All work and no play make us dull, and this applies specifically to remote teams. Though applications like Zoom and Slack have facilitated communication among such teams, sitting in front of the screen all day without colleagues around can make work boring and monotonous.
The good news is that Slack can integrate with third-party tools including games and social apps to encourage casual conversations among remote teams and create a more inclusive, collaborative work environment.
In this post, let us discuss some team-building activities, ideas, and games that help encourage casual conversations and connections among remote teams.
Fun Slack Games For Remote Teams – A Complete Guide
Slack is a powerful app used for workplace communication and file sharing, particularly useful for remote and hybrid teams. However, Slack is not just a chat application. It can be used for a wide range of non-work purposes as well. For example, it has channels, communities, and teams dedicated to various topics where people can engage in team chats.
The channels cover a large number of topics from travel and soccer to games and movies, giving everybody a chance to talk and learn more about the area of their interest. It is easy to create a new channel to have other employees come together and talk about non-work-related topics or play some fun games whenever free.
Employees like to talk about their personal lives, politics, sports, and entertainment at work. Slack channels give remote teams a space to take casual breaks, socialize and connect over mutual interests. Such conversations strengthen the connection among remote employees and build trust. You can find a huge variety of Slack games and apps on the directory, desktop, and mobile applications and websites.
Slack Gamification
Slack is a powerful, multi-purpose workspace app that not only facilitates messaging and collaboration but allows integrating add-ons for team building and productivity. The app allows creating custom channels for different purposes. An organization may have a few channels for work-related discussions. However, employees can be encouraged to start some non-work-related channels to indulge in discussions about their topic of interest.
You can also start some channels specific to casual conversations. Employees can share news, jokes, or anything else with others on these channels. Ensure that each channel has some purpose pinned to it. Suggest newer channels when discussions get off-topic. Interest-specific Slack channels are amazing ways to connect teams and build a culture while working remotely.
Slack also provides a lot of free apps and games that help promote team building for remote employees. Here are some of the most popular Slack games and apps worth giving a try.
Chess Bot
Install the Chess Bot app on Slack and challenge all the chess geeks. The employees can choose to accept or deny the challenge. Those who accept see a chessboard on the screen and receive notifications whenever it is their turn. The best thing about this bot is the computer analysis shown to you after a game is over.
Codenames
Slack also lets you play the popular card game of Codenames to introduce a fun factor into remote workspaces. Simply type ‘/codenames’ and your team members can choose their teams and start playing. A player gives one-word clues and others guess which words in the set are related to it.
Donut
An effective Slack bot to help your team members get to know each other, Donut aims at encouraging conversations between teams and introduces them through direct messages. For remote teams, Donut creates virtual coffee meetups and daily meetings so that disconnected teams learn about each other and develop trust and friendship.
Apart from this, Donut also welcomes and introduces new hires, facilitates cross-departmental meetups, and executes activities like a coffee break with the CEO and a virtual company lunch. Get the Donut app from its website or the Slack app directory.
Slack Trivia Bot
Trivia is a Slack bot that offers several team-building interactive games and activities. It is easy to launch and allows teams to get together in real-time. It aims to boost friendly conversations, post-game banter, and discussions among remote teams for better collaboration. It offers five options to choose from through Shortcuts.
- Quizzes – 1000s of fun trivia questions for teams
- Word Puzzles – a puzzle game that helps find the word genius among teams
- Popular Opinions – gets quick votes on any topic from the Slack teams
- Gotcha! – creates multiple-choice questions for teams, gives points to right answers
- Custom Quiz – lets you create a customized game of questions
You can type a slash in a conversation to view the commands available and complete the action within the app through direct messages. Trivia also lets you Auto-Schedule games in a channel. You simply need to define the channel and schedule and the bot takes care of everything, from notifying the players to announcing winners.
Slack Tic-Tac-Toe
As the name suggests, Tic-Tac-Toe is a fun and engaging Slack game that you can install easily from the app directory or the Tic-tac-toe website. It is an old-school classic presented in a digital format on this platform. Anybody can challenge other employees with a game of tic-tac-toe over a Slack channel by typing the ‘/ttt’ command on the selected channel.
Write the name of the team member after this command as a mention to challenge them. You can either play a quick 3-minute game or let it continue all day. It is also possible to challenge somebody via direct message using ‘/ttt’. As the game starts, each player gets a chance to choose ‘x’ or ‘o’ and the one who gets three ‘x’ or ‘o’ in a line first, is the winner.
Slack Games – Make Sure to Use Them
Working remotely can be challenging at times, and taking a casual break to interact and play games with team members is a great way to destress and connect. Adding a bit of fun into the Slack workspace helps teams relax after hours of concentration, build team communication and relationships. These games and apps should help your remote teams get along better and stay focused and productive.