The Best Virtual Olympics Ideas for the Office

Office Olympics are a lot like the real Olympics; however, we like to think it can be a lot more competitive! With the right virtual experiences and games, you can test your virtual team’s collaborative spirit, get them in a competitive mindset, and put their skills to the test. Best of all, office Olympics encourages your team members to socialize and bond as a team.

Whether you’re choosing a week’s or month’s worth of activities, your team will get to experience their coworkers on a whole new level — creating friendships that can help increase productivity, workflow, and morale.

We’re here to help you plan your office Olympics with exciting virtual competitions that are great for any remote team.

Let’s take a closer look:

Take the win in WPM

It’s safe to assume your remote team spends a lot of their time typing on the computer. So why not put their true talent to the test with a typing race or challenge? All you need to do is find a trusted typing-test website, like typing.com or tenfastfingers.com. From there, you can choose how you want to structure it.

Everyone could take a screenshot of their results — the best time takes the gold! You could also do a Zoom watch party and go around the Zoom until everyone completes the challenge. No matter what you decide to do, it will be similar to a true office Olympics game since everyone is already a pro.

Go for the Gold Olympics Trivia

Team up with your colleagues to put your brains to the test for five competitive rounds of trivia. Even though the theme is Olympics, you won’t have to name famous gold medalists to win. The questions will be a traditional trivia game but with a twist! Meaning, it’s anyone's game. If you’re looking for a team bonding experience that is sure to strengthen your team members’ communication skills, you’ll want to book this virtual Olympics idea for your work event.

Virtual tournament

Maybe you want to go all out for your work Olympics. You want to test their knowledge, creativity, focus, or teamwork skills. A virtual tournament can take place in a day or a whole week and focuses on team building and friendly competition.

One day, you can plan out some icebreakers to set the mood for the week. Then, you can put their knowledge to the test with our Team Trivia. After that, test their luck with Basic Bingo. From there, the choice is yours. You can have a cooking contest, a scavenger hunt, or an escape room! Make sure to keep score and have a prize for the winning team ready.

Opening ceremony watch party

Try correlating your virtual Olympics ideas with the actual Olympics. To set the mood and get everyone excited, consider doing an opening ceremony watch party. Leave some time in the end and beginning for socializing and engaging, and give everyone on your team an opportunity to connect on something that’s not work-related.

Push-up challenge

Put your team members’ strength to the test with a virtual push-up challenge! It's easy to participate: Anyone who’s up for the challenge can situate their camera on them. Someone else can start the clock, and let the push-ups begin. From there, their team members can track how many push-ups they get during a specific time frame. Whoever gets the most push-ups takes the gold!

Olympics-themed trivia and icebreakers

To truly get in the Olympics spirit, you can ask your team members questions or icebreakers about the Olympics. Here are a few examples:

• If you could compete in an Olympics sport, what would it be?
• Name one person who has won a gold medal in the last Olympics?
• Who are you most excited to see compete in the Olympics this year?
• Which Olympian do you admire the most?
• Which Olympics event do you always enjoy watching?
• Which sport could you win a gold medal for?

Ask your team one Olympics-focused question in your work chat a day or start an all-hands meeting with a few. Either way, it will help set the stage for any games or events you plan throughout the week.

Game night Thursdays

Turn the last hour or 30 minutes of work into a game night or happy hour for the month of the Olympics. You can keep these as simple as you want. Think work-related trivia or guess-that-coworker questions. For example, if you want to focus on team-specific questions, you’ll need everyone to start connecting throughout the week to learn as much as they can so they can win!

For your final Thursday game night, you can do a Game Show by the Escape Game to go out with a bang. Whatever you decide to do, make sure you choose activities your employees will enjoy and influence them to communicate with each other. This could even turn into a company tradition for Thursdays.

Step challenges

Much like the speed walking in the Olympics (yes, that’s an actual sport!), you can challenge your team members to a step challenge. You can choose to group them into teams or individually, have them log their steps or track using the Fitbit app, and let the games begin! This could go on as long as a week or month. The best part is you’ll be encouraging your team members to step away from their desks, walk on their breaks, and focus on their health. You really can’t go wrong with the benefits of a step challenge as a virtual Olympics idea.

Scavenger hunt

This may not be a traditional virtual Olympics idea, but it does put your team members’ minds to the test. Consider our Around the World Scavenger Hunt, a team-building scavenger hunt that lets individuals explore the best museums and historic locations in the world. Your team members will need to work together to find clues and answer tricky questions if they want to win this game!

As you plan your virtual Olympics ideas or games for your team, remember you can get as creative as you want. No matter what types of events you choose to have, your team members will have valuable time to grow connections with each other and get to know their team on a more personal level.

We want to remind you that you don’t have to plan these events on your own. At Elevent, we are always here to help you plan engaging virtual events for your remote or hybrid teams. When you work with us, you can have peace of mind that everything is scheduled and ready to go on the big day.

If you want to discover more virtual Olympics ideas, check out our full list of virtual experiences and events we offer.

Originally published at Feb 3 2022, 3:09:13 PM. Updated on May 4 2024.