After spending more than two decades planning virtual events at TeamBonding, I’ve seen remote employee engagement evolve from a nice-to-have to an absolute necessity.
When I started out, virtual events were barely 2% of our business. But after the pandemic hit? Yeah, you guessed it: 100% of our events went virtual.
The change was intense. At one point, I planned over 180 virtual events in a single month! It was a whirlwind of an experience, but things like this taught me what works and what doesn’t when it comes to keeping distributed teams connected and engaged.
In this guide, I’ll share insights I’ve gathered from planning countless virtual events, helping companies build thriving remote work cultures.
I’m not talking theoretical concepts—these are battle-tested strategies that transform how teams connect and collaborate from the ground up.
What Makes Remote Employee Engagement Different?
As more companies adopt a hybrid and remote work culture, we’re seeing a shift in what employee engagement requires.
Casual office interactions just aren’t enough anymore!
Today, we need intentional strategies designed to create meaningful connections across screens and time zones.
The energy, the connection, the way teams interact, it’s all fundamentally different.
You’re Going To Need A Different Playbook
In case it wasn’t obvious, remote employee engagement requires a different playbook than when you’re working with on-site employees.
In a remote-first or fully hybrid workplace, you can’t rely on spontaneous or casual encounters. These just aren’t an option, so you need other ways to help employees bond and form friendships.
Every interaction must be intentional.
The good news is that this approach often leads to deeper, more meaningful connections (when done right).
What Happens When Virtual Teams Truly Connect?
My favorite part about planning so many online events and witnessing this shift to remote work is seeing teams come together.
Magic happens when team members, separated by time zones, screens, and cultures, connect and bond.
They transition from feeling isolated, lacking motivation, and often struggling to feeling like they’re part of something! They’ll be chatting about projects, supporting each other when one person encounters an issue, and functioning like a well-oiled machine.
For example, when an employee joins a new team to work on a project and you hold a virtual icebreaker session, they’re able to make friends. Once they do, they’ll come to team members with questions and ideas as well as their managers!
This allows you to tap into the power of a team—it brings great minds together and ensures your company is benefiting from the diversity of backgrounds and ideas.
In other words, it enables you to maximize the value of your human resources and boosts your bottom line. Period.
What Are the Best Ways To Improve Remote Employee Engagement?
After planning more virtual engagement activities than I can count, I’ve learned a lot about how to enhance engagement with remote and hybrid teams.
With all of the different tactics required and the new challenges you’ll face, you might imagine that this will be a list of things you’ve never considered. That’s not the case, though.
All three of the foundational elements I’ll discuss here are actually quite similar to what’s needed for on-site teams. They’re just tailored to remote employee engagement and what they need to thrive.
1. Purpose: Create a Clear Work Purpose That Transcends Location
Purpose-driven work is essential in any workplace, and there are many reasons why this is the case.
The main reason is that this is what employees want! Today’s working professionals often prioritize finding “real purpose” behind their work above all else.
Studies show that all generations value meaningful work, and younger employees are placing a bigger emphasis on it than ever. A whopping 37% of Gen Z employees say that finding satisfying and meaningful work is their top priority when searching for a job.
Now, the issue is that working from home makes it all too easy for employees to lose sight of how their contributions impact the bigger picture. The connection to company goals can feel abstract from your living room, after all.
How to make it happen
I’ve seen teams transform when they truly understand how their remote work contributes to something bigger than themselves.
Here are some of my favorite engagement ideas for remote teams to help clarify their purpose:
Discuss purpose regularly: This one’s simple but easy to miss—make sure managers and employees discuss the big picture, purpose, and values, and then how each person contributes to this. And do it often!
- Pro tip: This doesn’t have to be as formal as it sounds. For instance, you could hold a bi-weekly meeting where managers and employees discuss and celebrate how they each contributed to the company’s values.
Leverage the power of storytelling: Storytelling is a powerful tool that can help clarify your organization’s purpose. It engages the brain and helps team members feel an emotional connection to the company’s purpose.
- Pro tip: I suggest Team PechaKucha (TPK) for this! It’s a workshop that uses a world-famous format that’ll get everyone sharing their passions.
Give back (together): It’s not enough to make a couple of donations. Your team needs to be involved with the causes your organization supports so they can be part of the change!
- Pro tip: Our virtual Climate Change Challenge is a good example. It raises climate change awareness and fosters teamwork, perfect for a company that cares about environmental sustainability.
2. Connection: Make Collaboration and Bonding a Priority
If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably noticed that connection is the primary difference between remote and on-site teams. I’ve already talked a lot about how creating and maintaining relationships with remote coworkers requires intentionality.
Remember, the casual interactions that build bonds in traditional offices don’t happen much in virtual environments, so you have to purposefully create and prioritize them.
It’s all too easy to let the benefits of efficiency and flexibility in a remote-first workplace overshadow the interpersonal connections.
Unfortunately, it’s also easy for those benefits to slip away if you’re not making time for virtual employee engagement ideas outside the context of work.
How to make it happen
The best ways to help your team connect often depend on their interests, personalities, and team dynamics.
That said, I’ve found some practical strategies that tend to help most teams bond, form friendships, and improve their collaborative abilities:
- Semi-formal weekly meetings dedicated to relationship building and sharing
- Monthly virtual social events and team building activities
- Cross-department collaboration sessions
- Informal virtual coffee chats and fun-focused activities
Consistency is the key here.
My most successful connection events and online games for employee engagement happen with teams that commit to regular connection time. After all, sporadic efforts rarely create lasting change.
3. Recognition: Master the Art of Virtual Recognition and Rewards
Most people have noticed how a few words of appreciation and recognition can make someone’s day—it’s just as true for adults as it is for kids. And it’s even more critical in virtual settings than it is for on-site teams.
The problem is that this is all too easy to forget in a leadership position.
Forgetting to offer up recognition is a fast track to issues in your team, especially since it’s often lacking in virtual environments.
Those small daily acknowledgments that happen naturally in office settings? They disappear when everyone’s working from home.
How to make it happen
Trust me, recognition must be more deliberate and visible in virtual environments.
Here are some virtual team engagement activities and strategies to make sure your team feels appreciated, recognized, and rewarded:
- Provide public acknowledgment of success during every team video call
- Implement digital reward systems and reward-focused platforms
- Send out personalized messages and employee appreciation kits to reward employee contributions
- Schedule regular virtual employee engagement activities and team building events to celebrate group milestones
That last one—virtual engagement activities—is an obvious favorite of mine, and not just because I work with TeamBonding. Think of them like the field trips, movie days, and other celebrations that kids get to enjoy at school!
For instance, I’ve planned Virtual Happy Hour events that started as simple recognition gatherings and ended up becoming the highlight of employees’ months.
The key is making recognition feel personal and meaningful, even through a screen.
More Tips for Maintaining Remote Employee Engagement
As the Director of Virtual Events at TeamBonding, I can talk about engaging remote employees and how to improve virtual team performance for hours.
It’s a vast, quickly evolving topic, and every workplace thrives on something a bit different.
That said, you didn’t come here to read a novel of anecdotes and an endless list of virtual activities employees love. You came here to learn more about remote employee engagement activities and strategies.
I’ll end with a few more tips for creating a healthy, fun work-from-home (WFH) environment to motivate your team:
- Focus on health and wellness: Employee wellness is essential for success and performance. That’s why we offer Wellness Programs and similar events that you can customize to your team’s specific needs.
- Create a great employee experience: It sounds obvious, but your team deserves a fantastic company culture and atomosphere. Focus on creating engaging onboarding experiences, improving psychological safety, and listening to what your employees want and need to succeed.
- Host high-energy events: The best remote employee engagement ideas tend to be high-energy with friendly competition. I highly recommend fitness challenges, team improv sessions, laughter yoga, and virtual escape rooms.
- Schedule events to build skills: Most team building events can improve skills your team members need—stronger communication skills, for example. This benefits your company and your employees, so everyone is happier.
- Ask for feedback: Keep an open-door policy and encourage team members to discuss changes they’d like to see, issues they’re facing, and things they need to succeed. It also helps to provide an avenue for submitting anonymous feedback.
These tips will help you supercharge your remote employee engagement and, in turn, help your team reach its full potential.
Ready To Transform Your Remote Employee Engagement?
Strong remote employee engagement isn’t just possible—it’s essential for modern businesses. Whether you’re managing a fully-remote team or you’re navigating a hybrid workplace, your people will always be your most valuable assets.
It’s all about acknowledging the unique value of your remote employees by:
- Celebrating wins
- Scheduling connection time
- Focusing on wellness
- Creating a clear purpose for each person
- Fostering genuine belonging
The strategies I’ve shared in this article are based on real experiences I’ve gained over the years as Director of Virtual Events at TeamBonding.
If you’re ready to level up your remote employee engagement, I suggest checking out our catalog of virtual events. You’ll find dozens of options designed to help your team:
- Overcome barriers
- Improve productivity
- Engage both remote and hybrid teams
You can also contact us directly and let our expert facilitators create a customized event based on your team’s needs, timeframe, budget, and interests. You won’t regret it!
