Virtual Water Cooler Activities for Team Bonding

Studies show that 17% of remote workers feel disconnected in regards to their coworkers. That may be a small number, but it can have a huge impact on your company.

When you think about it, remote workers probably feel this disconnect because the nature of their work removes many spontaneous in-person interactions, which are crucial for forming relationships. However, you can still create a fun and connected team culture by having virtual water cooler activities. These are casual, low-pressure ways for employees to connect beyond meetings and tasks, so it’s worth it to take some time out of the workday to do them.

Read on for some virtual water cooler ideas you can use!

Best Virtual Water Cooler Ideas for Team Building

Daily or Weekly “Coffee Chat” Rooms

If you’re wondering how to create a virtual water cooler, one of the easiest ways to do so is to have coffee chats. These are short video calls where you can have informal chats, meaning there’s no agenda, just conversation!

This idea is easy to carry out since all you need is Zoom, Google Meet, or Slack Huddles. Make it optional and keep it relaxed to encourage people to join in. If you rotate hosts and let people come in and out freely, it’ll certainly be a popular activity.

Of course, this won’t work for all companies. It’s best for small teams or departments that miss casual office chats.

Random Pairings for Virtual Coffee or Donuts

For something more intimate, try random pairings for virtual coffee or donuts. This gives workers chances for one-on-one interactions, which can encourage cross-team bonding and help break silos.

There are many tools available to randomly pair people for informal video chats, such as the Slack Integration Donut. That way, you won’t have to worry about doing this manually on your own.

Set these random pairings to run weekly or biweekly. For each interaction, allow for 15-minute chats so people can get to know one another adequately.

“Question of the Day”

“Question of the Day” is the perfect way to start the day, as it can be fun and thought-provoking at the same time. Make sure you designate a separate channel for this activity specifically, as it can potentially lead to some pretty deep conversations, and the water cooler chat will flow!

These questions are great for encouraging regular engagement in a non-disruptive way. Plus, you never know what cool things you’ll learn about your coworkers and employees.

Things you can ask are:

• What’s your favorite childhood TV show?
• If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
• What’s the best meal you cooked recently?

If you’re stumped or run out of questions to ask at one point, you can always look online for more ideas.

Photo Sharing Themes

People love talking about their personal lives, and they also love posting and looking at pictures. An excellent way to facilitate a virtual water cooler is to have themed days where people post related pictures.

Some ideas include:

• Pet Wednesday
• Workspace Friday
• Throwback Thursday
• Weekend Adventure Recap

By sharing photos, you’ll get visual engagement and a natural way to start conversations about common interests. These images also give you a literal glimpse into people’s lives, and this may help you grasp a deeper understanding of one another.

Virtual Office Background Challenges

Do you often hold video calls to discuss matters for your company? Then you can make it more fun by having virtual office background challenges.

Before your meetings, come up with a theme, such as a movie scene, favorite vacation spot, or something from pop culture. Once everyone logs in, it’ll be interesting to see what people come up with, and you may even have some laughs.

If you’d like to keep business matters and virtual water cooler activities separate, then set aside a specific time slot for this, such as Friday fun calls. It can be a silly way to end the week.

GIF Wars or Emoji Battles

A quick way to get a virtual water cooler going is to have GIF wars or emoji battles. At the beginning of the week, give your workforce a prompt, such as “how it feels when you finish a project right before the deadline.” For the entire week, they can then respond by only using GIFs or emojis.

This activity is best for quick, fun, and expressive team interactions, and it can work especially well when there’s lots of hustle and bustle in your office. It doesn’t take much time for people to participate, and the responses can be quite amusing a hilarious.

Shout-Out or Gratitude Wall

Hard work can often go unappreciated, so ensure that your employees feel heard and seen. This can go a long way, and can improve morale and loyalty/retention.

Provide workers with a virtual space where team members can appreciate one another; this is easily doable through a Slack or Teams channel. Or you can create a shared Google Jamboard or doc. Even a “gratitude minute” during team calls can be beneficial!

Whatever you choose, it’ll build a culture of recognition and appreciation. It’ll be good vibes at work!

Virtual Show and Tell

Show and tell is a fan favorite for people of all ages, as it allows you to show off something you’re passionate about. Plus, it may help you find others who are just as interested in the subjects!

Each week, have one person show or tell something meaningful or funny to them. It can be a hobby, collectible, book, or even a cooking tip.

To ensure that things don’t drag on, and that these sessions don’t take up too much time, keep it under five minutes per presentation. With these short “show and tell” virtual calls, you’ll be well on your way to personalizing work relationships.

Trivia Time or Quizzes

Water cooler trivia can really get the blood pumping! So this is perfect if you want to reenergize employees and get some friendly competition going.

You can organize quick trivia sessions during lunch or end-of-the-week wind-downs. Tools include Kahoot!, QuizBreaker, Mentimeter, or Google Forms.

To keep things interesting, you can explore a wide variety of themes, such as:

• General knowledge
• Company trivia
• Pop culture

To up the ante, consider offering small prizes, such as a $5 or $10 gift card to a local store.

Set Up a Virtual Water Cooler

Having a virtual water cooler can make a world of difference when it comes to getting your remote workers involved. It gives them a chance to engage with others and not feel as isolated.

So give the above ideas a try and make sure to rotate the activities to keep things fresh. These may even give employees other ideas for virtual events, so keep an open mind and be proactive to help feel everyone feel included at work.

Would you like to have in-person team-building events in an outstanding destination? Then request a quote from us today. We at Grupo Events can put together something engaging for groups of all sizes who want to come to sunny Mexico.