4 Best Team Building Activities to Keep Your Remote Employees Motivated

Remote employees can feel very lonely. That's why it's necessary for the team leader to strive to keep team members motivated. In a regular office, healthy interactions between team members are very common. But for remote employees, the story is different — they don't enjoy moments of relaxation with their co-workers, and this can lead to a growing sense of isolation. Although these minor interactions may seem trivial, they have a strong impact on team performance. Here are four of the best team-building activities you can use to build trust and increase cohesion among co-workers.

1. Allow small talk in meetings

Virtual team members don't get the chance to make small talk with their colleagues, and it's precisely this type of talk that helps employees know each other better and establish bonds of trust and friendship. Allow a few minutes of small talk before starting the meeting. Ask your team to comment on their personal activities or holiday plans, and even send personal photos for a slideshow to show the rest of the team.

2. Let team members tell little facts about themselves

Propose a game to connect with your team members on a personal level. Ask each member to send three personal facts only to you, the facilitator, a few days before the meeting — facts that have nothing to do with their current job. On the day of the meeting, share the data of each and ask the team to guess which fact belongs to whom. At the end, share the results to see who got the highest number of correct answers.

3. Reply all

Send an email to all members of your team once a week with some personal or fun questions, and ask them to respond with "reply all," so each week the team gets to know each other a little more. The type of questions is up to you — personal, fun, or related to work.

4. The picture game

Ask everyone to share fun pictures of their personal activities, family or hobbies, and spend ten minutes talking about them. Encourage team members to ask questions to learn more about each other. Visual memory is fantastic for remembering facts about each other. Keeping a motivated and happy team is critical to their performance — if your team works remotely, you'll have to work harder to maintain good bonds of trust between them all. Each of these activities aims to increase virtual team communication and collaboration.