12 Zoom Meeting Ideas to Boost Morale

Since communicating and conducting business remotely is now the new normal, each new meeting tends to blend into the last. It might be time to get creative and make your next Zoom call memorable.
12 Zoom Meeting Ideas to Boost Morale
Remote work is great. It allows for flexibility, travel, and more efficient use of time. But the emotional aspects of office culture can get overlooked in the virtual world. Without the small connections made at the coffee machine or hallway, the workday can feel a little lonely. This is why we've put together a list of ways teams can keep the office community strong when working remotely.

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 team building 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.

Author Details

Written by:
Najeeb Khan
Role:
Head of Training & Events
Expertise:
Leadership Development, Team Training, Belonging, Diversity & Inclusion, & Innovation
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What you should do now

Whenever you're ready...here are a few ways we can help you:

1. Book a team social event. If you'd like to work with us to have more engaging team events, book an event.

Don't know what activity to pick? Use the Team Building Idea Generator for options.

2. If you'd like to learn remote work strategies for free, head to our blog where you'll find several guides and posts.

3. If you'd like to create a offering for companies for a skill that you have, then contact us and let us know.

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