Especially when you’re meeting a new teammate, an external party, or a new partner that you’ve never come into contact with before. Quick virtual ice breakers build a cohesive team made of members who know each other, increasing productivity, effectiveness, and job satisfaction. For such virtual icebreakers, people can share which song they’re listening to or repeating these days. “Song on Repeat” also allows people to get icebreakers for virtual meetings new music recommendations.
Random Trivia Fact Game
This helps break down barriers between remote team members and create a more open and connected environment. Social situations can be hard, especially in a remote workspace. The feeling of disconnection in the workplace is startlingly common and is a leading cause of frequent employee turnover. Additionally, higher turnover can cost businesses up to $1,200 per employee—just from a lack of engagement in the workplace!
- Then, as they explain their choice, engaging conversations around the theme ensue.
- Use the meeting timer feature in adam.ai to set a specific time for ice breakers for virtual meetings and receive an alert when time’s up for each meeting segment.
- Finally, reveal the answer and have a fast discussion about the solution together.
- For « Take a picture of… », participants are given a prompt to take a picture of something specific in their surroundings.
You then ask participants to rank them from most to least favorite. Discussion of the reasons behind people’s choices can prompt friendly debates and conversation. Consistent use of icebreakers allows employees to get closer, which leads to more effective and productive collaboration, establishes communication and strengthens teamwork.
Virtual icebreakers don’t have to be complicated to be effective. Just asking questions is sometimes enough to forge real bonds between coworkers. Some ice breakers are a bit too friendly for people’s taste, so keep those ice breakers for colleagues you’re already familiar with. When people work in an office, socializing comes naturally whether in meetings or during lunch breaks.
If they don’t have a team photo, any photo that makes them happy or represents a good memory works well. Each participant then shares their photo with the group and explains why it’s meaningful to them. Let us show you how to transform your meetings from mundane to memorable, and unlock the full potential of your team’s online interactions. Divide participants into pairs and set a timer for brief individual exchanges (e.g., 3-5 minutes). During these intimate dialogues, participants share personal information, such as their interests and hobbies. Rotate pairs periodically to facilitate broader interactions.
Building connections
People might assume having a dog is relatively common, so it must be true. Experiencing fun either in job-related activities or socializing with coworkers boosts job satisfaction and lowers employee burnout. Whether you’re running a meeting, hosting a training, webinar, or speaking at an event, polls are your best friend.
A simple way to do this is by integrating virtual icebreakers into the start of your meetings when your team is already gathered to collaborate. With so many companies embracing remote work, virtual meetings are taking the world by force. The virtual environment can be convenient for and even inclusive to the workforce for employees working from home, but it doesn’t come without challenges. Getting people to participate and warm up to the group can be a real sticking point, which is why virtual icebreakers can be such a game changer. Every day more and more people start working remotely and therefore need good tools to make their virtual meetings better.
After drawing, each person shares their artwork with the group and explains what it represents. This exercise allows team members to express their feelings creatively and can spark interesting conversations about everyone’s state of mind. This icebreaker encourages participants to showcase an object or item from their immediate surroundings, unraveling its significance through storytelling. Ask attendees to select an object nearby and share it on camera, offering a brief narrative about its meaning or why it intrigues them. This one will get the creative and artistic juices flowing as participants use simple drawings or sketches to represent their current moods or emotions.
Virtual icebreaker games and activities
- Or, had a deep conversation about life, the universe, and everything with a bunch of colleagues in a kitchenette or by the watercooler?
- The game can be played individually or in teams and can be tailored to match the team’s musical preferences.
- And storytelling is a vital human tool for building a connection during virtual ice breakers.
- Just asking questions is sometimes enough to forge real bonds between coworkers.
- While this may seem better for task completion, it takes a toll on team interactions and ultimately affects work efficiency.
There is no catching up or small talk and some people keep themselves muted for the duration of the meeting. You likely have unengaged employees because you have unengaging meetings. Change things up to create a more interactive meeting with virtual meeting ice breakers. Whatever the opinions of virtual icebreakers are, remember that they are not just games or time-fillers. They are powerful tools that foster psychological safety and support high-performing teams in remote environments.
Prompt: “In one word, how do you feel right now? In one word, how do you want to feel at the end of our time together?”
Just because we have to work from home on a video call, doesn’t mean that we can’t increase team engagement virtually for quick and easy 5-minute team-building activities. This is one of the best virtual icebreakers for large meetings or virtual events – the more locations, the better the word cloud will look. Sometimes a little (unserious) competition can be a great way to build camaraderie — here are a few of our favorite icebreaker games for virtual meetings. Among virtual icebreakers, this is one of the simplest and can be done with groups of any size.