Virtual Team Holiday Party Activities: Part 2

Read Part One of this series by clicking HERE.

With this holiday’s coming up, teams are excited to celebrate the end of this challenging year and indulge in fun festivities. Even though your organization may be working remotely, there’s no need to cancel the annual party! Boost team morale and employee engagement by hosting a virtual party instead. In this two-part blog, I share some of my favorite themed activities, perfect for an end of the year virtual celebration. Here are some  team-building events for your upcoming virtual parties:

Holiday Team Building Games

Put a holiday-twist on some classic team building games to increase team morale and communication. A few great examples include Christmas Movie Trivia, Silent Night Charades, or Winter Pictionary. For these games, make slight alterations to incorporate holiday-themed questions, prompts, and images. One of my favorite virtual holiday games is Blind Christmas Tree Ripping. Supply employees with green construction paper or encourage them to find leftover gift wrap around the house. Instruct the team to close their eyes and try their best to carefully tear a Christmas tree shape from the paper. It’s harder than you may think! To build teamwork skills, you can pair up employees in breakout rooms and ask one employee to close their eyes and do the ripping while the other team member can see and guide their peers through the process. At the end of the activity, have all employees show off their attempts for humorous team bonding. 

Kindness Quest

For organizations with a strong focus on community service and giving back, this is the perfect holiday event. The Kindness Quest has two main parts: an online trivia challenge and a Google Maps scavenger hunt. By designating employees into teams, you can foster communication and collaboration during the office party. For an extra challenge, randomize groups and encourage members from different departments to work together. 

For the online trivia challenge, direct team members to sites like Freekibble or Freerice. These websites donate kibble to dog shelters or rice to foodbanks based on user participation. Set the timer for 10 - 20 minutes and allow team members to answer as many questions as possible. At the end of time, employees can share their scores, and the top-scoring player can go home with a small prize. 

In addition to the trivia challenge, team leaders may put together a community service scavenger hunt for their peers. Starting at the organization’s location, use Google Maps to look around the town for local animal shelters, food banks, and other community service centers. Make a creative and mysterious list of street view directions that will lead employees to these buildings. For example, directions could state: “Start at our office building. Walk north until you see the red striped mailbox. Turn left and take ten steps until you come to the brown building. What have you found?” This activity helps familiarize employees with local community service organizations that may be just a few minutes away from the office. 

Winter Themed Escape Rooms

With the rise of lockdowns, many escape room companies have transitioned their business to the virtual sphere. With a short Google search, you can find plenty of companies hosting virtual escape rooms for our holiday parties. These remote escape rooms are often led by a host, creating an integrative and engaging team-building experience. As the holidays approach, look for local and national organizations that may even provide discounts to larger office groups. Through these events, we can challenge our problem-solving skills and continue to build upon teamwork within the company. 

Hopefully, these events will add some laughs and fun to our virtual holiday parties. With a focus on team building, we continue to foster connection and communication within our remote offices. These attributes are essential for virtual teams to remain engaged in work and feel a sense of belonging to the organization. 

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Dima Ghawi is the founder of a global talent development company with a primary mission for advancing individuals in leadership. Through keynote speeches, training programs and executive coaching, Dima has empowered thousands of professionals across the globe to expand their leadership potential. In addition, she provides guidance to business executives to develop diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies and to implement a multi-year plan for advancing quality leaders from within the organization.

Reach her at DimaGhawi.com and BreakingVases.com.

Virtual Team Building Activities

 As many organizations make the transition to managing remotely, it is integral to maintain employee engagement even when working virtually! Think about ways to draw your employees together for communication, problem-solving, or creative-thinking tasks, which will strengthen teamwork and improve the bonds within your company. In this blog, I will share with you three virtual team building activities for remaining connected when working remotely. 

Virtual Lunch Meeting

 Set up a video call lunch meeting with your team, covering their meal expenses if your organization is able. Encourage your employees to order from local restaurants and host a casual gathering where team members can catch up on their personal and professional lives. With the added fun of food, team members will be drawn to this event! Think about making it a monthly recurrence to maintain these levels of communication. Through this activity, you encourage communication within your organization while also highlighting the ways your company supports local establishments. 

Opening Meetings with Check Ins

 Working from home can be incredibly stressful and isolating. Team leaders can help employees lessen this burden by showing interest in their mental and emotional states through this team building activity. At the start of weekly meetings, go around the virtual conference room, and encourage each team member to share one word about how they are currently feeling. Whether this be sad or happy or hopeful, this moment of vulnerability and trust allows leaders to gain insight into what their team needs and helps employees gain a sense of how their co-workers are feeling. If you want to make it fun, you can ask them to share one word of how they are feeling and then followed by them sharing the last thing they ate. 

Family and Pet Video Chat

 Small children and pets can often be a distraction for our team members working from home, but this activity puts them in the spotlight! Schedule a short, around 30 minute, meeting for your organization, and encourage employees with children or pets to bring their little ones to the video call. Start the meeting by asking your employee’s children to share what they think their parents do at work! This is sure to bring a bundle of joy and laughs to your team and show team members that you care about their family and home life. This is the perfect light-hearted team building activity for the end of a busy week or stressful quarter!

 I hope these three ideas help you and your virtual teams increase interconnection and employee engagement. With a little bit of creativity, we can put together exciting activities that draw our teams closer to one another and ease the isolation and social stresses of working remotely. If you are doing something interesting with your organization, please share it with us in the comments below!

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Dima Ghawi is the founder of a global talent development company with a primary mission for advancing individuals in leadership. Through keynote speeches, training programs and executive coaching, Dima has empowered thousands of professionals across the globe to expand their leadership potential. Reach her at DimaGhawi.com and BreakingVases.com.