The saying, “no man is an island,” helps us understand the need for online team building exercises. Whether it be a life partner, an athletics teammate, a colleague, or a classmate, everyone needs someone to depend on, especially when the going gets tough. No one can go through life without relying on somebody; those who try are doomed to fail.

Be you researcher, laborer, or even medical personnel; you cannot shoulder all the workload alone. That being said, allying with someone requires building trust, a virtue that can neither be bought nor commanded but must be earned. Trust is also mutual, meaning you can’t receive it without first giving it.

There are different ways of building it, be it physical or virtual. Companies often use team-building events to build a sense of trust among colleagues. Those events need not be done in person; that is where online team building exercises come in.

In the year 2020 AD, a global pandemic forced everyone to be shut in the four corners of their homes except for essential personnel. Employees were advised to work from home. It was a double-edged sword in that people got to strengthen their bonds with family members, but at the same time, distance drifted employees apart.

This caused employees whose work didn’t directly cross one another’s path to growing distant. To curb this issue, companies employed online team building exercises to reignite the bonds of camaraderie and forge even newer ones.

What Are Online Team Building Exercises?

First, we would explain the team building exercises; as the name implies, they are activities that bond individuals together as a team. Online team building exercises, therefore, are virtual activities that bond individuals together as teammates.

Some examples of online team building exercises are;

1. Online games: companies can use games to pit departments against each other, making them work as a unit to defeat their rival departments. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy, so friendly online games don’t just build camaraderie but also provide recreational relief.
2. Letter writing: companies could also employ the old-fashioned method with a touch of modern influence. Employees could be tasked with sending an email to a colleague weekly, which would be chosen randomly by department heads working together to extend the network. That way, colleagues from different departments could interact with one another, even those with whom they’ve never interacted.
3. Book club: organizations could also employ books, changing the grouping every two weeks. That way, colleagues would have a topic of discussion and won’t be restricted to the same crowd. The meeting could take place using video calls.
4. Projects and presentations: similarly, organizations could arrange employees in groups and task them with a project. In the end, each group would have their turn presenting their projects during a group video call. The winners of the friendly competition would be rewarded at the event’s conclusion.
5. Trivia: companies could organize trivia about employees, and the winners at the end will be granted rewards. This serves two purposes; the first is to encourage them to learn about one another, and the second is to reward those who try to know their colleagues.

Online team building exercises can be used for small, medium, and large-scale companies, schools, and religious communities. Pandemics are not the only reasons to use online team building exercises. They can be used by large corporations that can’t organize company trips due to cost.