Have you ever tried to motivate your employees with team-building events, only to find them an awkward, slightly embarrassing experience?
It doesn’t need to be this way. Team-building should provide a boost, not a bore. When done right, team-building events can help colleagues bond, build trust, and have fun.
To help you bolster employee engagement and create deeper team connections, we’ve got 21 team-building event recommendations for you, along with top tips on the technology you need to host group activities successfully.
What are team-building events?
Team-building events are structured fun activities designed to drive collaborative working while building trust and togetherness amongst your company’s teams.
They place teamwork at the heart of the event and can take place in your office or as part of a team away day or corporate retreat.
Why are team-building activities important?
Team-building events are vital for creating a motivated workplace culture that’s more likely to produce stronger team performances and better business outcomes.
For your teams to consistently outperform targets set by senior management, individual members need to feel a sense of responsibility and loyalty to each other. These feelings can only come from forged bonds and friendships.
According to a recent Gallup survey, close work friendships boost employee satisfaction by 50%. People with a self-described best friend at work are seven times more likely to be fully engaged with their role.
Your team-building events can facilitate these friendships, break the ice between team members that may not know each other, and make remote or hybrid co-workers feel more connected to your organisation.
Add these 21 ideas to your internal event programmes to drive participation and positive outcomes. Not only will your teams thank you, you’ll never have to suffer another forced and cringe-worthy employee engagement activity again.
Read more: 10 Creative Internal Event Ideas to Boost Employee Engagement
21 creative team-building event and activity ideas
Ideas for Smaller Groups
1. QR Scavenger Hunt
Add hidden pages to your registration website and fill them with clues about what to collect for a fun-filled, high-energy scavenger hunt for teams of four.
Ask each team to divide into two pairs. The first pair will take on the challenge of accessing your clues by locating and scanning QR codes placed strategically around your venue or the local area.
Once each clue is revealed and returned to your team HQ, it can be deciphered before the second pair heads out to retrieve the required item.
The scavenger hunt is against the clock, so it requires trust and teamwork to crack the clues and find the treasure before the opposing teams do.
2. Sneak a Peek
This game helps team members practice project management and provides a fun way for your team leaders to assess how well their coworkers retain information.
Ask team leaders to each craft a hidden object or structure out of LEGO, clay or building blocks for their team members to recreate. One member of each group then has ten seconds to ‘sneak a peak’ at the creation, return to their group and describe what they saw.
Each group must then recreate it as accurately as possible using the same materials.
If, after one minute, they’re stuck or unsure of any detail, another member is allowed a second peek before returning to instruct their group further.
This rotation continues until one group is confident they’ve won by producing an identical replica of their leader’s creation.
Multiple rounds can see other team members take on the task of crafting the hidden object while team leaders can assess how their teams communicate detail and instructions.
3. Would I Lie to You?
Recreate this classic television game show - it’s an excellent ice-breaker when trying to integrate small teams of people who don’t yet know one another.
Split the team into two groups. Then, taking turns, team members must introduce themselves to the opposition and include a story about themselves, which is either true or false.
The opposing team can then interrogate the individual to decide whether the story is the truth or a lie.
Team points are awarded for each correct assessment. You should ensure multiple rounds for individuals to share at least one truth about themselves that will help their team members get to know them better.
4. The Egg Drop Challenge
Set small groups the challenge of creating a container that will stop an egg from breaking when dropped from a high location.
You’ll need everyday materials for making the container, such as plastic bags, tape, shoe boxes, newspaper, toilet paper rolls, lolly sticks, string, balloons and elastic bands.
Then, get groups to sketch their designs before starting the build. Once each container is built, place the eggs inside and move to a balcony overlooking a suitable drop zone.
If the egg survives the drop, award prizes. If the initial design doesn’t work, get teams to work together and improve it. Maybe it needs a more robust parachute or secure seat for the egg to remain in place. Can your groups get it to work the next time?
5. Jigsaw Challenge
Divide your participants into teams of nine players and then split each into three subgroups.
Give one subgroup an image of the assembled puzzle. Their job is to describe the picture to the second subgroup but they’re not allowed to show it.
The second subgroup is responsible for putting the jigsaw puzzle together.
The final subgroup is given all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. The assembly team can request five pieces of the puzzle at a time based on what they’ve heard from the describing team.
It’s the job of the subgroup with all the puzzle pieces to find those five pieces so that the assembly team can get puzzle-solving.
This is a great challenge for establishing which team members have outstanding communication skills and who excel in strategic planning. It also shows how important cooperation is for achieving your company’s collective goals.
6. Human Knot
Sometimes it’s the simple games that can offer the best learning. Take Human Knot – it’s played in playgrounds and drama classes everywhere because it’s perfect for encouraging collaboration.
To begin, gather your participants in a circle standing shoulder to shoulder. Everyone lifts their right hand and grabs someone else’s hand in the circle. They cannot hold hands with the person next to them.
Then, everyone lifts their left hand and grabs the hand of someone different in the circle. The group has to then untangle the knot without letting go of anyone’s hand.
How do your employees work together to undo the knot? Are they able to effectively communicate with each other? Are they able to negotiate? Often during this game, someone will emerge as a natural leader to help direct the group.
7. Help Make a Mural
Collaborating on a mural can be an excellent way to bring more established teams together and ensure they remain in touch with your company’s culture and their shared experience of working there.
Commission an artist to bring the ideas of your team members to life. When pitching ideas to the artist, get participants to recount funny moments and office anecdotes.
Bonding over these stories reinforces that the workplace can be a place to form social relationships and friendships. It’ll provide even the hardest-working team with a sense of work-life balance.
The artist’s final creation will make employees feel valued. The planning process will help your team members see how their different perspectives can work together for one collective goal.
Ideas for Larger Groups
8. Random Acts of Kindness
Split your group into teams and set them a series of heartwarming challenges that will benefit strangers in your local community. These could include anything from helping to bag someone’s groceries in a local supermarket to finding someone who is moving large items and offering a helping hand.
Team members could show ‘creativity’ by writing an inspiring message and handing it to a stranger in the street; ‘social skills’ by being able to approach a stranger to ask for a hug; ‘compassion’ by buying a copy of The Big Issue from a homeless person; and ‘empathy’ by donating to a local food bank.
The team who completes the most ‘Kindness’ challenges before time runs out wins.
9. Land or Sea Challenge
Provide your participants with the materials to build either unmanned soapbox vehicles or floating vessels that can then compete against each for added excitement.
If you have access to a swimming pool, challenge your teams to create vessels from cardboard and paper-mâché that will float from one end of the pool to the other. It will test your team’s problem-solving capabilities and ingenuity.
You can judge unmanned soapbox vehicles on their design and creativity before entering them into a time trial race down a steep straight gradient. Make sure you have hay bales acting as crash barriers and team members on-hand to get the cars back on the road should they crash.
10. Escape the Conference Room
Turn your organisation’s suite of meeting rooms into a themed escape room experience.
Team members have to solve riddles and other brain-teasers to access keys that unlock each meeting room door.
Each room could have a different theme, so your participants may escape the zombie apocalypse only to find themselves on a rickety bridge over shark-infested waters. Use props and sound effects to increase the drama.
This activity requires creativity and planning, but it’s ideal for any business looking to encourage team collaboration.
11. Songwriting Challenge
A songwriting challenge encourages your teams to come up with alternative creative lyrics to a well-known song.
Each version of the song is then performed in front of the other teams. If your groups feature accomplished musicians or wannabe pop stars, you can add instrumental solos or hilarious dance routines.
Different verses or lines can be sung by different people so that everyone gets to contribute, no matter how good or bad their singing may be.
You can adapt this kind of activity for groups of any size or musical talent. Some team-building agencies even offer workshops for up to 1,000 participants at famous recording studios such as Abbey Road in London.
12. Improv
Fill a box with random items you find around the office. It could be staplers, gadgets, leftover tinsel from the office Christmas party - anything that could be used as a prop in this improv group activity.
Then, divide your team into two groups. One group writes script lines, places and situations for the other group to include in each act.
Participants in the other group then take turns pulling an item from the box and performing an improv skit using the written prompts. Once everyone in the group has had a turn, the roles are reversed, and the other group gets to perform.
This fun team bonding game gives everyone a chance to be spontaneous and creative, which is good practice for future work assignments.
13. The Marshmellow Challenge
The Marshmallow Challenge puts your employees’ engineering, teamwork and communication skills to the test as they attempt to build the highest tower using only dried spaghetti, masking tape and string.
Set a timer for 30 minutes and give each team a package of dried spaghetti, a roll of masking tape, a ball of string and a pair of scissors. When the timer starts, teams need to construct the highest possible tower using only the materials provided.
When the time runs out, ask each team to present their tower and briefly discuss their thought process.
Measure the height of each tower and record the result. Then, place a marshmallow on top of each tower. The towers must support the weight of the marshmallows for 10 seconds without collapsing.
The team whose tower was the highest and successfully withstood the weight of the marshmallow wins.
14. Bigger and Better
In this fun team-building game, your employees must work together and leverage their sales and persuasion skills to obtain more valuable objects without spending any money.
First, give each team an invaluable item, such as a paperclip or a pen and explain that their task is to trade up for more and more valuable items.
Then, set a time limit and send them off to a shopping centre or busy high street.
When the time runs out, regroup with your employees and ask each team to present the item they’re left with, explaining how they got there. The team with the most valuable item wins.
Virtual Ideas for Remote and Hybrid Teams
15. Murder Mystery
Gather your teams of detectives for an online murder mystery experience.
Everyone logs onto the event platform where a mysterious cast of characters (played by professional actors) set the scene for a captivating case of ‘Who Dunnit’.
Divide your participants into breakout rooms to interrogate each character as they rotate from room to room. Once enough evidence and clues are gathered, everyone is brought back into the main room to share who they think committed the crime.
You’ll need a professional team-building agency to pull this off, write the script and commission the actors. There are lots to choose from, so ask them to pitch for your business by showcasing what they can offer.
16. Gamify the Team App
Having a mobile app dedicated to your remote teams can help add fun to meetings and activities.
Include polls and quizzes within the app to encourage team bonding. Create games such as a scavenger hunt, where team members must take photos of items around their at-home workspaces during the day.
Examples of things you could add to your photo scavenger hunt include favourite coffee mugs, the cutest pets, what people made for lunch, and a smiling postman or delivery driver.
17. Virtual Wine Tasting
A live, fully-interactive wine tasting can be led remotely by sommeliers from anywhere in the world.
Send your teams the wine in advance (with strict instructions not to open until the event) and watch as they bond over learning about different grape varieties, flavour profiles, wine regions and tasting notes.
Participants could also learn about complementary food pairings that go well with each wine.
18. Online Mixology Classes
Post out cocktail-making kits and pair your team members with expert mixologists who will show them how to make classic and creative cocktails from home.
From the perfect Old Fashioned to a Vodka Martini — shaken, not stirred — you’ll have participants mixing, shaking and pouring like professionals.
For an added twist, have everyone craft and name a cocktail of their own. You can give prizes for the best creation and the most creative name.
19. Virtual Recipe Swap
Ask everyone to contribute a favourite or family recipe to a shared spreadsheet. Then, you can randomly assign each person a colleague’s recipe and arrange a date for everyone to showcase how they got on making each allocated dish.
The recipes should be affordable and easy to make so that participants can share their experiences and what they liked most about them.
Recipe swaps are a fun virtual team-building activity that encourages participants to learn a little more about each other’s backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles.
20. Virtual Book Club
Recurring group activities like a lunchtime book club are a great way of making team-building a regular feature in your team’s schedule.
Discussing the ideas, characters and themes in a book can encourage employees to form and defend their own opinions. Doing so in a social forum like a virtual monthly book club can help to build trust so your participants will feel more confident suggesting ideas on team projects as well.
Choose books that promote diversity in the workplace or books that support your corporate culture. Or have your team members nominate and vote on the books they want to read.
21. Guess Who
Ask each of your team members to submit a photo of themselves as a baby or youngster. Your group collectively then tries to guess who’s who.
Photo prompts and challenges can be hilarious virtual team-building activities that get everyone laughing while they discuss, problem-solve and bond.
Tools to plan your next team-building event
Connecting your audience is the core of all team-building events, but it doesn’t stop there.
You can extend the life of each team-building event with tools that make it easy to engage with your audience before, during, and after the activity.
Registration
Design registration and event websites for your team-building activity so that you can send personalised emails, communicate agendas, automate reminders and deliver custom content.
With CventAI, you can even launch team-building events more quickly by using our intuitive AI writing assistant to craft activity descriptors, marketing messages and more.
Mobile App
Both virtual and in-person teams would benefit hugely from having a dedicated mobile app. You could add polls and quizzes to encourage engagement and team bonding.
Plus, you could use the team app to share and store meeting notes, gamify team-building and encourage better communication between team members.
Survey Platform
After every team development activity, encourage your participants to provide feedback and fill out surveys.
By integrating survey solutions into your mobile app, you’ll collect smart, timely data that can be compared from activity to activity and ultimately increase your team-building event success.
Conclusion
Staging innovative and energy-fuelled team-building events will make all the difference when it comes to improving employee satisfaction, organisational success and team member engagement.
They will help your groups feel more connected and confident, empowering them to work together more effectively.
So whether you organise ice-breakers or games and challenges that test your teams’ ability to communicate and collaborate, try our 21 fun and creative team-building events and activities as part of your in-house team development plans.
For more ideas on creating internal event programmes designed to improve employee engagement and retention, download The Ultimate Guide to Internal Events.
