As remote work becomes more prevalent, keeping remote employees engaged and connected can be a challenge. One way to overcome this challenge is by incorporating fun activities and games into your remote work culture. Slack, a popular team collaboration tool, provides a great platform for hosting virtual games and activities that can help keep your remote team connected and engaged.
In this blog, we’ll introduce you to 11 Slack games that you can use to engage your remote employees.
The Emoji Screening
The Emoji Screening is a simple game that challenges players to decode a TV show/movie described only in emojis. To play this game, simply create a #channel called “The Emoji Screening” where the quiz master drops the emoji puzzle and the first team/person to get the answer right wins.
The quizmaster can use the Slack app Emojify to create the puzzles.
An interesting example is: 👴🏠🎈🎈🎈👦🐕💬🌎 = Pixar’s Up
Go forth and get those emojis decoded!
Gif on Gif on Gif
I don’t know about you but I know that there is an Office GIF to match any situation in my life.
This game is sure to engage all the talented GIF-ers in your team. It’s quite similar to the engaging Cards Against Humanity.
To play:
- Simply install the Giphy app in Slack
- Create a designated channel for the game
- The quizmaster will post prompts
- Participants have to respond to the thread with relevant GIFs
- Once everyone has thrown their hat in the right, everyone votes on which GIF is the funniest
- After all the votes are cast, the GIF with the most votes wins
- Some interesting prompts can be:
- Mondays got me like ______
- ________ really gets me going
- The year is 2050. The President is _______
- My lunch plan is ______
- What never fails to liven up a boring workday?
Guess Who?
The traditional way is to stick a card to your head and ask questions to your partner to guess who the person is. In this Slack variation, we take it a step further and make it a bit harder.
- Create a designated Slack channel for the game
- The quizmaster changes with each question and the person starting the game uses the Word Generator. Set the game to “Individuals” and choose any Category. Generate a New Word for Guess Who.
- If you aren’t sure about who the person is, pull up the Wikipedia page and get ready.
- Every participant is allowed to ask 2 questions, the person who first guesses the person you picked wins.
- If you are just too lazy to go down the Word Generator route, just pick any random celebrity, historical figure, or celluloid character. But be honest and stick to one!
Remote Scavenger Hunt
A game with a simple but extremely interesting premise. The game master creates a list of 10 items found in most homes. After creating a designated Slack channel for the game, they need to add the items one at a time as separate threads.
The person who takes a picture of the item first and sends it to the thread wins a point. The person who wins the most points wins the game.
You Should Know This- Trivia Game
Not everyone is good at trivia games. Who knows what was Albus Dumbledore’s full name? Trivia questions can be random and often hard to answer if you don’t know the context.
What if we created a trivia game that your department or organization should know the answers to?
You can keep the questions department/function specific or questions related to the industry your business functions in. It depends on who is available to play on Slack.
For instance, if you were to play this within the marketing team of a B2B business. Questions like:
- A rel=canonical tag can be used to point search engines to a particular page when tackling these issues.
- True or false: Including search intent in reporting is helpful in understanding users’ behavior and thought processes.
- What does the directive “disallow” mean?
- True or false: Minifying your CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files can increase your load time.
This game is a great way to get excited about upskilling opportunities and the winner/loser of the game should probably get a free upskilling class of their choice.
Two Truths and a Lie: Management Edition
Managers have to share three statements about themselves, two of which are true and one is a lie. Other employees have to guess which statement is a lie.
It is a great way to break the ice between regular employees and upper management.
Rock-Paper-Scissors (or even better, Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock)
Remember the hours we spent playing rock-paper-scissors as kids? Your remote team can play a few rounds of that on Slack too!
Once you install the Rock-Paper-Scissors app on your team, launch it with the slash command “/rps @mention” to play with an opponent of your choice. If you don’t want to play a public channel, you can also play in direct message by just texting “/rps” to your work bestie.
And if you’re a Big Bang Theory fan who just loves everything Sheldon came up with, you’ll be happy to know that there is an extension to this game!
Type “/rpsls” to play rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock, instead of just the boring rock-paper-scissors.
Tick Tack Toe
An old school classic that never gets boring. Install the Slack bot for tick-tac-toe to play a game on Slack.
Just type “/ttt @mention” on any public channel to challenge a co-worker to a fun game. You can also direct message a simple “/ttt” to start a game in private.
The game is not time-bound so either run a quick 5 minute game in rapid succession or play asynchronously with your remote team located anywhere in the world.
Polly
If you’re company is in the serious business of employee engagement, why limit yourselves to piecemeal apps? Polly is a suite of of social team-building games designed for Slack.
So what are some games you can play with Polly?
- Trivia: Get your entire team to compete over trivia questions with a single theme of the quizmaster’s choice.
- Hot Takes: This feature lets you run a random Hot Take poll, that is fun but not controversial. Let your hair down with a quick debate to get the blood flowing.
- Surveys: Get feedback from your remote team using Pulse Surveys to see how they’re doing and ask for their opinions on important matters, in real-time.
Codenames
We saved the best for last.
Play the game you love natively in Slack, whether it takes minutes or days to complete a game, it’s right there waiting for you in the platform you’re already using!
To start playing, simply type “/codenames” and invite your teammates to join their respective teams. Veteran players can jump right in and enjoy their favourite gameplay format, while newcomers can visit the Codenames website for step-by-step instructions and more.
Looking to spice things up? Try out the growing list of alternative game themes such as “/codenames harry potter” and “/codenames game of thrones” to take your gaming experience to the next level. Get ready to have fun and bond with your coworkers like never before!
Conclusion
In conclusion, Slack games are a fun and engaging way to foster teamwork, improve communication, and boost morale in the workplace. Whether it’s playing virtual charades, hosting a trivia night, or even just sharing memes, Slack games offer a break from the daily grind of work and provide an opportunity for coworkers to connect on a more personal level.
But it’s important to remember that not everyone may be comfortable participating in Slack games, so it’s important to create a culture of inclusivity and respect in the workplace. Additionally, it’s important to not let Slack games become a distraction from actual work tasks.
