Employee Engagement Ideas for Your Remote Team

Remote teams can only take so many Zoom ‘virtual happy hours’.

Those pandemic-era strategies are clunky, unnatural, and get old fast. They're not enough to boost employee engagement and build a strong, high-performing company culture.

Traditional video-conferencing tools - like Zoom or Microsoft Teams - were never meant to be the digital office.

Remote teams need engagement strategies that are a lot more human. And they need apps that were actually made for team building.

What exactly is remote employee engagement?

Remote employee engagement means keeping employees motivated, unlocking them to do their best work, and making sure they’re fully integrated into the company culture.

Engaged remote employees are happy and committed. They collaborate with their teammates, drive their work proactively, take personal responsibility, and work hard to achieve company goals. Engaged employees are a must-have for any business to be successful.

In this article, we’ll share the best remote employee engagement activities we’ve heard of. They’re unique, effective, and your team will love them.

Key Takeaways

1. Scavenger Hunt

Encourage team building and creativity with a remote scavenger hunt. This activity challenges teammates to work together to find specific items or complete tasks, promoting collaboration and remote employee engagement.

Scavenger hunts can be tailored to fit your company's culture and goals, making them a versatile and fun way to engage remote teams. They’re a great way to break up the routine and get everyone involved in a light-hearted challenge.

Pro Tip

Keep it fun and personal with themes related to your team. Try employee fun facts, company milestones, or funny remote work items. Here are a few ideas

Using a Virtual Workplace?

If your remote team has a digital office like SoWork, take advantage!

• Place whiteboards around the office and add clues for teams to find
• Use the mapmaker to add scavenger hunt items around the office
• Use the announce or broadcast features to keep everyone updated on progress and time remaining. It’ll keep things competitive!

Here are a few scavenger hunt ideas to try in your digital office:

• Find a teammate wearing the company logo and give them an award
• Take a screenshot of the CEO’s digital pet
• Recreate the 12 days of Christmas using mapmaker items

2. Pomodoro Session

Pomodoro sessions combine deep work, goal achievement, team bonding, and a little competition.

Employees move between focused sprints of work and breaks. In the work sprints, employees focus solely on a specific task, eliminating all distractions until the time is up. This is followed by a break.

Many employees are shocked at how productive they are during these sessions.

How it works

• Bring everyone together in a video call.
• Pick a task or goal for the session.
• Define the length of the blocks and the session. (Example: 25 minutes of work, 5 minute break. Repeat 3 times).
• Start the timer for the first work block. Everyone mutes and focuses on their work goal.
• When the timer is up, unmute.
• Play a game! Define this before the session starts so you can start immediately. Need ideas? Check out our 5-minute games article. We recommend tank wars!
• When game time is up, start the next work sprint.
• Keep alternating between work and breaks.

Using a Virtual Workplace?

Add a ‘Pomodoro' meeting zone to your office. When teammates walk into this meeting zone, they’ll automatically connect in a meeting with a timer and games built in.

3. Pop-Up Events

This is a really popular employee engagement activity. The surprise element gets remote workers really excited about and invested in what the next team bonding event will be.

Pro Tips

• Be selective. Stick to events that are new, remarkable, or known favorites. This ensures employees will maintain their excitement for the next pop-up event.
• Pick a good frequency. Pop-up events should be frequent enough that your remote team can look forward to them, but not so frequent that they become normal or burdensome. Try monthly to start.

Pop-up Event Ideas

• Fitness challenge (100 burpees, anyone?)
• Shark tank pitches
• Avatar makeover
• Hall of fame showcasing team milestones
• Whiteboard drawing challenge
• Improv class
• Yoga class led by a real instructor
• Game competition (check out our 5-minute games article for ideas)

Using a Virtual Workplace?

Take advantage of your remote team working from a shared place! Set the office up to showcase the pop-up event and get your team really excited by what’s happening.

• Create a visual pop-up event. Use the mapmaker to add a big sign, balloons, and decorations that match the event. Yoga mats, whiteboards, fitness equipment, whatever makes sense.
• Broadcast it. Use features like announce to get team members excited about the event. Share information about new sessions starting, winners, and prizes.

4. Workspot Show and Tell

Fostering connections goes beyond just meetings and deadlines. People thrive when they feel connected to others on a personal level, which is often what they miss most in remote environments.

Solve this with a workspot show and tell!

Pro Tips

• Get everyone to decorate their desks.
• Go to each desk, asking employees to tell the stories behind the items they’ve shared.
• Go to each desk as a group.
• Or, run it like speed dating. Employees go to a new workspot every few minutes.

Using a Virtual Workplace?

Have remote workers actually decorate their workspot using the mapmaker! The team will love spending time getting creative, and everyone will be able to visually see the end results.

5. Build The Virtual Office Challenge

This is a fun employee engagement activity. Your remote workers will form teams and build new, themed areas inside your virtual office. The combination of creativity, competition, and being able to shape your company culture makes it a really effective team bonding activity.

For this team building idea, you’ll need a virtual workplace like SoWork.

Here’s how it works

• Organize your remote workers into teams.
• Give each team a theme. Pick something impactful, like a collaborative work zone or a wellness corner.
• Give the teams a time limit to construct their themed corner of the office. They'll use the mapmaker to build their creations.
• Use tools like broadcast or announce to share updates and create lighthearted competition.
• When the time is up, get teammates to vote and award a winner.
• Finish the activity by spending time bonding in your new creations!

6. Online Game Night

This one is simple but so effective. Online games are a fantastic way to bring your remote team together, build team spirit, and foster a sense of community. We suggest making game nights a regular virtual event, so your remote workers always have fun, light-hearted team bonding to look forward to.

Pro Tips

• Create a list of popular games for your remote team to choose from. This prevents indecision during the actual game night.
• Need ideas? We’ve put together a list of unique 5-minute online games remote teams love.

Using a Virtual Workplace?

• Create a Game Zone in your office. Team members will remember to take breaks together between virtual meetings. And everyone will see when games are happening so they can join in.
• Try a built-in game! In SoWork, you can play Tank Wars right inside your own digital office. It’s a hilarious, interactive way for your team members to bond between virtual meetings.

7. Knowledge Fair

Your remote team is filled with talented team members that everyone wants to learn from. And your company benefits a ton from sharing knowledge around the organization. A knowledge fair is the perfect remote employee engagement activity to make this happen!

Pro Tips

• Send out a survey and find out who your team wants to learn from and what topics they're most excited about.
• Ask management and leadership to nominate people or topics that would benefit their teams.
• Prep the remote workers involved in the knowledge fair. Let them know what the team is excited to learn, and give them helpful ideas for how to prepare their 'booth'.

Using a Virtual Workplace?

• Use the mapmaker to set up booths. Place signs so your remote workers can easily find team members.
• Decorate each booth, and involve team members if they are interested!

8. Virtual Book Club

Start a virtual book club where team members can dive into books related to their field or personal interests.

This is a fantastic way to encourage learning, spark interesting conversations, and give your remote team a team bonding activity to look forward to.

Pro Tips

• Get remote workers involved in picking the books. Send out a survey, ask team members to rank order a list, or rotate who picks. Getting your remote team involved has a big impact on employee appreciation and retention.
• Have one team member lead each book club meeting. Rotate this position regularly, and share tips and tricks to alleviate any anxiety about leading.
• If you have a food budget, get everyone to order a meal and eat together during the Book Club meeting.

Using a virtual workplace?

• Create a themed zone for the Book Club meetings. Get team members involved in decorating it.
• Use interactive objects like whiteboards to share principles or learnings from the readings.

9. Lunch and Learn

Learning opportunities are often overlooked when we talk about remote employee engagement ideas. But if you’ve got a team of high performers, learning opportunities and personal growth play a key role in retention. Lunch and Learns are a great way to check this box.

Pro Tips

• Ask team members who they want to learn from and what they want to learn. Send out a survey, and look for overlaps in people or topics to guide how you'll organize the sessions.
• Tell the presenter what the team showed interested in, so they include it in their talk.
• Encourage presenters to be interactive, informal and to involve the team in their presentations. This will keep the presentations engaging.
• Don't forget the lunch part! And make sure team members have their lunch ready to go before the presentation starts. You don't want people getting up to answer the door every 5 minutes.

Using a Virtual Workplace?

• Create a Lunch and Learn zone in your office. Your team members will know when a session has started and can join in easily.
• Document the talk. If you're using SoWork, you can automatically generate a summary of the meeting. This will be stored in your company codex, making it really easy for team members to refer back to what they learned.

10. Cooking Classes

Organize virtual cooking classes where remote team members can learn new recipes together. This interactive activity is a really fun way to bond over a shared experience. Remote team members can share their knowledge, pick up new skills, and emjoy their creations together.

Pro Tips

• Create a list of recipes ahead of time. You can ask team members for suggestions, search for popular ideas, or get inspiration from subscriptions like Fresh Prep.
• Avoid overly complicated recipes. You want team members to have bandwidth to bond, too.
• Share the next recipe a week in advance. This gives team members a chance to purchase items and find alternatives to ingredients they don't eat.
• Get feedback, and update the list based on what your remote workers enjoyed cooking.

Using a Virtual Workplace?

• Got a big group? Spread team members out around the office, and use the broadcast feature to keep everyone connected. One team member can stay on the broadcast, demonstrating their cooking. Other teammates can join the broadcast any time to engage or show off their creations.

11. Hackathons

Hackathons are fun, challenging, engaging and super effective at solving real-world company problems. They require a bit more time and organization than some of the other employee engagement activities on this list. But, the benefits are totally worth it.

Pro Tips

• Organize teams based on what your company needs most. Do team members need time to bond with their direct teammates? Or are they craving cross-functional collaboration?
• Choose real problems your company actually needs solving. That way, successful projects can actually be implemented. This is really empowering for your remote workers, and your company will benefit from the effort.

Using a Virtual Workplace?

• Go all in on decorating the office and create an exciting vibe.
• Use the mapmaker to set up zones for each team. And get team members involved in dressing up and personalizing their areas. This will promote camaraderie and some healthy competition.
• Use the broadcast feature to share updates, sneak peaks, and tips throughout the hackathon. Play music, do surprise giveaways, and generally keep the teams connected while they create.

12. Virtual Well-Being Zones

If you've got a virtual workplace like SoWork, your remote team will love well-being zones. Create these corners of the office in any way you like - yoga zones, fitness challenges, or meditation corners are popular.

Pro Tips

• Use the mapmaker tool inside your virtual workplace to make the wellness corner inviting.
• Choose activities your remote workers love. Or rotate activities every month to expose your team members to different ways of rejuvenating.
• Host teacher-led events inside your wellness corners. Bring in a yoga instructor, or use a meditation app like Calm to run a live session.

13. Virtual Escape Rooms

Virtual escape rooms are perfect team-building games for a virtual office setting. In these events, remote employees collaborate to solve riddles and problem-solving puzzles within a set time limit, aiming to "escape" the room. The goal is to boost team morale, teamwork, and team bonding.

Pro Tips

• Use your virtual office mapmaker to set up escape rooms around the office. Take advantage of embeddable objects, whiteboards, and signs to make the room interactive.
• If you have a big group, set up multiple escape rooms and rotate teams between them. Use the broadcast or announce feature to communicate with each group.
• Get together at the end of the event. One of the best parts of an escape room is talking about it afterwards. Team members will love recalling and sharing laughs and challenges.

14. Virtual Coffee Breaks

Virtual Coffee Breaks are a fantastic way to simulate the informal interactions that happen naturally in an office. They're simple, yet super effective. And, they're a great way to bring together team members that otherwise wouldn't get a chance to connect.

Pro Tips

• If you're organizing coffee breaks (instead of letting them happen spontaneously in a virtual workplace), be thoughtful about frequency and duration. Once a week for 30 minutes is a good starting point.

Using a Virtual Workplace?

• Don't worry about frequency or duration! Your team members can enjoy coffee breaks spontaneously.
• Set up coffee break zones to make spontaneous 'water cooler' moments simple and easy.

15. Employee Recognition Programs

While this is more of an initiative and less of an idea you can implement quickly, it doesn't need to be complicated and it is absolutely worthwhile if you want to increase employee engagement.

Employee recognition programs celebrate hard work, professional development, achievements and milestones. Regularly acknowledging remote team members' contributions boosts employee morale and keeps remote workers motivated.

These programs can be simple or complex - whatever you think is needed to engage your team. Employee recognition can be done through shout-outs during virtual meetings, dedicated recognition channels on Slack, or even virtual awards ceremonies, all of which help to create a positive and supportive work environment.

Pro Tips

• Recognize work that reinforces company values. This keeps your cultural principles front-and-center.
• Celebrate the small stuff, too. Recognizing birthdays, work behind the scenes, or examples of teamwork goes a long way in bringing your remote team together.

Using a Virtual Workplace?

• Recognize publicly! Give a team member an award, or decorate their desk. This helps the whole team get involved in celebrating that team member, and feels way more personal than an email or Slack message.

That's it! Have fun trying these out with your remote team.