11 Virtual Office Olympics Ideas for Remote Teams in 2023

Online games or remote games are often associated with virtual office Olympics, and they are great ways to encourage collaboration and team-building. While the term Olympics suggests a physical and face-to-face interaction, you and your team can host office Olympics online via Zoom or any of your preferred platforms. Here's our list of online games and virtual office Olympics tournament games ideas for your teams:

This list contains:

• Virtual Office Olympics Ideas
• Office Olympics ideas
• Office Olympic games to play
• Olympic themed team building activities

List of 11 Office Olympics Ideas:

1. Virtual Amazing Race

Amazing Race is one of those physical team building games that you can't take off the list. Well, good news. You can do it virtually, too! What's even better is that you don't need to rent out ample space to execute all the activities in the Race.

How do you make a virtual Amazing Race? First, choose your platform. For this one, we highly recommend Zoom since you'll be utilizing a lot of breakout rooms where teams will solve puzzles and trivia. Design the challenges and destination of each course.

For example, teams may have to solve a puzzle when they arrive in the Pyramids of Giza. When they successfully solve the puzzles, they'll go straight up to the Sahara Desert, where they'll have to win a trivia game. Be creative in your challenge courses, and make sure to set up a corresponding background and music.

Find more inspiring games to build trust and camaraderie between your colleagues.

2. Month-Long Game Night Fridays

Office Olympics may not necessarily be a one whole day game. You can do it on a month-long run by having Game Night Fridays (or Wednesdays and any day of the week that suits you). Departments can team up for a month-long game night where every point won in each game is recorded in a leaderboard.

You can have different sets of online games per game night, and it can range from a simple trivia game to a full-blown Jeopardy game. At the last game night of the month, bring in an awarding portion for the top 3 teams.

Doing your Olympics games this way gives your employees something to look forward to every week and gives them an avenue to collaborate. The leaderboard is also updated now and then for everyone to see.

Let's say, that the opening ceremonies of your company´s Olympics games were hard due to physical distance. but now they will find the way to culminate and show gold medals with a gorgeous awards ceremony or closing ceremony somewhere, whenever.

Discover more game night inspiration.

3. Virtual Minute-To-Win-It Games

There's a reason minute-to-win-it games are perfect for office Olympics. It's quick, simple, inexpensive. Everyone has a chance to play various games, and it's an excellent team motivator. You can have this with 8-10 groups, each composed of 5-6 people.

Be sure to let each player know what materials to prepare at their places a day or two before the game starts. Here are some minute-to-win-it games that you can try with your team:

• Pencil Backflip: each participant balances a pencil on the back of their hand then throws and grabs them in the air for 4-5 rounds with one pencil added for every time.
• M&Ms: players separate M&M into different cups by color within the time limit.
• Cookie Face: for this game, have the players place a cookie (or a biscuit) on their foreheads while their faces are tilted. The goal is for them to get their cookies into their mouths in one minute without using their hands.
• Chopsticks and Peanuts: each player will have to transfer one peanut from another bowl to the next using chopsticks in one minute, with the bowls placed at least a ruler apart. - The person who has the most transferred peanuts wins.

Find awesome Olympic Games to boost your team's morale.

4. eSports Tournament

We've all heard about eSports, and some of us may have played video games and mobile games with our friends and co-workers. If there are gamers in your workplace, why not organize an eSports tournament centred on a particular game. It's a diversified basket for eSports, but you can choose among the popular ones like Mobile Legends, Dota, League of Legends.

You can open a tournament where different teams can sign-up. To amp up the event, do a live stream on Zoom or Facebook like so players can share their excitement with supporters and co-workers.

eSports' popularity in the workplace isn't just an avenue for gamers and enthusiasts but can be another form of engagement and networking. Like physical sports, each individual involved has exposure to teamwork, collaboration, leadership, and, most importantly, strategic thinking.

5. Typing Speed Race

Working with a PC or a laptop all day makes one think of themselves as great typists, right? But when everyone has the same opinion on the matter, why not settle the debate with a typing speed race? You can launch a simple and healthy competition of typing speed and accuracy.

Using a free typing test website, participants can take the test on their own and send a screenshot of their results, or they can share their screen while they take the test in real time! Be sure to prepare a leaderboard for this so everyone can see who's topping the chart.

6. Online Battleship

The rules are the same: without knowing the position of your opponent's ship, your goal is to sink your opponent's entire fleet. Each player takes turns in firing shots into its opponent's corresponding grid. When all the coordinates of either one ship are hit, the boat sinks. If a player has a hit, he can fire one more shot again.

This game goes back as a pen and paper game but you can play this online. Now, you can incorporate this in your office Olympics, and I'm sure the strategic fellows in your group will love it.

Check other Virtual Games.

7. Pictionary Olympics

Pictionary is always on the list, but Pictionary in skribbl raises the game a little bit differently. In this platform, everyone who can guess correctly gets the point, but the quicker you get the correct answer, the higher is the point that you'll get. You’ll get to choose your preferred level of difficulty, number of rounds, and time limit per topic.

There is an automatic leaderboard that'll tally up your scores for every level of the guessing game. You and your team can huddle over Zoom or any of your video chat platforms while you'll run the game in skribbl.

8. Arts and Crafts Olympics

Whoever said that the spirit of the Olympics games and arts and crafts couldn't go together is wrong. Whether it's for an upcoming game season or another way to encourage creativity and collaboration, you can incorporate arts and crafts into your office Olympics. These can either be an individual or team activity.

Some suggestions that might be worth a shot are a Create Your Olympic Torch Activity where participants use recycled materials, each participant gets to make their Olympic torch, or an Olympics-inspired Abstract Painting Contest.

Discover amazing arts and crafts ideas.

9. Olympic Cake Bake-Off

After your baking lessons and workshops, why not organize a virtual bake-off for an Olympic-themed cake? It's going to be all about creativity, technique, and lots of on-screen fun! If a cake is too much, you can opt for an Olympic cookie bake-off instead.

To prepare for this activity, you might want to start with a pre-registration first for those interested to join. Simultaneously, decide on the specifics, such as the bake-off's date, time, and duration. Once set on the contestants and particulars alike, determine who your judges and moderator will be.

Take as many pictures of your participants and their creation. After the activity, you can highlight them in your company email or social media pages.

Find out how to get started on cooking and baking.

10. Virtual Treasure Hunt

For this to work, prepare a list of items, clues, or challenges that your participants will need to find or accomplish. Once prepared and given to everyone, set a time limit for them to come back to the main screen and reconvene. Create a theme for your virtual hunt like a street adventure or jungle treasure.

Get your virtual treasure hunt ideas.

11. Virtual Marathon

Like any virtual event, flexibility is the primary key for a successful run. This goes the same to virtual marathons. You'll still have to let your participants register and choose their desired distance. However, instead of coming together in one place, participants start in their posts of their choosing. So there might be some who'd be running around their block, a village, or even on their treadmill!

The important part is for them to track the distance they've covered either through a built-in running app on their phones or through their fitness watch.

You can find some extra examples of icebreaker games such as Zip-Zap-Zop, to Slack games such as rock paper scissors.

In Summary

Playing online office Olympics games is an entertaining way of building these connections. When face-to-face interactions are costly for this work environment, online games provide a means for your remote team to emotionally engage and socially interact. After all, building positive relationships with your virtual teams is the most crucial investment that you can make for your business.

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