Virtual meetings make team collaborations more accessible and allow team members from all over the world to participate.

While video conferencing comes with many advantages, it does allow for in-person meetings with new colleagues. Online meetings must be structured in a way that fosters connections with coworkers and cultivates a team atmosphere without sharing the same office.

Virtual meeting ice-breakers are a great way to promote teamwork and build trust between your employees. They can also be a fun way to generate some energy from your team and lead to a productive meeting.

Keep reading to learn about seven of the best ice breakers and how to start a meeting using the right one.

This is a fun ice-breaker, particularly in virtual meetings where your team members are in different cities.

Each person can describe their city and let the other team members guess what it is. They can use the city’s nickname like “The Emerald City” or the city where “everything is bigger”. This helps get people’s creative juices flowing when giving clues about their city.

This is a great ice-breaker for introductions. It helps your team members get to know one another and learn fun facts about different cities.

This is one of the most popular ice-breakers and for good reason! It is easy to play and promotes team engagement.

Each team member shares three things about themselves and the others have to guess which one is a lie. Give the team a few minutes to discuss and agree on an answer. Once the speaker reveals the lie, you can leave some time for a background story.

This ice-breaker is one of the most effective team trust-building exercises for work because it allows your team to get to know each other better. More importantly, it gives your team the opportunity to collaborate and brainstorm to come up with an answer.

These are usually quite funny and can help reduce nervousness or anxiety among the team.

This is another useful way that you can start a meeting and break the ice among your employees.

You can have some questions prepared and ask each team member. After they’ve answered, you can discuss why the major chose a certain answer.

Here are some example questions:

• Would you rather live without television or music?
• Would you rather arrive at an event overdressed or underdressed?
• Would you rather have the ability to breathe underwater or fly?

These are questions that can spark conversation and engagement within your team. This can help build trust between them, and you as a leader.

Sharing childhood memories in a way to get to know your team members’ past. This can give you insight into the type of employee they are and their work style. Fun questions you can ask include:

• What was the first tape/CD you ever bought?
• What was your favourite childhood movie?
• What was your least favourite subject in school?

These are easy questions that will jog people’s memories. Many team members will also be eager to share their memories, even if they are embarrassing. This creates a sense of comradery and connection between your employees.

This is one of the only virtual ice-breakers that gets your team up and out of their seats. Video meetings require lots of screen time, sitting at the desk and so a quick scavenger hunt is a fun way to get everyone moving.

In this activity, you ask each team member to find or bring something specific to show the team. Here are some examples:

• Find a green item
• Show the team your favourite pair of socks
• Bring a framed picture from your home and show the group

These are ways that your employees can get interactive through video meetings. You can get as silly and specific as you like.

The news can be filled with a lot of negative headlines so before a virtual meeting, ask your team to find a piece of positive news.

This can help boost the positive energy of the team and lead to a productive meeting. It can also help tell you about your employees and what they value. They might choose topics related to politics or the environment, which will give you an idea about what is important to them.

With Workfacta Meetings Workflow, meetings start with a piece of information to share with the entire team. While it can be business-related, sharing positive news is always encouraged. The feature allows you to collaborate with your team members throughout each stage of your meeting.

This is an effective ice-breaker that also starts the meeting on a positive note. In this activity, each member of the team goes around to talk about the highlight of their month. It can either be personal or professional.

This helps to give you some insight into your team’s perspectives, their goal setting, and their personal triumphs. It also gives the team the opportunity to celebrate each other’s success.

As a leader, giving your team positive reinforcement increases their self-confidence and inspires them to work harder. This can have a positive impact on your business and your team overall.

Discussing highlights is one of the best ways to boost morale and encourage team collaboration. When team members are rooting for one another, they help build each other up to reach their goals.

Ice-breakers are a fun and easy way to foster connections between your team members. Meeting ice-breakers are especially important in the virtual meeting space because your employees don’t get in-person interaction. For your next meeting, give one of these awesome ice-breakers to start your meeting off full of energy and enthusiasm.

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