their subject matter knowledge.

Play a quick trivia game to test knowledge in one category or a range of topics like sports, animals, and entertainment. With Polly, you can quickly set up a trivia game in Slack or Microsoft Teams so you and your team can get straight to the fun without any of the challenging prep work. We also have a list of team building trivia questions if you want to go the DIY route.

12. Virtual escape room ⏱️

Test your logic and problem solving skills by seeing whether you can make it out of the virtual escape room before the time limit runs out.

Take the experience as a whole team, or split into small groups if you want to run a company-wide experience. While some virtual escape rooms can take what feels like forever to figure out, many last for less than an hour. This makes them an ideal way to close a virtual team retreat, or if you want a slightly longer-than-usual quick team building experience.

13. Bucket list 🌍

Understand more about everyone’s life goals and what motivates them by sharing your bucket lists.

Invite everyone to share their bucket list and provide regular updates at team meetings or in a Slack channel about how they’re progressing against their list. By sharing bucket lists, you give the rest of the team new ways to build relationships based on common goals, interests, and motivations — plus it’s always fun to celebrate people’s achievements!

14. Would you rather? 😲

Discover what your team members would do in any situation when faced with a lighthearted ultimatum by playing would you rather.

Post a new would you rather question every week and invite people to check in with their responses whenever they have time, or ask the question live as part of your weekly team meetings. This is a great team bonding activity as it can spark debate and interesting conversations.

Engage your whole team with these quick games and activities

The best team building exercises don’t require days of planning and a long list of materials. All they need is your team, some prompts, and the right tools. Use this list of quick team building activities to add more engagement to your schedule and you’ll see the benefits over time.

If one of your goals is to increase engagement and help your team build stronger relationships, make Polly your go-to tool for employee engagement. Our platform is packed with features that enable team communication, trust, transparency, and relationship building.