How Do You Build Team Morale Remotely?

Video Technology Enables Much-Needed Connection

It’s a brave new world, now that the Coronavirus, aka COVID-19, has kept your coworkers stuck at home, glued to the computer. Transitioning to that kind of isolation is tough in normal times, but now it’s even more stressful to find yourself alone with your work and spinning thoughts. More than ever, leaders are asking themselves, How do you build team morale remotely?

We’re lucky to be living in an age where technology can bring us together for meetings, for informal conversations, and even team building activities. Our company, Watson Adventures, has been providing morale-boosting, team-building games in the real world since 1999, and in the last two years we’ve turned some of our most popular games into virtual versions, thanks to video conferencing technology and our new browser-based app.

Four Games You Can Play

In our virtual team-building games, coworkers connect remotely via a video conferencing app to listen to our Host or Emcee explain the rules and get the game going, announce challenges and team score updates. Participants communicate and work together in small teams to answer fun, challenging questions and tackle engaging challenges. Specifically…

The Trivia Slam Game: Like a pub quiz, but with an emphasis on trivia questions that require teammates to put their brains together. Often, even if you don’t flat-out know the answer, you can put your heads together to forge a plausible answer. A surprising variety mix of visual, audio, and mental challenges—plus a lot of humor—keeps the group on their toes and pulling together. The photo challenge round provide particular surprises, as you get to know your teammates and the rest of the group better.

The Murder by Team Building Game: There’s nothing like an international crisis to pull a team together. It turns out that your original Watson Adventures host was found dead, and now your group has to play the game he created for you to find out who wanted him dead. As you solve puzzles and discover secret messages, you’ll find yourselves caught up in a spy caper. And the fate of the world might just depend on your ability to crack a code and thwart enemy agents.

The Murder Mystery Mayhem Game: An evil genius in your group has poisoned you, and he or she has challenged you to solve a series of dastardly puzzles to reveal their identity and get the antidote. Can your team unmask the villain before time runs out?

Escape TO the Museum Scavenger Hunt: We’re famous for our team-building scavenger hunts in about 100 museums around the U.S. Now we’ve taken that expertise and put it online for a game that takes you on a virtual tour of galleries and exhibits in great museums across the country—all while you sit at home, at your desk, combining your wits with your teammates. The Watson Adventures app will pose the challenges, your favorite browser will be your window out to the world, your favorite communications technology will link you with your teammates to strategize, and our Host will video conference with you to provide updates on how other teams are doing, hints if you’re stuck, and maybe tamp down the smack talk between teams if the game gets too intense! No knowledge of the museums is necessary: You just need sharp eyes, nimble fingeres, good communication skills, and a comfy desk chair.

Contact us to learn more about morale boosting team building games your team can play while working from home.