You found our list of virtual energizers for work.
Virtual energizers for work are activities that help to boost the team’s morale and energy. Examples include Virtual Science Experiment, The Same Page, and The Magical Ball. The purpose of these activities is to keep participants interested and energized throughout the online meeting.
These ideas are virtual employee engagement activities, ways to make virtual meetings fun, and Zoom meeting ideas. The ideas are online equivalents of energizer games.
This article contains:
- virtual energizer activities for adults
- energizers for virtual meetings
- online energizers for Zoom
- online energizer games for adults
Let’s get started!
List of virtual energizers for work
Energizers may help you set a productive tone for your virtual meeting, boost team spirit, and increase overall energy. In addition, energizers make transitions livelier and help to recapture participants’ attention. The following are energizers for virtual meetings.
1. tiny campfire (Highly Rated)
You can bring the great outdoors inside and enjoy delicious s’mores with tiny campfire! Your team will bond through a combination of exciting games, intriguing riddles, and mouthwatering snacks.
Key features of tiny campfire include:
- a 90-minute session led by an engaging host
- camp-style icebreaker games to set the atmosphere
- engaging haunted riddles and captivating camp lore
- artisanal chocolates, marshmallows, graham crackers, and a tea-light candle
Additionally, you can order a cocktail kit or an extra s’mores kit. To boost your team’s communication skills in a charming camp-style adventure, be sure to add tiny campfire to your agenda!
Learn more about tiny campfire.
2. Online Office Games (Team Favorite)
Online Office Games is a high-energy virtual competition featuring office Olympics games! This experience pits players against each other in a series of exciting challenges.
Online Office Games offers the following:
- 90 minutes of fun guided by a skilled host
- “Can You Hear Me Now?”, an interactive communication training game
- multiple-choice questions, number games, and lightning scavenger hunts
- entertaining games, including slogan crafting and trivia showdowns
For a personal touch, you can customize the trivia section to match your team’s specific interests. If you are looking to boost your team’s spirit, camaraderie, and connections, then Online Office Games is the perfect choice!
Learn more about Online Office Games.
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3. Virtual Costume Design Challenge
In the Virtual Costume Design Challenge, team members craft unique costumes based on a given theme or challenge. Participants become fashion designers for a day, crafting creative outfits that reflect their idea of the theme. For instance, participants could make outfits based on Sci-Fi Extravaganza or Historical Recreations themes. Teams do not need to be sewing experts to participate. Costumes can be as simple as some cardboard tubes and a collandar hat! This activity encourages collaboration, resourcefulness, and creativity. Afterward, participants can proudly showcase their DIY costumes during a virtual fashion show, fostering camaraderie and laughter.
4. Virtual Science Experiment
A Virtual Science Experiment turns a video call into a discovery lab! Team members will engage in hands-on experiments using readily available materials. For example, participants may explore chemical reactions, physics principles, or biological mysteries through carefully designed experiments. Guided by a facilitator, participants can observe, hypothesize, and document their findings. This fun activity is a fun and educational way to foster teamwork and critical thinking.
5. Virtual Space Exploration
Virtual Space Exploration sends remote teams into the universe. Using astronomy apps or websites, participants join a virtual meeting to go on a space adventure. Together, teams can explore distant planets and look at beautiful stars. A space enthusiast or astronomy expert can lead the expedition, sharing interesting facts. Additionally, teams can have discussions about the space and its mysteries. This unique virtual activity encourages curiosity and creates a sense of unity.
6. Antiques Roadshow Showcase
During Antiques Roadshow Showcase, team members become both appraisers and presenters, like the popular TV show Antiques Roadshow. Each participant selects a unique item from their home, like a family heirloom, a vintage collectible, or an intriguing artifact. Then, teams get together and share their artifacts during a virtual meeting. Presenters provide background information, share any stories related to the item, and discuss its historical or monetary value. The rest of the team can ask questions, offer insights, and make educated guesses about the item’s worth. This activity is a fascinating and educational way to explore the hidden treasures within your team’s homes. Additionally, these pieces may spark engaging discussions about history and culture.
7. Talent Swap
During Talent Swap, team members get to share their unique skills and hobbies with one another. Each participant showcases a talent during a video call, whether it is playing a musical instrument or cooking a delicious dish. When a colleague presents their talent, they explain how it is done and give tips so that others can try it too. This activity is a fantastic way to bond with colleagues, learn something new, and discover the hidden talents within your team. Plus, these swaps add a dose of fun and creativity to your virtual meetings, making them time to look forward to.
8. The Magical Ball
Magic Ball is a great way to encourage innovative thinking among your employees. To begin the activity, open your camera, switch to gallery view, and have your team do the same. Afterward, hold your hands up as if you have an imaginary ball. Next, you will explain to your teammates that you have a magic ball, which has a special power available to the person holding the ball. Then, you can select the superpower that best fits you. For example, a superpower like teleportation will immediately allow whoever has the magic ball to transport themselves to any location of their choice, like the mountains of Costa Rica, an Australian beach, or the moon.
After you have described the power and provided an example, mime tossing the magic ball to a specific coworker by name. The teammate must pretend to catch the magic ball. After explaining to their teammates where they were going to teleport, they pass the magic ball along to another coworker. The ball will go around until everyone has contributed. This energizer may include various abilities like time travel, invisibility, or truth-telling. You can choose an ability that you believe will be the most entertaining for your group.
9. Group Zoom Stretches
A virtual energizer can give you an adrenaline rush. When there is a break in the meeting, focus on an area of your body that needs relaxation or activation. For example, rolling your head may relieve stress in your shoulders and neck, while rotating your wrists while typing can help prevent carpal tunnel syndrome. You can also stand up to do some jumping jacks.
You can invite your group to replicate the action with you while allowing them to make any necessary adjustments for their comfort or health. After you have finished, have a coworker choose a new body area and propose another easy action the group can mimic. Short, energizing breaks like this workout are among the best online energizers for Zoom.
For inspiration, here is a list of online fitness providers.
10. Online Mini-Meditation
If your group needs a media break or stress relief, this activity can help. To begin, have your colleagues select a place to sit or stand where they feel most at ease. After settling down, have participants shut their eyes and make a mental checklist of every body part from their toes to their scalp. Next, you can ask participants to consider where they are holding onto stress and anxiety. Perhaps the tension rests in their jaw, neck, or lower back.
After the scan, have every participant take a deep breath and clench their fists for a count of ten. Then, tell your employees to let go of all their stress, take a deep breath, and relax into their seats or the floor. You can repeat this activity a couple of times. The energizing exercise you just gave your employees will have them feeling much more at ease in the workplace.
Check out this meditation video for ideas.
11. Joint Doodling
Drawing under time constraints is a fun and exciting way to rev up a group, give the creative juices flowing, and act as a nice juxtaposition to other activities. For this exercise, you need a writing tool like a pen or pencil and a writing canvas like paper or a napkin. Collaboration via online doodling also requires a certain amount of ingenuity, but it can be a great source of productivity and entertainment. You can utilize an online whiteboard. The participants can write their names on a Post-it note and arrange them in rings wide enough to contain photos. It would help if you recorded the meeting’s proceedings in real time.
The first step is for everyone to create the same picture and upload it on the virtual whiteboard with their name. To get started, choose a subject easy to draw for beginners but also recognizable to everyone in your group, like a sailboat or a horse. Next, you should give participants a minute to sketch out the design. Once everyone finishes, have them try sketching the same thing using their “non-dominant” hand or with their eyes closed. It is important to give all players a chance to show off their three sketches. This energizing tool is mentally exciting and makes participants laugh.
If you have no access to a virtual whiteboard, then you may use a digital platform like Google Docs or Slack to send along your artwork to the next person, or you can utilize traditional media like paper and pencil.
For more creative options, check out online art classes.
12. Camera On and Off
This activity is an excellent option for meeting breaks. This idea requires you to create a couple of questions for each section. For example, you may ask who drank coffee or tea first thing in the morning, ate breakfast, or listened to music or nature sounds during their walks.
You can tell participants to choose between two options by either keeping their cameras on or turning them off. Then, each round, survey the answers by checking out which participants appear onscreen. If you have time, then you can ask responders to explain their reasoning to the rest of the team. This energizer can boost the energy of any gathering and encourage participation.
For prompts, check out this or that questions.
13. Location Game
This activity is one of the online energizer games for adults and is ideal for geographically dispersed groups. If you are all in the same room at the same time, then you will have a huge advantage. You should give everyone in attendance a chance to talk about where they are from without actually saying the name of their city, state, or nation. For example, one participant could remark, “This capital city is called Sin City,” if they were based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Another might respond, “This city is renowned for the beaches and nightlife,” if they were in Miami.
To make the activity more general, you may also ask users to identify the nation or state where they are working from. If you have people from all over the globe working on your team, then have each team member provide a brief description of their home country or a humorous tidbit about it. For example, an employee based in the Czech Republic may state, “This nation has the largest consumption of beer per capita in the world.” This activity is a great way to get to know your coworkers and pick up some tidbits of information that might come in handy at the next Zoom trivia night.
14. Two-Word Check-In
This activity helps participants develop emotional intelligence and removes the vague part of the question, “How are you doing?” Whenever someone asks how you are doing, whether or not it is true, the answer is invariably “good” or “fine” since that is the socially conditioned reaction. For this activity, start the meeting by asking everyone to share two words that capture how they feel today. You might say something like “exhausted and optimistic.”
An emotion wheel might be helpful for this activity. Beyond the basic emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, and anger, this wheel may help participants discover and name a larger spectrum of feelings. For instance, a team member feeling annoyed could first go for the word “angry,” but upon more reflection, they may realize that “frustrated” more accurately describes their emotional state.
Here is a list of check-in questions.
15. Highs and Lows
This activity is best for teams who already share some intimacy since it entails discussing some potentially sensitive times or vulnerable moments. People often struggle with conversations about their low moments. High and Lows is one of the most revealing virtual energizer activities for adults.
The process is straightforward. The group goes around the virtual room, with each person sharing a “high” and “low” from their week. A good idea is to have the participants share their lows first and end with the highs. However, the decision is entirely up to you. If you choose this energizer, you should try to say something inspiring or heartfelt after each teammate talks.
16. The Same Page
In this activity, teams need to identify a shared trait that has nothing to do with their profession. This online activity is entertaining since it encourages more inquiries to learn more about the other participants. To get started, everyone starts tossing out random facts, asking questions, and trying to create connections, however tenuous.
You may remark, “I love to sing,” and a colleague might respond, “I am a poor singer, but I love good music.” If you ask enough questions and toss forth enough suggestions, you could discover that you and your coworkers have a common interest, like knowing to play the piano. Alternatively, you could learn an interesting coincidence, such as visiting the same park as a child.
17. List It!
List It is a great activity that gets your team to pay attention. The remote facilitator’s duties may include minimizing distracting crosstalk and encouraging appropriate behavior during virtual meetings. List It is a fun way to pump participants up and may also improve communication.
The goal of this quick online energizer is to have the group count up to a certain number or list elements from a certain category, like names of states or past US presidents. Each participant must wait their turn and speak randomly. Everyone will go back to the beginning of the list if two persons try to talk simultaneously, even for a split second.
Tips for doing virtual energizers
Online energizers are somewhat different from offline versions. However, there are points to note when running virtual energizers.
1. Simple is Best
Some on-site activities may become more complex when done virtually. If at all feasible, strive towards simplicity. The best online energizers require little effort to explain, distribute, and use. These short exercises keep your meeting running well and prevent anybody from becoming too irritated.
The instructions should include the required action and the digital tools to use. While it is common knowledge that digital tools are awesome, switching to a new one should not dampen your enthusiasm for your energizer.
2. Communication is Key
Communicating verbally and nonverbally, selecting the order of who is speaking, expressing emotions via nonverbal signals or emoticons, and commenting in the conversation all contribute to shaping dialogue. In the end, these little steps add up to a meeting etiquette that ensures everyone in your workshop is pleased and productive. Also, the best energizers get teams talking instead of passively watching a screen.
3. Digital Tools Matter
You may also use an energizer to introduce a new digital tool, such as a whiteboard or bulletin board. Participants may get experience with a new digital tool in a less demanding setting, improving their overall competence in this area. It would help to consider what resources your colleagues have access to and offer them during an energizer.
Conclusion
Many employees are working from home and holding virtual meetings for the first time. Using virtual energizers may help keep your team focused, energized, and even a little playful while working together to achieve common goals. Energizers are even more crucial in online communities, where people spend less time together in person and hence have less opportunity to play off one another’s enthusiasm.
Next, check out virtual team meeting ideas and team games for online meetings.
Grace He