9 Amazing Team Building Games and Exercises

All business owners know how important their employees are, without them nothing would ever get done! But just having great employees isn’t enough. You want a bonded team and team building games are a perfect solution. Maybe it sounds childish, but team building games for your employees can be both educational and enjoyable. The reward of having a team that works well together is that they are more effective, productive, and successful. Now that sounds like music to our ears!

However, it can be tricky to implement team building games that everyone will enjoy and not just huff and puff at. The last thing you want is your employees to roll their eyes at the team building games you roll out. So we’ve done all the heavy lifting and have compiled a list of fun, easy and rewarding team building games that everyone will love!

We collected the 9 best team building games:

Time: 10-15 minutes

Purpose: Team building

Number of Participants: Five or more

Tools Needed: None

Rules: Have everyone sit in a circle facing one another. Each person has to reveal three facts about themselves and one lie. However, the lie should be realistic and not extravagant such as wrestling a tiger or going into space. (Although, if you have done this, whoa!) Once everyone has their truth and lies prepared, go around the room and have each person dish out the three facts and the lie, but in a random order. The lie shouldn’t always be the last thing they say. Everyone someone shares, the other employees have to guess which was the lie.

Objective: If you have new employees, this can be an amazing ice breaker so everyone can get to know one another. It can be really fun! Plus, it will help to rid of hasty judgements of an employee(s) and gives everyone a chance to pipe in, even shy individuals.

Time: over 1 hour

Purpose: Team bonding

Number of Participants: Two or more small groups

Tools Needed: Pen and Paper

Rules: First, break the group into teams of two or more. Create a list of silly tasks for each team to do together as a group. Some silly tasks include taking a selfie with an animal like a dog or bird, take a souvenir from a restaurant like the menu, take photobombs in the office without anyone knowing and so on. Use smartphones or apps to share the tasks being completed in real-time. Whichever team finishes the most tasks is the winner!

Objective: A scavenger hunt is a great team bonding exercise which helps to break the everyday routine and even office cliques as everyone is encouraged to work with a new colleague, like from a different department or team.

Time: 10 – 15 minutes

Purpose:  Communication

Number of Participants: Two or more

Tools Needed: A picture/object and pen and paper (or whiteboard and markers)

Rules: Divide your staff into groups of two. The two individuals should sit back-to-back. One person is given the pen and paper while the other person get the picture or object. The person that has the picture needs to describe the picture/object to the person with the pen and paper within 60 seconds. But they can’t say what it is! They can’t directly describe the object, such as a labrador eating an ice cream cone. Instead, they can say man’s best friend, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for X”, and nom-nom. Once the person has rattled off some adjectives, their teammate has to draw what they interpreted of the verbal description. After 10-15 minutes, the “painter” needs to reveal their masterpiece!

Objective: Blind drawing is a team building game focused on communication and interpretation. It can be beyond hilarious to see the results! But it also demonstrates just how tricky it is to give clear instructions and just how important it is to effectively communicate.

Time: 5 minutes

Purpose: Communication

Number of Participants: Two or more groups

Tools Needed: Post-It notes or small slips of paper and tape

Rules: If you’ve ever played the game “Head’s Up” or if you’ve ever seen The Office episode “Diversity Day”, you’re familiar with What’s My Name. Create a list of names, either celebrities or icons like Taylor Swift or Iron Man. Or you can choose professions like doctor, football player, singer, and so on. Place the card with the name on each person’s forehead, but make sure they can’t see who it is! Set a timer for 60 seconds or 2 minutes and have everyone move around the room asking people Yes or No questions until they correctly guess the name on their forehead! Or until the clock runs out.

Objective: What’s My Name gets everyone up and chatting with people they may not be familiar with. Plus, this team building game opens everyone’s eyes to stereotypes and labeling others based on characteristics.

Time: 15 – 30 minutes

Purpose: Communication and trust building

Number of Participants: 4 – 10 people, keep the numbers even

Tools Needed: Multiple handheld objects and blindfolds

Rules: Use a large open space, like the parking lot, the beach, a park, the roof, etc. Place the handheld objects (bottles, balls, books, cones, etc.) sporadically across the large open space. Everyone needs to pair up and one person of the pair needs to wear the blindfold. The person who is not blindfolded must take their partner from one side to the other without stepping on any of the objects, they can only use verbal cues and not just pull their partner through the “mine field”. The blindfolded person isn’t allowed to speak either. Make the task even harder by creating specific routes each team must take and litter it with obstacles.

Objective: This team building game will help to build trust while teaching good communication and listening.

Time: 1 – 2 hours

Purpose: Teamwork and problem solving

Number of Participants: Two or more small groups

Tools Needed: Various office supplies (tape, pencils, pens, straws, plastic utensils, newspaper, rubber bands, packing material, etc.)

Rules: Split your employees into groups of three to five people and give each group an uncooked egg. Put all of the various office supplies in a pile. Each group has 15-30 minutes to use the office supplies in order to build a protective contraption around the raw egg so it won’t break when dropped. Once the time is up, head to the second or third floor of your building and drop the egg in its protective cocoon! Which eggs will survive?! If there is a tie, keep heading to a higher floor until you have one winner.

Objective: Teamwork and problem solving is the objective of this team building exercise as it helps to bond everyone. If you have lots of people participate in this game, the better it will be! And be sure to keep extra eggs around, plenty will break during the making process.  

Time: 15-30 minutes

Purpose: Team bonding

Number of Participants: Two or more groups

Tools needed: whiteboard and markers (pen and paper will work too)

Rules: Split your employees into two or more groups, with up to 5 people in each. Create multiple questions, 20-25, that are specific to your workplace and test everyone’s knowledge. Questions like: “What color are the kitchen tiles?” “What brand is the coffee machine?” “What is the name of the cleaning company and/or person?” “How many stalls in the bathrooms?” “How many employees are married?” Allow for 30-60 seconds for the teams to write their answers down on the whiteboard. Tally up the results in the end.

Objective: In no time at all, you can hammer out this team building exercise. It will truly show you just how observant your employees are.

Time: 30 minutes

Purpose: Creative problem solving and collaboration

Number of Participants: Three or more groups

Tools needed: the office and its supplies, pen and paper

Rules: Create three or more groups with at least 5 people in each team. Tell the groups the place they were just on with all their team members, crashed on a desert island. The groups must now scour the office and take 12 items they believe would be most helpful in ensuring their survival. They have 10 minutes to choose their items. In another 10 minutes, they must rank the items in order of importance. For the last 10 minutes, have the groups present their items and why they chose them.

Objective: Get your employees talking and dishing out negotiation skill building. If you would like, have the groups make their selections first and then have everyone discuss and reach a consensus.

Time: 30 minutes

Purpose: Communication and team building

Number of Participants: Three or more groups in teams of 2 to 4

Tools needed: rope or shoestring

Rules: Divide the groups into teams of 2 to 4. Have all the members get into circles that face each other and use the rope or shoestrings to tie their hands together. Then you need to give them a task that they have to complete together but with their hands tied. Try tasks like: making a sandwich, completing a puzzle, tying a ribbon, making a pitcher of lemonade.

Objective: As everyone’s hands are tied, each person must make an effort in order to complete the task. The constraints on their hands is limiting but it can increase creativity and will push everyone to think outside-of-the-box.

The team building exercises can inspire and motivate you to build stronger and far more successful company teams. However, you have tons of opportunities at your disposal to bond your employees. You don’t need to plan everything down to the last detail, instead, you can keep it simple. Such as holding weekly or monthly Happy Hour or company events every other quarter for the entire company and per department. As long as the focus of the team building exercises is to create memories and find common ground, you are sure to build friendships, open dialogue and create happiness in the workplace.