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If you’ve ever been to a child’s birthday party or been present at a school break time, you are likely to have played a thrilling game of Simon Says. As an adult, this game is just as simple as the ones 5-year-olds play (and it’s just as fun!). This is a great ice breaker game to begin meetings with. All you need to do is say a word and a member will say the first 5 things that pop into their head in a period of 10 seconds.
It can bring energy to a meeting that team members may be dreading—for instance, are you going over a project that didn’t go as planned? A quick team activity can loosen any tension that teammates might feel and bring in some positive vibes. Over Zoom, ask your large team members to put acronyms into a chat channel or say them over video chat. Other team members can then guess what the acronym means. If you want to make this icebreaker more competitive, you can play it so that team members must race to say the acronym correctly first.
Choose Your Favorite
You can choose from various different session types or themes. This is one of the icebreakers that will help you take a pulse check of the overall atmosphere in the team and detect possible downturns – especially handy in a virtual setup.
But we recommend some chill truths related to personal life and work that all of your team are comfortable with. Icebreaker games run the gamut, from head-scratching critical thinking games https://remotemode.net/ to silly, on-the-spot improv and beyond. Small groups are ideal for getting folks up on their feet, which helps encourage participation and connecting with their fellow attendees.
Whats Your Favorite Year
If you have too many ideas to decide, consider letting your employees have a say. Send icebreakers for virtual meetings out your top 10 themes in a TINYpulse survey and ask your employees to rank each one.
Without a good way to break the ice and get everyone talking, the sound of crickets can become very evident. If you need an icebreaker that can also be a contest, look no further than an in-meeting game of virtual bingo. By doing bingo throughout your meeting, you can ensure your employees are paying attention and staying engaged. This will also help normalize the sometimes embarrassing things that happen and make employees feel more comfortable.
Best Icebreakers For Your Virtual And Hybrid Meetings
Next, allow all groups a couple of minutes to discuss the topic before coming back to the main room to share what each pair talked about. If you need inspiration for Never Have I Ever questions, find 250 of them here.
Your first option is pairing up employees or putting them in small groups. This gives your team the chance to connect with each other and explain their responses.
Icebreaker Games For Virtual Meetings
It’s one of the most popular social media platforms. One of the applications included in G Suite is Currents. This app helps keep your employees informed, engage in conversations with each other, and get real-time updates. TINYpulse is the world’s leading employee engagement platform. From TINYpulse surveys to employee recognition, you can use TINYpulse to engage your employees and give them the chance to contribute. Getting your employees feedback about team building is crucial to building buy in.
- Most importantly, good icebreakers allow people to get to know each other and enjoy the work they’re doing—which, in turn, makes it more likely that they will do great work.
- To encourage collaboration and conversation about something outside of work, decide on a new book every month to discuss in a zoom call.
- If you’re a course creator, they might tune out—or worse yet, lose interest in your teaching altogether.
- Whether your members are solving mysteries or learning new leadership skills, they will feel more connected as a team and be able to spend a little downtime reading.
- Hosting meetings where everyone is on video whether in-office or remote can help people feel connected across distance.
And even if they do, they might not want to get on that personal level with you—especially if you’re just meeting for the first time. As they share their photos, ask them to explain the backstory behind the photo.
Escape The Office Have Better Meetings
Instead of cringing at someone saying “You’re on mute”, your team will get a comedic kick once they X it off their Bingo sheets. Your team is guaranteed to have fun while staying highly engaged. People usually create their vision boards at the beginning of the year for the whole year.
As people introduce themselves, ask them to pick a 1-2 minute anecdote that was embarrassing for them in the past, and what they learned from the experience. See how well your team members know the organization with a simple trivia game, and reward the winners with kudos (or maybe even a little swag?). This can be as quick as 5 company-related questions, or more involved, like a traditional game show. Just make sure the emphasis is heavy on family and light on feud (jokes!). For this exercise, have your team introduce themselves and then describe one dish that they love, and what it means to them. This is an easy way to get people talking, and again offers insight into people’s personal history, likes and dislikes, and even ways of working. Also, a shared digital space can help make this even more engaging — and even educational (new recipes, anyone?).
Cameras optional for this – you can get a good laugh from each other’s dad moves, or you can let people dance like nobody’s watching. Another fun version of this is to have everyone mute Zoom and dance to their own music. Give each small group a list of items and ask them to select which 3 they would bring on a desert island with them and why.
- Virtual Code Break brings your team together to solve riddles, online puzzles, and trivia.
- The Deskercise Class is perfect for easing the tension and stress of work.
- There are plenty of short videoslike this onethat will walk your team through stretching while sitting at their desks.
- Another fun version of this is to have everyone mute Zoom and dance to their own music.
- You can have your employees vote on each award or decide who gets them yourself.
- This is one of our favorite virtual ice breakers for new teams.
Let your employees know that cats, dogs, photo frames and mini desk plants are all welcome. Sharing your office or home space can make things seem less unfamiliar and more personal. This is a quick and easy virtual ice-breaker that requires little to no pre-planning – just a quick google search & some imagination. Simply think of two outlandish and hilarious scenarios and ask your team which they’d prefer. (E.G would you rather have hands for feet or feet for hands?) Enjoy the laughter as you go round one by one and think of what to say next over your video call. There’s a reason so many ice breakers call for smaller groups. Small groups make it easier for people to connect and harder for someone to get left out.
A round of ice breaker questions can be effective in easing tensions and overcoming awkwardness in virtual meetings. Ice breaker questions are great for bonding your team during welcome meetings, training sessions, and events. They break down barriers of hierarchy and departments and warm up the atmosphere to engage every participant. You often don’t need any materials for these activities, and the members of your team just have to answer a prompt to play. Here are a handful of icebreakers you can use for your next virtual meeting. Do your virtual team meetings tend to start off slow with little engagement?