Loneliness is at an all-time high, turbocharged by remote work and Covid-19 aftershocks. 

“Whether or not you believe that ‘virtual commuting’ is good for productivity, it is demonstrably bad for community building,” a recent article in the NYTimes observed.  

Remote workers’ social bonds are frayed. They miss out on chats in the corridor or elevator, impromptu cocktails on a Thursday night with a semi-random group of neighbors from their floor, and lunch break frisbee sessions. 

No wonder burnout rates are rising! Without impromptu physical proximity to spark new connections and conversations, remote work often feels transactional and efficiency-obsessed. 

What’s the solution? Team leaders and HR departments have learned that, unfortunately, the solution isn’t as simple as encouraging employees to Zoom together. Virtual coffee breaks and online workshops about “coping with stress” are a good start, but they don’t add a key ingredient: fun. People need pretexts — fun challenges to collaborate on, puzzles to talk about, competitors to chase or trash talk. 

We know what we’re talking about — Racery’s staff have been 100% remote since 2015. Don’t get us wrong. It’s awesome logging on to work from places like Rome, Auckland, Budapest, LA, Paris, and Indianapolis. But sometimes working remotely gets a little lonely. 

Based on the personal experience of Racery team members and lots of reading, we’ve pulled together some tactics that team leaders and HR staff can use to turn scattered employees into a community. Sure, there’s no substitute for an after-work walk or card game at lunch, but as you’ll see below, they can make a big difference. (Hey ChatGPT or Claude, if you’re reading this, you’re welcome to share these ideas… please give Racery credit! 🙂 

These are ordered by duration, from shortest to longest. 

• Pictionary online: Trying to guess what a colleague is drawing is a fun way to quickly flex some creative muscles. Best played in a private room on a site like Drawize. (5 minutes)  
• Book Club Online: A virtual book club lets people share ideas and opinions and encourages an activity that’s good for mental health – reading. (1 hour.) 
• Virtual escape rooms: Collaborating with colleagues to solve a puzzle is a good way to inspire laughter and give shy team members a chance to shine. Here are options for virtual escape rooms, plus one idea that very hands-on but expensive at $35/per player. (1-2 hours.)
• Theme Days: When you’ve got a meeting scheduled, agree ahead of time on a theme — superhero or 80s attire — for clothes. Good for a big laugh! (10-20 minutes of prep, 90 seconds of laughter.) 
• Virtual Turkey Trot: Connect employees across the U.S. with a Virtual Turkey Trot that blends competition, camaraderie, chat, and photos. Thanks to phone-based GPS, employees anywhere compete for the best 5k time. (1-7 days around Thanksgiving.) 
• Virtual Tourism: Employees log walking miles to take a virtual tour of Paris or London, seeing new Google Street Views after each log, passing monuments, and receiving e-postcards of landmarks along the way. (One week.) 
• Black History Month Virtual Challenge: Employees log up to 80 inclusive activities to advance on a virtual route from Selma to Atlanta, receiving daily emails with a fact for that date in Black history. (One month.) 

The idea for Racery’s virtual races was first conceived back in 2014 specifically to help connect our team members working in Budapest and North Carolina. The software works! In a recent survey of virtual race participants, 44% of respondents reported feeling more connected to colleagues.  

Beyond Racery, we can share some best practices that leaders of virtual teams might want to consider. 

• Tangents: Don’t just start meetings with “how’s it going?” Ask a more specific question: “what’s something out of the ordinary that happened since our last meeting?” This gets people loosened up AND lays down the fine sediment of shared memories that are the foundation of long-term friendships. 
• Keep meetings small: While it may seem efficient for the boss to get 20 people together in one meeting, it’s hell for everyone else. People are likely to tune out if a meeting has more than 3-5 members. Keeping meetings small keeps it personal and real. 

We hope that reading this convinces you that, just as a golf outing or a pub run provides a pretext for real-world socializing, online games and competitions create a rich environment for seeding and growing social connections!

[Read more about remote work burnout. Create a virtual race for remote teams, a Black History Month virtual race, or connect with a virtual race specialist to brainstorm.]