Online social events for remote workers have proved enormously popular in helping maintain company culture over the last 9 months, catering for group sizes of 5 to 1,000 plus. 

There’s evidently an essential need to be connected to others within the organisation – from helping build effective teams to maintaining good mental health and wellbeing.

Most of us have had a go at hosting a Zoom quiz with family or friends, or certainly participated in numerous… And undoubtedly, this DIY phase has largely passed - certainly in the corporate arena. Leaders are looking for more sophisticated ways of fulfilling the social needs of staff in a remote environment.

There are a wide range of team challenges or group participation events that are now available and designed specifically to drive social engagement and effective teamwork.

There is a mix of purely online virtual team games and more tactile experiences that can be enjoyed remotely but as part of a group of colleagues, hosted by experts via your laptop screen.

App based gamification has naturally proved very popular. These are custom-built online activities designed specifically for the corporate market to take the place of more traditional face to face, hands-on team building activities. Scenarios include escaping locked rooms, solving murders, taking on a rogue hackers, racing across the globe, tackling cyber mazes – different themes, aimed at different audiences with differing levels of complexity.

Beyond the purely digital style of team event, there are many that involve more tactile activities and physical items - from making records to breaking records. What is proving very popular is the Event in a Box concept – where all the items required to participate in an experience are delivered direct to people’s homes so they can join an event online, hosted by an expert in a particular field. 

The food and beverage options are particularly popular, usually after normal working hours – examples include virtual cocktail mixing masterclasses, virtual cheese and wine tasting and virtual gin experiences… bit of a common theme with these! Sushi workshops, chocolate making and canape masterclasses are also popular. The attraction being that these activities are informative, fun and hands-on – and often new experiences for participants.

Reports would suggest remote working will continue for some time and be adopted in the longer term by a wide variety of organisations beyond the Covid crisis. Accordingly, we’ll continue to invest in delivering solutions – be they virtual or hybrid – for remote audiences.

A selection of ideas for social events for teams, clients and partners can be found in our publication, Team Engagement in a Virtual World.