In this article you will find:
- 12 Zoom Meeting Ideas to Boost Team Morale
- Frequently asked questions about meetings over Zoom/any video conferencing platform
12 Zoom Meeting Ideas to Boost Team Morale:
Here's a list of tips for zoom meeting ideas that will elevate your team's morale:
1. Background Contest
- Pick a theme, such as under the sea, science fiction, or movie magic.
- Ask remote employees to create a Zoom background.
- Invite the team on a video call to reveal the creations.
- Vote as a team to choose a winner.
Background contests allow employees to express creativity. Remote coworkers can learn about colleagues’ personalities based on the choice of background. Also, since these competitions are free activities, you can hold the contests on a regular basis.
2. Un-birthdays
Birthdays are great opportunities for work socialization and celebration, but can be too few and far between. You may go half the year without a single coworker's birthday, only to celebrate five in February. Un-birthdays offer an alternative by letting you celebrate anytime.
To throw an un-birthday party, invite team members to a Zoom meeting and engage in normal birthday party activities like:
- Eating cake.
- Singing happy birthday to nobody/everybody, or singing the un-birthday song from Alice in Wonderland.
- Wishing. And since it is not really your birthday, you can share your wish without dooming it not to come true.
- Sharing photos from birthday parties past.
- Exchanging cards with kind messages.
Un-birthdays offer all the fun of birthday parties without any of the dread of actually aging. This activity is a fun way to bring the team together and celebrate, just because.
3. Frame a week
The “photo a day” video is a cool internet trend. Photographers take a self-portrait every day for years and then combine the pictures into a time-lapse video. In the spirit of these short films, capture a team snapshot during each of your Zoom meetings and combine your screenshots into a video at year’s end.
Here is how:
- During every meeting, use the capture screen or recording functions to take a picture or record a short video.
- Download and save your files to a folder.
- After one year, compile all photographs or videos into a film. Pick a sentimental or inspiring song as the soundtrack.
- Send the file to your teammates.
While you can find more immediate group activities over Zoom, the end product of this exercise is a cool memento. A “frame a week” video serves as a kind of time capsule to document the growth of your team, and a memento you can glance back on for years to come.
4. Snack Time
In physical offices, coworkers chat in break rooms while snacking on leftover conference sandwiches, boxes of Girl Scout cookies, and slabs of birthday cake. Dispersed employees miss out on the communal snacks and the accompanying conversations.
You can build rapport among your remote team members by hosting snack times on Zoom. Simply block off 10 to 20 minutes during the workday and send teammates a Zoom invite. Once all attendees join the call, you can chat and enjoy a treat together.
5.Dress-Up Days
Dress-up Days are one of our favorite ideas for Zoom meetings. These activities take very little time and make Zoom calls more fun. To hold a Dress-Up Day with your team, simply decide on a theme, and allow your team to arrive at the meeting in costume.
Here are some theme ideas:
- Pajamas
- Superheroes
- Historical figures
- Literary characters
- Twins (two remote colleagues coordinate to wear the same outfit)
- Sports
- Funny hats
Dress-Up Days are simple ways to make video meetings fun and fight Zoom fatigue.
6. Fact of the Day
We recommend starting your Zoom meetings with a fact of the day. For example, did you know that Thursday or “Thors-day” was named for everyone’s favorite god of thunder?
You can find facts in a variety of ways. For example, start with Wikipedia and use the “random article” command to navigate to a mystery page. If you want to create a challenge, then you can present the fact as trivia and ask your team to guess the answer. The polling feature in Zoom can turn your information into an interactive pop quiz.
7. Open Mic Virtual Icebreaker
Give everyone a heads-up that they will have about a minute at the beginning of the meeting to take the virtual stage.
Ask them to find or write an icebreaker joke, read a poem, sing a song, play the mandolin, anything they want! Start your meeting with these glorious performances. Allow ten seconds in between each for a rush of snaps and applause.
8. Snapshot Virtual Icebreaker
Ask everyone to use their phones to take a picture of something. The something could include pets, kids, desk space, refrigerator, or outfit.
9. "Big Talk" Virtual Icebreaker
Start virtual meetings with a few minutes of organized "big talk" about global events and news. Before the meeting, send out a current news story for the team to read. At the start of the meeting, give everyone a minute to share their thoughts on the story without interruption or commentary. Set aside 5 minutes after that for open group discussion.
10. Pet Show
Share your fantastic pets with your co-workers at the beginning of your video call! As a team go around and have everyone take the time to introduce their pets to the team. Bonus points for any tricks your animals know how to do!
11. New Co-workers Intro
Get your colleagues to introduce their new co-workers (i.e. roommates or family they are rooming with).
12. House Plan Introduction
Are you a fan of the great outdoors even while inside? Why not introduce your co-workers to the fun foliage that warms your home every day? During this event, everyone takes some time to go about their workspace introducing people to their house plants. Make sure to give them a name!
People also ask these questions about meetings over Zoom
Here are the answers to the most common questions about meetings over Zoom:
What are the best group activities over Zoom?
Successful Zoom meetings keep team members engaged with active involvement. Some of the best group activities over Zoom include snack time, whiteboard games, and dress-up days.
How do you make Zoom meetings fun?
You can make Zoom meetings fun by playing games and initiating activities that require participation and foster social interaction. For example, you could do trivia, play Bingo or run a lightning scavenger hunt.
