Socialising While Social Distancing: 5 Online Social Activities

Social distancing and having to stay at home doesn’t mean that all social activities have to end. In fact, you can use this time to plan online social activities and virtual group hangouts with your team as a way to maintain mental and physical health. Get your necessary dose of social interactions by embarking on virtual cultural tours, hosting an online happy hour, or sweating it out with your coworkers. Use this opportunity to cultivate strong relationships, promote positive vibes, and get to know each other better! Here are five ideas for your next online social activity that will let your team not only have fun but feel more connected than ever despite the situation.

1. Virtual Happy Hour

Advocate for valuable team-building experience and strengthen healthy company culture by taking your team out on a virtual happy hour. Giving a chance for employees to interact with each other without having to think about the stress of the workday helps to boost morale within the company and allow for positive relationships to develop. You can also invite the team to participate in free pub quizzes online or create your own quiz as an icebreaker to ease conversation and dissolve any awkwardness from the online barrier. Keep in mind that this social activity does not necessarily have to be just with alcohol. Include non-alcoholic drinkers by reminding employees that they can choose to drink any beverage of their choice during the scheduled happy hour. 

2. Virtual Team Lunch

Plan online lunch team meals and encourage casual conversations. Don’t miss out on the opportunity for natural communication to occur despite hierarchical positions. Sharing meals can help to break social barriers, connect people and bring teams closer together. Creating familiarity between teams fosters motivation, cooperation between team members and workplace happiness. If you want to take it a further step, turn this team lunch into a proper affair by making it into a virtual dinner party or by gathering the team to cook together on video. Go on a virtual epicurean journey and learn how to make different foods collectively by taking advantage of copious cooking resources available on the internet. 

3. Online Workout Classes

Keep your mind, body, and soul active, healthy, and productive by doing scheduled exercise with your team. Relieve stress, improve memory, and increase physical health through tiring online workout sessions. Working out in a group setting is often a powerful incentive to push yourself further physically. Get fit together in this social activity despite the physical distance. Play an intense fitness class video and sweat with your teammates, broadcast relaxing videos for a team meditation session or have a group leader guide a rejuvenating yoga event. Motivate other teammates by challenging them to complete fitness goals like a specific number of squats, doing 30-minute workouts 7 days in a row, or learning a dance routine. 

4. Netflix Party

Bond with your teammates by having a Netflix party and watch a hilarious comedy show, an informative documentary, or one of the old classics. Comedies are great for team building as it can lift moods and make us laugh. As we all know, laughter is the best medicine, especially for our mental health. Informative documentaries, on the other hand,  are able to engage our brains even at home. Discover new things about the world we live in together and discuss with your team. Timeless classics endured the test of time. It tends to generate a sense of nostalgia for individuals that opens up conversations that build positive relationships. 

5. Virtual Museum Tours

Take a mental health break with your team and enrich minds with the plethora of on-demand cultural content available. Travel internationally, go back in time, and experience cultures from around the world without leaving the comfort of your home with virtual tours and online exhibitions of museums. Learn new things and be inspired by the fascinating world around us. You and your team can also visit other cultural institutions such as cultural sites, theatres, and concert halls that have also opened their doors virtually for guests. 

Google Arts and Culture collaborated with over 2500 museums and galleries worldwide to provide virtual tours and online exhibitions of the most famous museums in the world. Or take a visual journey together through the alluring Keukenhof Gardens in Amsterdam, explore the captivating Prambanan Temple in Indonesia, or visit the impressive Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.  

Although social distancing has caused the world to pause a little, we can continue to interact with each other socially and build solid connections through social activities virtually. Together we are better and stronger. At Garage Society, we understand the power of online engagement. Join Garage Commons, our online community platform network, to connect with other like-minded founders, inspiring leaders, fellow entrepreneurs, and industry experts wherever you are.