Canadian HR Reporter

26 www.hrreporter.com F E A T U R E S THERE'S only so long that you can keep a group of people on Microsoft Teams entertained and engaged before the small talk gets boring and, dare we say it, downright awkward. But luckily, there are a ton of virtual games people can play with their colleagues that are guaranteed to bring back that Friday feeling. Here's a list of activities that will keep people engaged and build that team spirit, from new ideas that require just a bit of imagination to fully digitalized versions of classic board games. Virtual scavenger hunt: A scavenger hunt is a really good way to break the ice during a group call, and it gets people moving at the same time. The premise is simple — one person prepares a list of items that might reasonably be found at a person's home and then calls each out in turn. Everybody else on the call must scramble to find each item and be the first to return to their seat with the item to score the point. Don't be afraid to get a bit creative and send people a little farther than just their kitchen or their living room by asking for, say, a snow shovel. The Big Bad Imitation Game: This game can get pretty chaotic, so if you're not a fan of noise, confusion and bouts of uncontrollable laughter, then move on to something else. Each player is assigned a different player's name and then tries their best to imitate that person. Of course, every- body is doing this all at once, which can make things very confusing — but also pretty fun. There are a number of variants of this game — for example, you could win by guessing the most correct impostors, or funniest reply or the most outlandish escape attempt that ends up winning. S u r v i v a l o f t h e W i t t i e s t : Psychologist Howard Gardner was well known for proposing a theory of eight intelligences. He suggested that beyond "general" intelligence — meaning the stuff we test for in IQ examinations — people can develop specific types of intelligence throughout their life: music, interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic, mathematical, spatial, kinesthetic and natural. For this game, players pick an intelli- gence and represent that intelligence as if they were stranded on a desert island. Players then discuss the scenario, along with a bunch of events that happen while on the island — either spontan- eous or pre-planned — and then have a series of voting rounds where one person gets "kicked off " the island. Each intelligence must make its case as to why it should remain and which skills it can provide. The Awkward Storyteller: The Awkward Storyteller is one of the live- liest social games we've played, and it's a real blast. While it's normally a physical card game, it's easy to adapt for a Zoom or Teams call. Each player takes a turn at being the ONLINE COMMUNICATION TAKES OFF you could simply score a point by iden- tifying the person pretending to be you. Of course, it helps if everybody on the call knows each other at least enough to do a pretty bad imitation of them. Defy Death with a Spoon: This is the name some people give to their own adaptations of the popular card game Bucket of Doom, which is a hilarious imagination game where people attempt to sur vive various ridiculous situations using relatively useless tools. For example, the group might draw a card that says, "You've just disturbed a nest of killer wasps and now they're angry." Each person must then select an item from one of their own personal "object" cards and explain how they will use this item to escape the situation. For instance, if a player uses a card that says "spoon," they might explain that they intend to dig themselves a hole in the ground and cover themselves with dirt to evade the swarm of wasps. To play this game online, simply prepare some wacky situations in advance and then use a random word generator to determine the object cards that players will have at their disposal. To decide a winner for each scenario, put it to a vote — usually it's either the A year into the pandemic, employees may be bored of the usual five o'clock drinks with colleagues online. Jason Harney of Workstars shares a few ideas on how to spice up engagement through sure-fire team-building initiatives SERVING UP MORE THAN A HAPPY HOUR To decide a winner for each scenario, put it to a vote — usually it's either the funniest reply or the most outlandish escape attempt that ends up winning. 265,400 Number of Zoom customers with more than 10 employees as of 2021 354% Rise in customers using Zoom from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021 $328 MILLION Total revenue for Zoom for the first quarter of 2021, up 169% year-over-year 300 MILLION Total number of daily Zoom meeting participants Source: Zoom Video Communications R E WA R D S & R E C O G N I T I O N

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