More people than ever before are working remotely, from home and in virtual teams. How do you stay connected as a team? Some people may have been hired and never had the opportunity to meet the co-workers.
You can use virtual energizers. I talked about the do's and don'ts of energizers in a previous blog. The general rules for physical icebreakers also apply to virtual ones. You need to:
- Know your group
- Know the purpose of the meeting
- Have questions and the energizers ready at hand
- Have a clear set of rules for the energizer
- Decide before hand whether you want to use smaller groups (virtual breakout rooms) or work in one large group
- Decide beforehand whether you want everyone or just a couple of people to share their experiences
- Decide beforehand how much time you want to spend on this
There are some great resources online on youtube (look for virtual icebreakers), this website and in sessionlab.
I always like to use virtual energizers to get people connected and engaged at the beginning of the meeting. Getting people to move or physically react to each other is also a great idea. Since working remotely can lead to too little movement during the day.
If you find any more great virtual icebreakers I would love to hear about them. They can be very helpful in keeping team spirit up in these times of the pandemic. Below you can find some tips about how to use energizers well either virtually or physically.
