Virtual energisers
In a real-life setting, most facilitators use energisers as an essential way of boosting energy and creating a relaxed atmosphere. But what do you do if the meeting is virtual? And how can you take analogue energisers and use them in virtual facilitation?
When facilitating meetings, we know that it is important to create positive energy and emotions among the participants in general. Being physically active increases brain activity, which will help move your meeting swiftly forward. This applies to virtual as well as analogue meetings.
However, when hosting a virtual workshop, it may be challenging for the facilitator to engage the participants. In a virtual setting, it can be draining for the participants to be seated all day, which may have an impact on their energy levels. Many of us have back-to-back virtual meetings, and we tend to forget to move our bodies and create that natural energy in between (or even during) meetings.
To help boost energy and effectiveness during virtual meetings, we have tested a number of different approaches to doing energisers in both analogue and virtual settings. And we have some great news: With some small adjustments, you can take analogue energisers and use them in your virtual meetings.
Below, we have listed some of the different energisers we use:
You use social energisers to bring the participants together.
Funny energisers are designed to make people laugh, and you use them to bring people out of their comfort zones.
Most people like to play games or quizzes, and you can use such competitions as energisers. The competitions can be run in e.g. Menti or Kahoot.
You use physical energisers to engage people physically. For example, you can do breathing exercises, stretching or you can ask people to jump around.
The key to physical energisers is to make sure that everyone has their webcam on so that you can follow each other’s progress and cheer for each other. It is also a good idea to play some music to support the energy that you are trying to create with the energiser.
We hope this provided you with some inspiration on how to use virtual energisers as part of your virtual facilitation skills.
We have collected additional materials for the book Virtual Facilitation.