24 Best Corporate Team Building Activities (2024 Update)

Building the right corporate culture always begins with how engaged employees are with each other and with the mission and values of the brand. So we've put together some corporate team building activities to help you build great team cultures.

Key Takeaways

• If you're trying to break the monotony at work, corporate team building activities are a great way to do so. No, they're not time wasters. They're important events that should occur in all organizations— both corporate and non-corporate ones.
• We share 24 corporate team building activities we love, and ones we're sure will help create more team trust, bonding, and engagement.
• We also share some insights and tips towards the end, so stick around!

It doesn't matter if it's a new team or an old team. Having challenging yet fun team-building activities can be a great way to increase camaraderie, get people involved, encourage creative thinking, improve collaboration when pursuing a common goal, and build trust.

However, it can be difficult to create team trust and employee engagement when everyone is caught up in their own silos. These ideas will challenge large or small teams to work together and enable them to have a great time no matter what group size— whether a small group or large groups.

That's where corporate team building activites can really help.

What are Corporate Team Building Activities?

Corporate team building activities are events or small or affairs that help build team dynamics, collaboration, trust, and camaraderie. They're often done in the context of work teams, and help with team chemistry.

With the right corporate team-building activities, you’ll be able to encourage a level of interaction that otherwise wouldn’t happen in day-to-day work settings. These activities are also great avenues remind everyone that they all belong to one team. Moreover, these events will help strengthen camaraderie, improve critical thinking, and give your team a great time!

Check out the following team-building activities to give your corporate culture, team-building event, or team outing the shot in the arm it needs.

So let's get the entire team together and prepare for a fun way of turning the company or department into a well-oiled machine! If your team is working remotely at the moment then you should check out our best fun games and activities for remote teams. In there you'll find 100 great ideas with instructions that you can try with your newly remote team.

Our Top 12 Corporate Team Building Activity Options

If you're ready, let's dive in, starting with our 12 favorite corporate team building activities:

1. Ice Breaker Games

Objective: To get to know each other in a fun and engaging way

Participants: 5 to 250 people

Duration: 5 minutes or less

Difficulty: Super Easy

Materials: Icebreaker questions and a platform to ask them

Ice breakers are nothing new under the sun, but they're undeniably still one of the best options for team building, may they be corporate or informal. They're super easy to do and completely uncomplicated.

Plus, with icebreaker questions, your teams get to know more about one another. This can help build more trust, camaraderie, and collaboration. There is so much benefit to helping your team see each other as human. Some good examples of questions you can ask to cultivate this level of trust building include the following:

• What is your greatest aspiration in life?
• How did you get into the kind of work you're currently in?
• What's one accomplishment that you feel most proud of?
• If you could choose to meet a historical figure for an hour, who would it be?
• What's one personal strength that you feel you can rely on at all times?
• Do you consider yourself a people person or an introvert?
• Share one happy childhood memory that you cherish.

Instructions

Running icebreaker games are quite straightforward. Take one to three icebreaker questions and share them with your team. Have them break into smaller groups if you have five or more people and you want to save time. Ideally, you only have three people per group to spark healthy conversation. Have one representative per group share the team's answers.

If you're looking for a tool to help you run icebreaker games asynchronously, you should also check out our platform Quizbreaker. It's a platform we've built with corporate settings in mind.

Thousands of teams have used Quizbreaker to run icebreakers for their companies. All you need is an account and to have teams answer icebreaker questions, and you're off to the races. You can schedule icebreaker quizzes regularly. There's also a leaderboard to encourage healthy competition.

Quizbreaker also has all sorts of other fun corporate team building games, such as:

• Trivia games;
• Escape room challenges;
• And other team building resources.

To test out our icebreaker games and more, sign up for a free account today.

2. Trivia Games

Objective: Build friendly competition in your company

Participants: 5 to 100 players

Duration: 5 to 20 minutes

Difficulty: Easy or Medium

Materials: Multiplayer trivia platform

Trivia games are another fun activity to play, even in corporate settings. They're challenging and bring out the best out of your teams. Also, you can create trivia games that relate to your company and culture. Ask questions related to the company's history, products, services, or policies.

Instructions

1. Choose a set of trivia questions for your game. You should check out this list of trivia questions we wrote or sign up for a Quizbreaker account to get access to thousands of trivia sets.

2. We recommend you use our trivia player platform. You can also alternatively check out a platform like TriviaNerd.

3. Run the trivia challenge with your team.

4. Provide prizes to the winners.

3. Human Bingo

Objective: To get employees moving around the room and find out traits about each other

Participants: 10 to 30 people

Duration: 35 minutes

Difficulty: Medium

Materials: Human Bingo cards

If you’ve done your reading, you’ll have noticed that human bingo appears numerous times on our blog posts as one of our all-time favourite activities.

We love it because it's fun, active and introduces new recruits to each other on a personal level, without being too intimate.

Instructions

1. Give each participant a bingo card, either homemade or found on the internet, and a pen.

2. Explain that each team gets 30 minutes to mingle with each other. During this time, they should be introducing themselves to one other and finding people who match the traits on the bingo card.

3. Once they have found one person with the correct trait, members must put the person’s name in the corresponding box, or have the person sign the appropriate square.

4. Just like a normal game of bingo, the clock continues to tick until the first person to fill five boxes across or down yells “Bingo”.

5. If you want the game to go on for a little longer, you could have multiple opportunities to win. For example, the first person to get a full horizontal line, the first to get a vertical line and then the first to get a full house. To involve employees even more in the game, perhaps ask them at the beginning what they think a completed game should be.

6. To make the game more exciting and motivating, have a prize (or prizes, if playing the longer game) ready to give the winning team. In our opinion, a bottle of nice wine will do but you could always offer gift vouchers.

4. Nerf Battle Royale

Objective: Creative problem solving skills, communication skills, team bonding and improving collaboration in teams

Participants: 5 to 20

Duration: 30 minutes to 4 hours

Difficulty: Hard

Materials: Nerf guns

Who remembers Nerf guns? My memories of them aren’t the fondest - my brother’s used to attack me with them all the time!

However, in a more controlled (and hopefully more mature) manner, nerf gun wars are actually a great way to get everyone loosening up and create a friendly atmosphere.

Instructions

The instructions are really quite simple. If you happen to work out of a large office building, transform your workplace into a battleground and your employees into soldiers by arming them with an endless array of Nerf guns.

You can play a variety of games like “Capture the Flag”, “Protect the President” or “Assassins” to encourage any variety of skills like communication, collaboration and even problem solving!

5. The Buddy System

Objective: Encourage new employees to get to know each other one on one

Participants: As many as you like!

Duration: 20 to 30 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Materials: None

A great way to onboard new hires and immediately make them feel supported in the workplace is to take a page out of Culture Amp’s book with their “buddy system.”

Studies have shown that introducing a buddy scheme was received positively. Specifically, this study looked at the introduction of senior buddy schemes, which is what we suggest using.

It has also been found that buddy schemes in organisations improve the ‘wellness’ of individuals and helps them to prepare for change. Based on this, we feel that every organisation should have an effective buddy scheme implemented.

We love this team building activity because it is easy to organise, but goes a long way in building a company culture that brings out the best in everyone.

Instructions

Again, the instructions are super simple. Ask a team leader or one person from the senior executive to volunteer some of their time to be a buddy to new hires.

New hires are then randomly paired up with a volunteer and between the two they’ll arrange a time that works for the both of them to catch up and meet with one another for something simple like coffee or lunch.

During the catch up, give them a number of ice breaker questions and have each pair take turns to ask questions and answer them. You can also play two truths and one lie or ask participants to exchange their favorite memories at work or at home. Managers can also share interesting office trivia questions that new hires would have never known on their first week at the job. You don't have to have a time limit to these catch ups. The important thing is that the new hires get to know their supervisors.

This gives new hires the chance to quickly build relationships within the company and learn more about the company culture itself and its values.

While also giving the senior management the ability to learn about their growing team and potentially even provide mentorship and guidance.

6. Mouse Trap

Objective: To show teams that everyone from a different department has something to contribute to a project

Participants: 6 or more

Duration: 20 to 30 minutes

Difficulty: High

Materials: Small items (e.g., marbles, scissors, paper, toilet paper rolls, sticks, silverware)

Based on the childhood game, “mouse trap” is a fun and energising team activity that gets everyone involved and working together.

It is also a personal favourite of ours because it helps you to suss out the natural born problem solvers in your team and it allows you to observe who brings what skills to your team. Based on this, it's a great activity to use for newly formed teams.

Instructions

1. Split everyone into teams of about three to five participants.

2. Each team should create a machine that uses the items you have provided.

3. The idea is that once set in motion, this machine will continue to work without human interaction (e.g., a marble could hit a pencil that falls and hits another ball).

4. The team that can create the longest mouse trap, that works for the longest time, wins.

7. Dart Board

Objective: To help teams understand how to deal with emotion

Participants: 3 to 10 people

Duration: 10 to 20 minutes

Difficulty: Hard

Materials: Dartboard, darts, pens and paper

We love darts because it helps release some anger in a controlled way. It encourages everyone to share their feelings, and this promotes effective emotional regulation.

This is so important to include in team building activities because research has shown that effective emotional regulation abilities of group members affect how they manage tasks and how they resolve team conflicts.

Disclaimer: make sure the dartboard is set up in a safe place!

Instructions

1. Get everyone in your team to draw something that makes them angry.

2. Pin each person's picture to the dartboard.

3. Get everyone to throw their dart at their picture.

4. Once everyone has thrown their dart, the picture is torn and destroyed.

8. Break It Away

Objective: To help team members to let go of issues

Participants: 3 or more

Duration: 10 to 20 minutes

Difficulty: Hard

Materials: Old bottles, a safe place to break bottles, something to stop up the bottle (e.g., a cork), a wad of paper (or cotton) and some safety goggles

We like this team building activity for the same reason we like Darts. It allows employees to let go of things, allows team members to stop holding grudges, and encourages healthy emotional regulation.

We suggest using this activity when you can feel the tension in your team, or when you want to remove distractions.

Another (boring) disclaimer… Please be careful whilst doing this, we all know that throwing glass bottles around can be dangerous!

Instructions

1. Have each team member think about something that has made them mad or irritated.

2. Each team member should yell whatever it is into the empty bottle and they should then put a stop to the bottle.

3. After, find a safe place to throw the bottles so that they can break.

9. Board Games

Objective: To have fun, whilst problem solving

Participants: 4 to 20

Duration: 10 minutes to 4 hours

Difficulty: Easy

Materials: Board games

This activity is super simple - board games. Know what they are?

Know how to find the instructions in the box? Great, now go play some with your team!

Some of our favourites:

• Risk

• Settlers of Catan

• Monopoly

• Game of Life

10. Catchphrase

Objective: To promote communication and teamwork

Participants: 6 to 20 people

Duration: 20 minutes

Difficulty: Medium

Materials: None

‘Catchphrase’, also known as charades, is a family favourite.

We love it because it’s fun and light-hearted, whilst still being professional.

It’s a great way to get everyone up, get everyone involved and push them out of their comfort zone.

Instructions

1. Form two teams.

2. Pick a theme for the game.

3. Each team member takes it in turns to go to the front and act out something.

4. Keep switching team players back and forth.

5. Whoever has the most points at the end wins.

11. Baby Photos

Objective: To get employees to guess which baby photo is of who

Participants: 10 to 30 people

Duration: 30 minutes

Difficulty: Medium

Materials: Everyone should bring in a baby photo

This is one of our top team building activities for corporate teams because it gets laughs and gets employees to feel closer to each other. Often, many people and corporate teams place too much emphasis on being serious; sometimes, they just need to relax and have fun!

Super super simple, and super super fun! It does take some preparation from your team though

Instructions

1. Get everyone to bring in a baby photo of themselves, or get them to email you a copy.

2. Set the baby pictures out on a large table or wall (so everyone can clearly see them).

3. The aim is that everyone in the entire group must guess which baby photo is who.

4. The winner is the person with the most correct answers - give them a prize, we suggest something edible!.

12. Who is it?

Objective: Team Bonding & Get To Know One Another

Participants: 4 to 20

Duration: 45 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Materials: Box or hat and pen and paper for each participant

A unique psychological quirk we all have is that the more you know about another person the more likely you are to develop a sense of trust and connection to them.

Help your team members get to know each other beyond their roles and responsibilities at work by playing this quick and fun activity.

Instructions

1. Have everyone write a fun little-known fact about themselves (the crazier the better) on a piece of paper.

2. Place the secret in a box or hat.

3. Every secret is then pulled out of the box and read aloud, with everyone having to guess 'my name' to who they think each fact belongs to.

Here are 12 More Corporate Team Building Activity Ideas

Need more corporate team-building activity ideas? We're just getting started! Here are 12 more you shouldn't miss:

13. Community Service Day

With community service days, a team can spend a day volunteering for a local charity, helping out at places like food banks, parks, or animal shelters. We recommend this corporate team building activity because it builds team spirit and social responsibility. It will also give your employees a sense of pride at work— great for employer branding.

14. Professional Development Workshops

Another great idea is to run workshops where teams can learn new skills relevant to their jobs. Some skills you can improve include public speaking, digital tools, or creative problem-solving. Learning workshops are a great way to invest in your team's growth while promoting a culture of learning and collaboration.

15. Scavenger Hunt

Try to create a scavenger hunt with clues related to your company's history, products, or culture. A scavenger hunt encourages teams to collaborate, think critically, and learn more about the company in a fun and engaging way.

16. Escape Rooms

Need something to challenge your team's problem solving skills? Run an escape room challenge. These games teach team members to work together under pressure and enhance their problem-solving and communication skills. If you need some recommendations for escape rooms you can do virtually, we have a whole list of great options here.

17. Book Club

Start a book club and have your team members read and discuss a monthly book related to professional development or personal growth. This activity will encourage intellectual engagement and discussion, and it's a great way for team members to share insights and perspectives.

18. Walking Group

Walking is a simple, healthy, and refreshing activity— it's also one anyone and everyone can do regardless of their fitness journey. It promotes physical health and provides spaces for informal interactions among team members.

19. Photo Challenge

In this activity, teams take photos based on certain themes or elements that relate to their work or company values. Photo challenges spur creativity and provide a new way of seeing ordinary things around the office.

20. Cultural Food Day

Have teams bring food from different cultures and share a meal together. This works best with companies that have employees from different cultural backgrounds. It's an excellent way for team members to learn about and appreciate each other's backgrounds. If you want an inclusive and diverse workplace environment, this should be part of your plans.

21. Karaoke Night

Organize a karaoke night either in the office or at a local venue. Singing together can break the ice and reduce stress, while also allowing team members to bond in a light-hearted environment.

22. Mindfulness Sessions

Introduce regular mindfulness sessions where employees can learn and practice mindfulness exercises together. This helps in reducing stress, improving focus, and promoting a sense of well-being among team members.

23. A DIY Craft Workshop

DIY crafts can be some of the most relieving and fun activities around. So you wouldn't go wrong with hosting a craft workshop. Your employees can create something tangible like pottery, painting, or simple woodwork. This kind of creative activity can be therapeutic and gives employees a break from routine work tasks.

24. Sports Viewing Party

Do you have a lot of sports fans at work? Organize a viewing party for a major sporting event. This can be a great way for team members to bond over shared interests and enjoy some downtime together.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are examples of corporate culture?

In Meetly they discuss great examples of company culture.

For example:

"Twitter is the true definition of a team-orientated environment that employees rave about. The employees enjoy health and fitness classes, rooftop meetings, and continued education through Twitter University. The friendly environment also allows for feedback at all levels of management through designated meetings. The biggest reason Twitter is one of the top examples of company culture? People that work at Twitter believe what they’re doing matters. That will always be the biggest boost to productivity."

How do you create a corporate culture?

Corporate culture comes from the behavior of your management and employees. It reflects on your company's values and beliefs in and out of the environment. Corporate culture is created by the people that work within each organization.

In 2024, companies are discovering innovative ways to create a company culture and address issues within the workplace. Organizations are putting emphasis on how to create a thriving environment for their employees.

What is a good corporate culture?

This question can be answered in so many ways depending on what each person is looking for. However, some great basic qualities that many look for in company culture are; positive outlooks, collaboration, strong company values, and a work-life balance.

Final Words

Whether it be one of our ideas above, an escape room, or even a scavenger hunt; these are all guaranteed to boost the morale of your team or corporation.

And there you have it. Those are our favourite corporate team building activities. We hope you've liked our list!