12 Virtual Training Activities & Ideas to Liven Up Your Employee Training

However, there are certain tips and tricks to make virtual training feel lively. You need to have the right plan, and follow it up with the right execution strategy. You’ll be able to transform even a basic virtual training into a valuable and collaborative learning experience. 

In this article, we’ve come up with some ideas & activities that you can implement in your training sessions to make them feel more lively to boost training outcomes.

Why Virtual Training Sessions Often Fall Flat

Before we jump into the solutions, let’s understand the common pitfalls that drive online training sessions to be ineffective.

Limited Interaction and Human Connection

• Lack of real-time feedback: In a physical classroom, trainers rely on nonverbal cues like nods, facial expressions, or group energy to gauge understanding. Online, those cues are minimal or missing entirely.

• Reduced peer interaction: Learners miss the spontaneous side conversations, team exercises, and natural collaboration that happen during in-person training. This can make sessions feel one-sided and isolating.

• Lower engagement: Virtual events are often delivered without prioritizing interactivity. This results in participants turning into passive listeners.

Passive Learning

• Too much presentation, not enough participation: Long presentations with little scope for attendee participation will force people to abandon the session, increasing drop-off rates.

• Zoom fatigue: Expecting trainees to stare at the screen for too long, without frequent breaks or engagement opportunities, drains their focus. This leads them to multitask, like scroll through their phones, instead of being invested in the training.

• No hands-on reinforcement: When participants are not nudged towards taking part in activities like quizzes, role-playing, or problem-solving exercises, they eventually forget to apply what they learnt in real time.

Technical Distractions

• Connectivity issues: These are some major distractions that can come in the form of internet lag, audio dropouts, or frozen screens which end up interrupting the session, and frustrating everyone.

• Platform unfamiliarity: Struggling with tools is common among learners. Without adequate platform training, they might feel intimidated to explore the features on their own.

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• Environmental distractions: This happens when learners log into the remote training session from a place that is noisy. This can be any sort of background noise.

12 Virtual Training Activities to Liven Up Your Virtual Training

Virtual training shouldn’t feel monotonous. The right mix of interactive activities can spark engagement, boost retention, while making the learning experience enjoyable. Here are 12 ideas that can help you energize your sessions.

1. Icebreaker Polls to Warm Up the Room

Start any virtual training session with an icebreaker question, that makes participants open up, feel welcomed as well as makes them at ease from the get go. For this,  leverage interactive polls, featuring fun, generic questions or tap into an aspect of the topic at hand.

For example

• “What’s your biggest challenge with today’s topic?”
• “Are you more of a morning person or night owl?”

Tips

• Keep polls short and simple—2–3 questions max
• Show results live to spark quick reactions and a sense of shared experience
• Use results to segue naturally into your session content

Implementing this approach can make the attendees feel values, and inspire them to contribute to the session more actively.

2. Collaborative Brainstorming with Virtual Whiteboards

Leverage whiteboards like Miro, Jamboard, or Mural, which are considered effective for encouraging creativity. Trainers often have a tendency to present just slides, instead ask your learners to interact, and share their ideas on the topic as well.

For example, during a leadership session, nudge participants to share their opinions with questions like, “List three qualities of a great leader.” As responses appear on the board, you can group similar ideas and discuss them.

Tips

• Provide clear prompts or categories beforehand
• Encourage everyone to contribute at least one idea
• Discuss recurring themes to reinforce takeaways

This method turns participants into co-creators of the learning experience.

3. Breakout Group Discussions

Engagement is critical to any virtual training initiative  and one of the most prominent elements of remote attendee engagement are breakout rooms. They are a simple but powerful way for encouraging small-group collaboration. You can divide learners into smaller teams where they collaborate among themselves, solve problems, debate ideas, etc.

For example, a company conducting a customer service training can assign each group different aspects of a particular complaint to problem-solve. Later, bring everyone back to share what they learned.

Tips

• Give each group clear instructions and a discussion prompt
• Assign a timekeeper or spokesperson for structure
• Summarize key insights when everyone reconvenes

Breakout rooms foster connection and give shy or reserved learners a more comfortable space to speak.

4. Interactive Quizzes to Re-Energize the Session

When attention starts to dip, bring it back with a quick quiz. You can also use platforms like Kahoot, Quizizz, etc which make such quizzes easy to conduct. You will not only be able to reenergize the session, but can also know more about your learners, grasp their real-time understanding of certain concepts, etc.

Tips

• Keep your questions short and to the point
• Incorporate a leaderboard system, fostering a friendly competition
• Provide shoutouts to the top scorers to encourage attendees

This process can re-energize as well as motivate learners to stay engaged across sessions.

5. Scenario-Based Role-Playing

Another effective activity to include in virtual training is role-playing. Nudging your participants into real-world situations will help them understand the concepts better, which they can efficiently incorporate in their day to day professional life as well.

For example, if you’re hosting a sales training session, the trainer can assign one learner as the customer and another as the sales rep. And then engage them in a conversation where they resolve a specific conflict.

Tips

• Provide clear context and character roles
• Focus on learning outcomes, not acting skills
• Offer supportive feedback after each round

Role-play bridges the gap between knowledge and application, making learning stick.

6. Case Study Analysis

When learners use case study analysis to apply certain frameworks, weigh evidence, and defend decisions it contributes to elevating their critical thinking as well as problem solving skills, which is critical to overall organizational productivity and success.

Tips

• Consider scenarios, close to your learners topic of interest.
• Guide them with scenario based questions to improve their focus.
• Divide them into small groups for collaboration and present their analysis afterward.

Case studies not only help attendees understand concepts in-depth but also helps learners to connect lessons to their everyday work.

7. The Think-Pair-Share Technique

Pose a question to your learners, and give them some time to soak in it and reflect on it, and consequently pair them up in breakout rooms to discuss, and come back to share insights as a group.

Example

• Pose a question like, “How would you handle a disengaged team member?”
• After pair discussions, collect responses in chat or via live sharing.

Tips

• Leverage open-ended questions that highlight reflection
• Be mindful of the given time in-between phases
• Key takeaways should be highlighted for collective learning

This approach to learning is simple, yet inclusive, and can be implemented almost for any topic.

8. Story Sharing: Learning from Real Experiences

Through the learning module, there may be several instances that attendees are able to relate with personally. Story sharing helps you encourage them to share these instances to open up the discussion. This method not only creates a rapport, but builds empathy and engagement as well. 

Tips

• Use gentle prompts to guide stories
• Allow small group sharing to allow them to express more freely
• Tie each story back to the training session’s key takeaway

Stories bring theory to life and create an emotional connection with the learning material.

9. Virtual Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts aren’t just for kids—they’re great for remote employee training too! Ask participants to find information, examples, or resources online related to your topic.

For example, after a digital marketing course, get your attendees to find real-world examples of successful ad campaigns, trending hashtags around the topic, etc.

Tips

• Craft themed challenges and align them with your session goals
• Add gamification – points, badges, or prizes
• Set a clear time limit which will keep the energy high

Scavenger hunts are an exciting way to pique attendees’ curiosity as well as motivate learners to interact and learn.

10. Expert Video Interviews

Bringing in outside perspectives adds credibility and variety. So, consider sharing some short pre-recorded interviews, which feature industry experts, discussing key takeaways on the concerned topic, as a group.

Tips

• Choose experts that align with your training theme.
• Keep the clips under 15 minutes to better retain learners’ attention.

Follow up with questions that promote reflection like – “What insight resonated most with you?” Adding expert professionals to your training will automatically add authenticity, urging learners to stay focused.

11. Peer-to-Peer Learning

In general, the best insights come from our peers. So, create opportunities for participants to teach and learn from each other.

Some ideas to implement here are

• Peer feedback sessions: Review each other’s work.
• Collaborative exercises: Teams complete a shared project.

Peer-driven learning fosters confidence, strengthens understanding, and builds community, something that is often missing in virtual spaces

12. Live Q&A Sessions

It is suggested to complete your training session with an open Q&A. Participants will be able to clear their doubts or directly communicate with the subject matter expert.

Tips

• Collect questions in advance or in real-time through chat
• Keep your answers concise to cover more topics
• Have a moderator filter and group similar questions

This activity inspires transparency between learners and instructors, which will strengthen interaction via dialogue.

How Airmeet Transforms Virtual Training Engagement

Creating engaging and impactful experiences doesn’t happen by chance—it involves conscious decisions and a dedicated effort. With Airmeet, you can effortlessly do just that and design interactive, scalable programs.

• Engagement-First Design

Airmeet’s interface is built around interactivity. Trainers can use polls, Q&A, breakout rooms, & gamified elements to keep participants actively engaged across sessions.

• Networking and Collaboration

Unlike standard webinar tools, Airmeet’s virtual lounges as well as table-based networking encourage informal conversations that often drive learning.

• Analytics for Continuous Improvement

Airmeet provides detailed engagement analytics—helping trainers see which of the sessions, activities, or speakers are driving the most participation.

• Scalable and Seamless Experience

Whether you’re hosting a 25-person workshop or a 2,000-person training summit, Airmeet scales effortlessly. It supports custom branding, integrations with CRMs or LMSs, and reliable performance on any device.

With Airmeet you can replicate traditional learning in the digital mode, and bridge the gap between them, as well as help trainers create experiences that are immersive, and human-centric.

Bottom Line

Since businesses are increasingly shifting to the digital mode, employee training is no exception. This makes it mandatory to replicate the energy of in-person training in remote ones. And, if you can mix creativity, technology, as well as engagement strategies, your online employee training sessions will feel much more lively. 

Whether your training involves soft skills development, employee onboarding , or product demos, leveraging these virtual training activities will help your learners stay active as well as connected.