Five Ways to Have Fun While Working Remotely

By Brendan Hurley, Chief Marketing Officer, Goodwill of Greater Washington

Like you, I’m getting a bit tired of the over-used phrase, “Welcome to the new normal”.  However, just because “we’re all in this together,” it doesn’t mean we can’t “pivot” from the norm and “think outside the box” when it comes to making work fun again.

Okay, I’m done.

Seriously though, while we all want to enjoy work, it’s sometimes difficult to do so when there is little to no active workplace culture because everyone is working remotely. There are no office happy hours for the time being, no water cooler chatter, no birthday celebrations, or casual Fridays. Okay, maybe that last one is a stretch, but you get the idea.

The point is that even though we’re all working miles apart from one another, it doesn’t mean we can’t still have fun together while at work. It just needs to be virtual!

Here are a few ideas culled from the internet on how to have interactive fun with your colleagues — virtually.

1. RPS Tournaments – End virtual meetings with a rock, paper, scissors contest.  Pair up and eliminate team members until you have a winner who gets a fun prize or just the glory of being the champ.  You can do it collectively on a group page or in Zoom breakout groups.
2. Virtual Trivia – Who doesn’t like to prove that they know more interesting facts than anyone else in the office.  Am I right?  Here’s a fun way to really learn who the king of the geeks is in your organization.  Ask a series of trivia questions and eliminate team members who guess wrong. You collect answers by asking associates to raise a finger identifying the correct answer: 1, 2, 3, or 4.  Hopefully, you won’t see too many people changing the number of fingers after guessing wrong.  Good thing Zoom meetings can be taped!  
3. Drawing Portraits – Ask associates to draw pictures of another colleague and then share them at the end of a meeting.  It will be fun way to see how your co-workers see one another.  Just require that all images need to be fun, not insulting.  Everyone will see who the true artists are in your office, share a good laugh, or both.
4. Host a “Cutest Pet” Contest – Encourage team members to share fun photos of their pets and then vote on who has the cutest pet.  The only rule is that you can’t vote for your own.  Winner gets a Petco gift card.
5. Host a “Challenge” Contest – This one is tricky so you want to make sure that the challenges are fun, achievable, and most of all, not dangerous. For example, you might want to challenge a team member to wear a different tie on every Zoom call the next day, or guarantee that they will not turn their camera off in Zoom meetings for 30 days, etc.  Here’s my favorite: Challenge a team member to refrain from using any clichés for a week.  Have fun, but be reasonable.

While these are just a few ideas, the internet is filled with great suggestions on how you can have fun with your colleagues virtually. Take a look and share a few ideas of your own.

This post originally appeared in Goodwill of Greater Washington’s Working Capital blog. Read more.