20 Employee Engagement Activities for Remote Teams

Remote work has evolved from a pandemic necessity to a permanent fixture in the modern workplace. Companies have largely mastered the basics of remote operations, but the challenge of maintaining deep employee engagement and meaningful connections remains as important as ever. With hybrid work models now the norm and employees expecting more flexible, personalized workplace experiences, keeping remote teams truly engaged requires fresh approaches and innovative thinking.

The benefits of engaged remote teams are clearer than ever: studies consistently show that engaged remote employees demonstrate higher productivity, stronger collaboration across time zones, improved retention rates, and better overall well-being. However, creating genuine connection and engagement in distributed teams requires intentional effort and creative solutions.

One of the most crucial elements of remote team engagement continues to be fostering authentic social interaction and community. As remote work matures, employees are seeking more meaningful ways to connect with colleagues beyond traditional video calls. That’s why we’ve compiled this updated list of 20 employee engagement activities specifically designed for today’s remote teams. These activities reflect current trends, leverage new technologies, and address the evolving needs of the modern remote workforce.

Whether your team is fully remote, hybrid, or exploring new flexible work arrangements, these ideas will help you build stronger connections, boost morale, and create a thriving remote culture.

Best team building activities for remote employees

Home tours

Bring your colleagues into your home… now there’s an interesting idea, right?

Some people may not be comfortable with this, but those who are will love this remote team building activity. Virtual home tours can give your employees the opportunity to bond with each other and chat in a way that they might not normally do so.

During a video call, ask your employees (who want to participate) to give a virtual tour of their home, or maybe just their office or room of choice. You could also do a variation of this, or turn this idea into a game – ask each employee to send in a picture of a room, then ask the other employees to guess who’s house they think they’re looking at.

Virtual book club

Virtual book clubs are a great way for your employees to get together and discuss a different book each week, or fortnight.

This activity is double-sided, in that it encourages your employees to engage in a healthy activity outside of work and it also has a social element too. The combination of bringing your employees together in an informal setting and enabling the team to read more will promote social and personal development, leading to your employees feeling enriched and engaged.

Multiplayer games

Inviting your employees to play multiplayer games can give them a chance to relax and unwind, whilst also getting to know their colleagues better.

Allowing them to take a bit of time away from work to play a game with a colleague will not only lead to more social time for your team but it will also lead to better productivity with small breaks being proven to increase productivity.

Multiplayer games are versatile enough that everyone can get involved, meaning that more of your remote employees are likely to get involved. These games could change every week, sports games, quizzes, trivia, communication games – you could even give out prizes to incentivise even more people to participate.

Homemade cake competition

In the age of ‘The Great British Bake Off’, who hasn’t been inspired to try baking some tasty treats. Why not turn their love of baking into a remote team building activity?

Each week or month, you could select a different type of bake and see which of your employees produces the best-looking bake.

This could be judged each time by a specially selected panel, with the overall winner of the competition earning a prize.

This will courage your employees to put down the laptop, step away from their screens in the evening and do something fun. Creating a good work life balance , resulting in your employees being well rested and ready for their work each day.

Vary in-house and at-home working

Adopting a hybrid work schedule can be great to keep your remote employees engaged. Having set days each week/month in which employees can work from your office will help prevent work from home fatigue.

Trips into the office will break up the somewhat monotonous world of working from home – your employees will get time face-to-face with their colleagues, which can be beneficial on both a personal and professional level.

Personally, your employees will benefit from the social aspect associated with being in the office and the routine of commuting and leaving the house.

Professionally, it is also great as your employees will be able to easily collaborate on projects with their colleagues in a way that may be difficult to achieve remotely. Leading to increased productivity and efficiency when working on certain tasks.

Get furry friends involved

I’m sure I can speak for many of us when I say, one of the best things to come from the age of remote working, is the fact that you get to see all your colleagues’ pets during video calls.

You could go one step further than this and encourage people to share their pets more often – perhaps a video call which welcomes anyone with pets to show them off. Or competitions such as ‘pets do the funniest things’; in which people could share videos/photos of their pets who have got themselves into some rather hilarious situations.

Remote employees knowing that their company and colleagues are interested in their pets and home life, helps them to feel valued on a personal level. Also, nothing gives people a quick shot of serotonin than seeing a cute pictures of pets.

Fun incentives

Providing your remote employees with fun incentives is the perfect activity to keep them engaged. An employee who feels like they are well rewarded and incentivised for their hard work and commitment will perform better.

This will of course depend on funding available for such incentives, but it doesn’t need to be high budget. Some ideas could include:

Prizes for winning or placing in company competitions
Employee of the month
Monthly/quarterly pizza night
Ability to win/earn an extra day of annual leave

Virtual pub crawl

We suggest that this activity takes place outside of working hours for obvious reasons, but it can be a great way to get remote employees involved in after work socials.

One of the main ways that office workers bond is through after work drinks and social events. Whilst these are much harder to do with remote teams, it’s important not to lose this aspect of working life as it is really important for employee engagement.

You can easily set up a virtual pub crawl – ask your employees to stock up beforehand on their drink of choice (it doesn’t have to be alcoholic!) and put someone in charge of creating the virtual pub crawl map. The pub crawl leader can then change their teams background throughout the social, and may even have different team building activities prepared for each location. A further incentive could be to provide your employees with a voucher, or some money towards food and drink for the pub crawl.

This is a fun activity to keep your remote teams engaged with the company and keep the company social culture alive.

Weekly cook-alongs

Weekly cook along sessions are a great way to get all employees involved in a relaxed and fun way, allowing them to learn and relax with their colleagues, and make some (hopefully) delicious food.

Each cook along could be hosted by a different employee, providing them a chance to show off their signature dish. A few days prior, the employee hosting the next cook along should share an ingredient and utensil list, and then on the day all their colleagues would need to do is follow along.

If budget allows, and as a further incentive, you may instead choose to have these sessions hosted by a local chef – so your employees could learn from the very best!

Invest in their home office space

Investing some funds into your employee’s home offices can be very beneficial for employee engagement. Office workers often become accustomed to several things in their working set up, be that desk, chair, footrest, or other office comforts.

Remote working has left many people without these things, and they may be struggling with their work from home set up. Allocating funds to each employee will allow them to be more comfortable in their home office and feel more encouraged to work hard.

Your employees will feel encouraged and looked after by this gesture, which will in turn increase engagement.

Ask for feedback

A sure-fire way to ensure employee engagement remotely is by asking your teams for feedback. Employees feeling like their opinions and feedback is valued, will keep them engaged and interested in what is going on.

Often, when working remotely it can feel like the company moves along without you, and your opinion may not matter, which can result in employees feeling despondent and unengaged. We of course don’t want this, and making employees feel valued and important can be vital for improving engagement.

You can ask for feedback on anything from:

Social team activities
Concerns or questions on any ongoing task or project
Ways existing processes can be improved
Level of support received whilst remote working

If you do collect feedback from your remote employees, make sure that you show that you care about their feedback. Sharing regular updates on how their feedback is being acted on and implemented can build more trust and show employees how important this feedback can be.

Frequent weekly catch-ups

Setting aside time for frequent weekly catch-ups with your remote employees can be great for increasing engagement and ensuring that they feel seen and heard.

These catch ups could maybe split in half, one half to talk about work and the other to have a general chat. This is beneficial as it allows you to get to know your employees on a personal level, whilst also discussing work – it’s the combination of both these elements that will help you manage or work with them even better.

Talk about life both outside and inside work – your employees will feel valued and respected if their employer is taking an interest in them and will feel more motivated and happier at work.

Encourage flexible schedules

Empowering your employees to manage their own schedules will automatically lead to an improvement in engagement as it helps to build trust and mutual respect.

As long as your employees are still getting their work done on time and to the standard expected and are still able to effectively collaborate with their colleagues – the freedom to choose their own schedule and working hours.

In order to make sure effective collaboration still occurs, it could be a good idea to set times specifically for teamwork – within these times, all employees should be online and available.

At home activity packs

Just because your employees are working remotely, doesn’t mean that all of the employee engagement activities need to be virtual – who’d have thought it!

A great idea for increasing employee engagement is to send you remote employees activity packs. Getting them away from their screen a having fun with some other activities can help them to think more creatively and come back to their computers fresh.

Again, this can be turned into a competition – say for example, one of the activities is a craft project, you could ask all employees to send in a picture of their creation and award prizes to the winners and runners up. Prizes always incentivise employees to take part in these activities and will increase engagement in turn.

Company-wide competitions

Running large company-wide competitions is a great idea for employee engagement. Opening up competitions to all global offices and teams can help to boost teamwork and relationship building throughout the company.

With remote working, it can be easy to feel siloed – so these sorts of large competitions are great to remind employees of the wider company they are a part of and get them engaging with even more people who they may not normally speak with.

The prizes that can be won will also further incentivise your employees to get involved and work hard – remember, valued employees are happy employees!

Virtual coffee breaks

For many of us, a strong coffee is part of our daily routine – so why not turn this into a social event, and a chance for people to share this part of the day, much like you would first thing in the office when everyone gathers to make their morning coffee.

Even a short 15 minute catch up in the morning a couple of times a week, can allow your employees to build on relationships and get their day off to a good start.

Introducing things like this can help employees adjust to remote working more easily – having a feel of ‘normality’ and starting your day off with a coffee and small-talk with colleagues as you would in the office can be great to improve employee engagement, happiness and motivation.

Weekly virtual workouts

Set up virtual workouts for your employees on a weekly basis. Varying the workout each week or having a selection of different workout options each week will increase attendance as it will cater to more abilities and age groups.

Leading a healthy and active lifestyle is key for people’s overall wellbeing, both at work and in your personal life. Remote working can be a distraction from a healthy lifestyle, with some people actually leading an unhealthier lifestyle whilst working from home. Encouraging your employees to get active with weekly workouts will help to re-establish a healthy lifestyle and have them feeling better than ever!

For employees, having these services on offer will increase engagement as they will feel like your company is looking after them and their wellbeing. This will be beneficial for employees as it will allow them to have a break from work and improve their overall health.

Show and tell calls

Show and tell might initially make us feel like we’re back at school, but it can actually be a great way to get to know your remote employees and colleagues in a way that you might not normally – even if you saw them every day at the office.

Schedule a virtual ‘show and tell’ and ask your employees to each share something interesting. This could be anything they wanted, a pet, a skill, their latest gadget or maybe even their favorite outfit – there are so many possibilities.

Again, your employees will feel more willing to engage if they feel like their company and colleagues are interested in them and cares enough to organize fun events like this.

Connect different company departments

For remote employees, it can often feel like you work with the same small group of people day in, day out. When in the office, it is normal to meet and speak with people from different departments and teams more regularly – just because you see them around the office and are likely to stop for a chat. At home of course, this is highly unlikely to happen, we hope… that is why it’s a good idea to schedule in time for your employees to meet with other departments or teams.

These meetings can be done in a formal or informal setting, it is a good idea to set up some meetings between teams on a relatively regular basis (perhaps one department per month) so employees can get to know each other better and gain some insight into their department, responsibilities and current projects.

Keep that Friday feeling!

Just because you’re working from home, doesn’t mean that Fridays should be any less exciting! Reaching the end of a tough week should always be celebrated and rewarded in some way.

How about a fun team catch-up, after work ‘remote’ drinks, a Friday quiz… the choices are endless. (You could use some of the other activities we have spoken about in this article for your Friday activity)

Your employees feeling rewarded and happy after a long week at work can improve their weekends and leave them more inspired and ready to go for the next week of work. Keeping your employees happy and motivated is key to increasing engagement!

3 tips for making remote employee activities happen

It can seem like a big task to introduce new social activities to large groups of people, so in order to make it more achievable, we suggest:

Introduce activities within smaller teams or departments first, to test the idea
Consider putting together a social committee, with representatives from as many areas of the business as possible, to share any organizational load
Plan a calendar of events around key celebrations, like International Happiness at Work Week, spaced throughout the year in order to make the biggest impact.

Daily connection habits

While remote working has become the new normal for many organisations, one of the biggest challenges they face is keeping their remote workers connected. A March 2021 survey of 3,000 UK remote workers by learning platform HowNow found that:

More than two thirds (67%) of workers feel disconnected from their colleagues
Two fifths (42%) feel lonely at work
Half (49%) admit it’s having a negative impact on how they view their job
A third (32%) say it’s having a negative impact on their mental health

So we know it’s a massive issue and if it’s left unchecked it can have a massive impact on an organisation.

1. Implement a robust onboarding process

Helping your remote team stay connected starts from the minute that they join the team. That means they need to have a thorough onboarding process where they:

Meet their colleagues
Become familiar with their team and organisational structure
Have plenty of one-on-one time with their manager
Have the right equipment to do the job

If that isn’t done then how do you expect someone to feel welcomed and valued? And if they don’t feel that then they’re never going to feel comfortable enough to socially engage with you or their teammates.

Need help with onboarding? Check out our Ultimate Guide To Onboarding Remote Employees

2. Create dedicated informal social time

As a remote team, you have to prioritize social time or it won’t happen. The little chats while making a coffee don’t happen when you’re in a completely different building.

That unfortunately means that you’re going to have to block out time in everyone’s calendars for something social.

This social time can be formal like doing some team building exercises or watching something like a TED Talk or it can be more informal like daily coffee catch ups. It doesn’t really matter what it is, all that matters is that:

It’s regular
The team is there.

3. Make checking in on colleagues a regular thing

Working at home makes it really hard to see how a colleague is doing. So if you don’t regularly check in on each other as a team you may miss them completely.

Obviously, you need to strike a balance. Too much checking in can feel like you’re pestering them and become a bit overbearing, but checking in now and again to reassure them that they’re not alone will show you care and make them feel part of the team.

A good way to check in without seeming overbearing is to note down the events or plans that they mention during any of the social time you have as a team. You can then drop them the odd message after it has happened as a nice gentle way to see how they are doing.

4. Encourage more video calls

One of the hardest things about being remote is not having any cues from other people’s body language. That is even harder when cameras are switched off for calls.

As mean as it may seem, encouraging the team to do all calls with the camera on is important for social cohesion. It allows them to be able to pick up the tone of their voice better and get a sense when they are joking or being deadly serious.

On the flip side, a lot of remote staff can have issues with their working space which means that they don’t want their cameras on. To get around this you need to make sure that:

They feel comfortable with the team
The business has adequately supplied them with equipment to create a comfortable environment
And that you make it clear to them they are allowed to use backgrounds if they need to.

Who doesn’t love to be praised? Praise is so important that 82% of employees think that it’s more important than a gift.

Praise is also one of the easiest things that you can do as well. You can easily set up channels in something like teams for peer-to-peer praise or to celebrate milestones. Then you can set about dropping little messages in there and encouraging the members of the team to share each other’s wins there as well.

6. Get your team together in-person

Video calls and chat apps are great but that doesn’t mean you should abandon all face-to-face time. It just means that you should do it less frequently.

Face-to-face time still has massive benefits for teams. They can help them to feel seen and heard as well as help to build trust. They can also just be a rollicking good time with some mates you haven’t seen in ages.

How frequently you hold in-person events, depends on the team. For example, if you’re a global team it isn’t realistic to ask everyone to get together once a month – or even once a quarter. If you’re more local, then quarterly is realistic and maybe even desirable to the team.

Before deciding on the frequency and activity it’s worthwhile getting feedback from everyone involved to see how often they would like to get together and what they would like to do with those days.

More ways to keep a remote team engaged

It is well known that one of the main challenges that managers and businesses face is keeping their employees engaged. This can be even more challenging when their teams are working remotely.

Without making an effort to bring your team together to stay motivated, there is a risk that standards will drop, effort will decrease, collaboration among employees will be lost, and your team’s overall quality and production will diminish over time.

The problems managers face when their teams work from home

When teams are working remotely, there are a few potential issues that managers need to consider. These can include:

A lack of collaboration
Teams communicating less often
Employees feeling isolated from the team
Employees lacking motivation

These challenges are common among remote teams and can impact the efficiency of the team, but that doesn’t mean they cannot be solved with a few tips and tricks.

What does an engaged team look like

Committed: They want the best for the company and will align its goals with their own.
Positive Attitude: A can-do attitude with minimal complaints about tasks. They’re happy to work with various people and will always try something new.
Willing to go the extra mile: They are open and willing to do what is needed to complete projects and meet deadlines. They also do not need to be asked to do more, they simply do it because they want to.
Collaborative: They take pride in working together and are interested in everyone’s ideas while understanding that it can take more than one person to reach a goal.

How to spot an unengaged team

You now know what an engaged team looks like, but how do you spot an unengaged one? Some of the common signs are:

High employee turnover rate: You may notice that when employees are disengaged, they become unsatisfied and unmotivated with their job and begin to look elsewhere for a new role.
Unable to complete tasks and meet deadlines: When your team is unengaged with their work, it may take them longer to get tasks done, and this can reduce the quality of the work as well.
Poor performance: An overall decrease in team performance can be a sign of a team that is not engaged with their work and, therefore, unlikely to work to high standards that help to boost performance.
Withdrawn: Individuals who are disengaged with work may start to withdraw themselves from everyday conversations or activities such as team catch-ups or socials, and this can also look like poor communication, which can be detrimental to the whole team.

Encourage your team to collaborate on projects

Collaboration when working from home does not come as easily compared to working in an office, as when you can talk in person, collaboration happens more naturally.

As a manager, you can do this by making sure that as you are kicking off projects, you map the tasks and their key collaborators.

However, when working remotely, the benefits of collaboration can be put to the side due to the lack of natural interaction, and therefore there is a greater onus as a manager to know the strengths of individuals in the business and encourage employees to collaborate with those people even if it is just for a quick chat. By doing that, you’re helping them to understand who they can go to for what and collaborate with.

The feeling of isolation is a real problem among remote workers, with 30.9% of UK workers in 2022 expressing feelings of isolation when working remotely, and this lack of social interaction can have a major impact on how employees feel towards their work.

Managers should encourage their team to communicate regularly to help with the well-being of the whole team, create unity and develop relationships within the team that leads to a happier and more engaged team. A few ways in which you can do this are:

Creating social channels on your company communication tool that are dedicated to social chat ad organizing social events away from work.
Making a point to book time in everyone’s diary for socialising, whether remotely or in person.
Encouraging collaboration over social events to get the team excited and more engaged.

So finding spaces where teams can interact casually away from work can be just what remote workers need to feel part of a team and less alone.

Make sure your teams aren’t burning out

Burnout can have a huge impact on work quality and efficiency.

“88% of UK workers reported feeling burnt out in the last 2 years”, and 1 in 3 employees feel they don’t have a good work/life balance, according to an article by Stand out CV. So it is more than likely your team are or has suffered with it.

And then, if you don’t offer help, there is a high chance your team will become unengaged. So spotting burnout early is a crucial part of a manager’s role.

Make meetings meaningful

Does it need a meeting, or can this be summarised in an email?

Regular meetings may seem like a good idea, but they can quickly fill up calendars leaving team members no time to do anything else with their day, which can be stressful for employees with a busy workload already. So it is important to regulate meetings by planning and organizing them so that they are effective and useful in achieving a goal.

Use tools to help inform your decisions

We’ve put together a post which covers the tools you can use to engage your remote teams to help you make more informed decisions that benefit your team and improve their engagement, all from the comfort of your home.

Seasonal and holiday ideas

Christmas might well be the happiest time of year for you, but that may not be the case for your team. It can be a period of stress and heightened anxiety for the shier, more introverted team members, especially with the increased demand for socialising. The support of the well-being and mental health of all remote employees should be a top priority for employers, especially over Christmas when employee mental health can be the most vulnerable.

With 42% of UK workers worried about socialising over the Christmas period, according to research by Lime Global, it is probably a bigger issue than you think. The knock-on effect of this could lead to a team who are:

Less productive
Lacking morale
Unmotivated

How the Christmas period can impact employee wellbeing

No two employees are the same, and how Christmas affects them will depend on individual circumstances. But some of the ways employees are affected are:

Absenteeism: According to The Mental Health Foundation, 12.5% of UK absences are due to mental health conditions, and this can be heightened over the Christmas period.
Financial worries: The worry of being able to afford Christmas will likely cause employees to become anxious and distracted with their work.
Family and relationships: Employees who may have separated this year or lost a family member could also struggle this Christmas to get into the festive spirit.
Increased workload: End-of-year reports and new-year strategies are just some of the tasks employees will have to account for, and this can be overwhelming, resulting in an increasingly stressful Christmas.
SADs: Seasonal Affective Disorder affects around 12 million people in the UK. When the clocks go forward and the nights get darker, anxiety can be heightened, and depressive episodes become more frequent.

What to look out for

Unusual behavior can be a key indicator of an employee who is struggling with work over Christmas. Unusual behaviors include:

Slow response time
Delinquency
Working late
And mood changes

These behaviors can be difficult to spot, and with many teams working remotely at least some of the time, the challenge is exacerbated. Furthermore, a snapshot of behaviors won’t tell the story – but changes over time can tell you a lot about how happy and comfortable someone is at work. For example, Analytics 365 can show you which team members have been working out of hours more, or the overall sentiment of key team members. This can give you a starting point so you know who needs additional support.

1-2-1s are also a useful tool to help employers keep track of their remote employees well-being, even more so over the Christmas period. Your 1-2-1s are a good time to ask your employees questions such as:

How are feeling about the Christmas period and work?
Are you managing the current workload?
Is there anything I can do to offer more support?

If an employee is not open to talking about their well-being, simply offering some reassurance of the support and tools available can make a huge difference.

Any behavior from an employee which you believe is negatively affecting other employees, such as aggression and mood swings, should be reported to HR along with an action plan to help.

Ways to support your remote employees over Christmas

Offer more flexibility. Finding balance (both work and non-work related) over the festive period can be really stressful. So much so, 34% of employees in a survey by Sodexo said Christmas caused them to be more stressed, with a further 16% saying they would rather have flexible working conditions or early finishes than a Christmas bonus. A little flexibility for your team can make all the difference. Here are some quick and easy things you can do as a manager:

Early Friday finishes
Increased breaks and longer lunch breaks
Flexible start and finish times

Provide tools and resources for support. If you already know a lot of your team will struggle with their wellbeing over Christmas, then ensuring more support is available should be a priority. Without support, employees can feel abandoned and left to fend for themselves, which shows bad management. Extra support over Christmas can include things such as:

Open door policies with management via online calls
Wellness packages
Access to mental health support charities and organisations.

Lower expectations. Increasing workloads and looming deadlines can impact the work/life balance of employees. According to an article by Business Leader, 73% of employees described themselves as being at breaking point in the run-up to Christmas. This is clearly a growing issue and is one not to be ignored. Lowering expectations can help to reduce burnout and increase productivity.

Show your appreciation. As well as 1-1s, you can show your appreciation towards your remote employees through small acts of recognition. By showing your appreciation, employee morale is improved, which can sometimes be the motivation they need to get them through a difficult period. You can show your appreciation by offering your employees rewards such as:

Gift cards,
Sweet treats
Financial bonuses
Letters of recognition

Design a ‘Return to Work’ action plan. The thought of returning to work after Christmas can be a daunting thought for your remote employees. With an action plan, employees can feel more at ease with returning to work and be clear-minded about their work for the new year. An example of a clear action plan should consist of:

First-week Plan: A day-by-day plan for the first week, including back-to-work meetings and any new project inductions.
Quick tasks: A priority list for tasks that take no longer than 30 mins but are important for the business.
Goals for the first month: Realistic targets that you want to set for the team to complete in their first month back; this could include producing starting plan for any new projects

Laying out a clear plan for a return to work after Christmas gives remote employees the structure they need to deal with pending tasks while allowing them to settle back into work at their own pace.

So there you have it. A list of ideas to keep remote employees engaged and encourage team bonding. Take a look through them and let us know what you think. If you have any additional ideas then feel free to get in touch through social media.