how to play remote work bingo

Regular workplaces might have a potluck or similar events to bring together their employees. However, remote workers need to get creative to bring people together. Thankfully, there's a solution to this: remote work bingo.

Remote work bingo is when you use a virtual bingo card. The card is full of common occurrences or activities for remote work. When one of these events happens, you mark the slot with an x.

Your objective is to black out one straight horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line. This is when you "get a bingo," meaning you've won the game.

So, when you have five events happen in the same row, column, or diagonal line, you fill all of those happenings out. It's a great way to get people to recognize remote work cliches and how close to real life they can be.

In playing WFH bingo, you'll want to establish some standards. Check out this list of rules to consider:

1. What type of bingo are you playing?

We've already mentioned the standard rules of bingo (reach one straight or diagonal line to win). Co-workers who know about bingo will be most familiar with this style.

One alternative form of bingo is "blackout bingo," when you fill out the entire board. This bingo style is preferred to keep people engaged for longer.

Classic bingo is typically better for short-term games (a week or less). Blackout bingo should only be considered for long-term games.

You might choose separate prizes for the first co-worker who gets a normal bingo and an advanced prize for winners of a blackout round. Regardless of what you decide to do, avoid creating stressful situations.

Be sure to ask your co-workers if they understand bingo first. Remember, if you have someone working remotely from another country, they might not be familiar with games more common in your part of the world.

2. How long do you want to play for?

Remote work bingo is flexible. You can play it for an afternoon, a day, a week, or even a month. When building your virtual bingo card, you'll want to keep the time frames in mind.

For example, you might want to make it easier to get a bingo if you only want to play for a day. Nobody will get the elusive bingo if it's too hard to fill out the card. Longer games, like those a week or longer, might benefit from some rarer circumstances.

Try to avoid going on for longer than a month. You don’t want to associate the game with a long-term project (like climbing the career ladder remotely).

3. What prizes are you providing?

While work-from-home bingo can be a great team-building exercise, you can still easily incentivize participation by providing a small gift for the winners.

Prizes should be inexpensive but rewarding. For example, a $10 gift card to their favorite coffee shop is an easy gift you can give the winner.

You can also offer more expensive gifts, but be careful with this. Creating a spirit of competitiveness in these virtual games isn't as important as bringing people together.

Need some inspiration for your game of remote work bingo? Check out our template created with the help of our remote techies here at EPAM Anywhere below. This one works for a week of WFH bingo:

You can also take this template and tweak it as you like. Change it with consideration to everyday occurrences in your workplace. For example, your happenings will be different if you work remotely and travel vs. hybrid remote working.

Work-from-home bingo can be fun to keep things interesting throughout the day and be a great tool for keeping people engaged.

Just be sure to keep it light and fun. Avoid offering a solid gold brick as a prize and you should be good.

For a more serious topic, check out our post on where to pay taxes if you work remotely. Thanks for reading!