25 Games for Team Meetings to Improve Engagement

Mar 6

Seated:
1. No smiling: Tell the group not to smile. First person to laugh loses and has to give someone else in the group a compliment.

2. Infomercial: Each participant grabs an inanimate object near them and presents it as something it's not as if they're selling a new product on a TV infomercial. Ex: Selling a pen as a magical wand that magically empties email inboxes.

3. Cup-on-head: Last person to put their cup on their head (or finger on their nose!) has to share a cooking or travel tip.

4. Team Trivia: Prepare trivia questions personalized to the group before the gathering. (Ex: Learn about each attendee's fav hobbies) and ask the group curated Q's throughout the meeting. Most correct answers wins!

5. Icebreakers: Non-cheesy icebreakers only! Subvert convention to make them playful. Ex: Instead of asking “What’s a fun fact about yourself?” Ask team members to share, “What’s the most boring thing about you?” For added camaraderie-building, assign a different team member each meeting to come up with 1 icebreaker for the group to spice it up each week and to help foster workplace belonging.

6. Two Truths and a Lie: An oldie but a goodie—particularly great for meetings with new hires.

7. Office Supply Tower: Using only objects found around the office, give teams five minutes to build the tallest paper tower they can. Teams are not allowed to use tape, glue, or any other materials. When time is up, measure the height of each tower and select a winner. This game can also be played with limitations for safety, such as paper plates, paper towels or plastic forks only.

Standing:
8. Handshake: Break off into groups of 2-3, and give everyone 3 minutes (maybe the entirety of a popular song?) to come up with a very specifically-themed handshake. Name it. Perform it. Best handshake gets a prize.

9. Dance-Off: Partners or small groups create a lil' improv dance routine. Pump up the jams (ask for a song suggestion from the group!) and after everyone shares, vote on the "most creative" or "most enthusiastic" dancing duo for the win.

10. Human Organizer: Have different teams sort themselves by height, age, how long they’ve been with the company, how many states they’ve been in, etc. Quickest team wins.

11. Human Knot: Everyone makes a circle. Grab opposite hands with a person across from you in a circle and see if you can untangle yourselves without letting go of hand contact.

12. Photo finish: Make the group pretend they are running through a finish line at the end of a race, and say “stop” when everyone is in an awkward position and see how long they can hold their “pose.” The group can vote on the individual with the most creative winning “pose.”

13. Musical [Office] Chairs: Everyone dances around until the music stops. When the music stops, everyone has to find a seat. Last person standing is “out” until there’s a winner. *Chairs can be in a circle or dispersed around the room for added fun/chaos.

14. Team Charades: Build workplace belonging through play by assigning small groups of 3-7 to break off into teams and come up with a scenario (Ex: cleaning the kitchen/eating at a restaurant/climbing Mt. Everest), acting out the scenario until one of the other teams guesses correctly.

15. Paper Airplane Contest: Healthy competition is playful way to encourage creativity and friendly competition among employees. Provide each employee with a piece of paper and set a time limit (e.g., 5 minutes) for them to design and construct their paper airplanes. Then, gather everyone in a large open area and have a contest to see whose paper airplane can fly the farthest or perform the best tricks. Award prizes to the winners.

Virtual:
16. Company Slogan: Come up with new cheeky company slogan or tagline.

17. Show-and-Tell: Mime your favorite object, animal, etc. and/or describe it without actually naming it until the group guesses what it is.

18. Pet Talk: If a participant's pet walks in front of the screen, they must introduce them to the group, preferably by imitating the voice they think their pet might have if their pet could talk.

19. Binge-worthy: Each participant describes the last TV show they binged. First person to guess the show correctly wins.

20. Trivia: Great for recurring meetings. Assign a different team member each week to come up with 3 trivia questions for the group. Ex: “What was the most popular Britney Spears song of all time?” The team member with the most correct answers by the end of each month or quarter wins a prize!

21. Thanks for Coming to my Ted Talk: Great for off-sites and longer team meetings for engagement. Give everyone the opportunity to speak for 5 minutes on an unconventional passion. Ex: Organizing their bookshelves alphabetically, birdwatching, making donuts from scratch. The sillier the better—slide decks encouraged!

22. Team Meeting Bingo: Lead more engaging recurring meetings in such a way that requires everyone pay attention throughout the meeting while still poking fun at routines and meeting protocols. If your team wants to win, they need to be attentive to earn points throughout the meeting. This is also a fun way to build camaraderie, as the bingo cards can include your manager’s or team members' common personality traits and habits.

How to play:
Pre-work: Before your meeting starts, write down a list of bingo cards for each team member. You’ll want to add points to each bingo word.

Step one: Give each team member different bingo cards.

Step two: During the meeting, let the team cross off items from their bingo cards as soon as they appear.

Step three: Reveal bingo cards at the end of the meeting. The winner is the person with the most points.

Step four: The winner creates the next round of bingo cards.

Here’s an example of words or items to add to your team bingo card:

A new idea is proposed (five points).
There are more than three coffees on the table (three points).
Someone receives a Slack notification (two points).
The meeting presentation has over 10 slides (four points).

23. Emoji Song Challenge: Zero planning-ahead required. This activity allows employees to share song interests, bond over musical tastes, and be creative together. It has to be played through a text chat, so it’s ideal for remote employees or for people who feel uncomfortable talking on camera.
How to play:
Step one: Each player chooses a song.
Step two: Each player takes turns describing the song with TWO emojis.
Step three: Players must guess the song name in less than 10 seconds. (Make sure the team meeting facilitator has a timer handy!)
Step four: The player that guesses the most songs correctly wins.

Here’s an example of a song emoji:
Emoji: 👁️🐯
Song: “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor

24. Name that Logo: Split employees into teams. Give each team a sheet of a dozen semi-popular logos. Set the timer for 3-5 minutes, instructing players to take their best guess at each logo. The team that guesses the most companies correctly wins.

25. Shark Tank: (*Also great for virtual/remote team meetings!) Divide employees into small groups and have them create a fun product pitch for a panel of “investors” (I.e., “The Sharks”). The goal of this game is to have team members take turns convincing the Sharks that their idea is brilliant enough to invest in. Groups get anywhere from 5-45 minutes to create a slide deck, draw a diagram, create a skit, or otherwise prepare their spoken pitch to win their deal. Products can be as silly or serious.