The Ultimate List

of Team-Building
Activities
01 Battle of the airbands
Move over karaoke. Split your team into groups of four. Have
them pick a song and do their best impression of performing it
with air instruments and lip-syncing. Props and costumes are
encouraged.

02 Potluck
Let your employees show off their cooking skills (or at least their
skills at tracking down delicious food). Schedule an afternoon
potluck once a quarter.

03 Water balloon toss

On a warm summer day, fill up a bunch of water balloons. Split
your team into pairs. Have them throw balloons back and forth to
each other, taking a step back with each successful exchange.
Last balloon standing wins.

04 Scavenger hunt
Have your team split up into pairs and give them a list of items
they have to search for around either the company's campus or
neighborhood.

05 Human knot
Have your team gather in a circle. Tell everyone to put their right
hands in the air and grab onto someones hand across the circle.
Then tell them to link left hands with someone else across the
circle. See if they can untangle themselves without letting go of
anyones hand.

06 Show-and-tell
It was awesome in elementary school. Now, were all adults, and
we have cooler things. Have your workers bring in a prized
possession and let them tell a story.

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07 Egg drop
Can any of your employees build a device that can keep a raw egg
intact when its dropped from a few stories?

08 Two truths, one lie

Take turns telling your coworkers two things about you that are
true and one thing thats false. Have them guess the lie.

09 Blind retriever
Split your staff into small teams, blindfolding one person on each
team. The first team that can successfully direct their blindfolded
colleague to a hidden object wins.

10 Community service
No matter where your office is, there are undoubtedly people in
your community who are less fortunate. Pick a deserving cause,
rally the troops, and give back to the community whenever time
allows for it.

11 Group juggle
Have your team form a circle. Throw one employee a ball. Have
them say their name and then throw the ball to the next person,
who says their name, and so on. Keep introducing new balls into
the mix to make things interesting.

12 Team lunches
Everyone needs to eat. The easiest team-building activity? Take
your team out to lunch and pick up the tab.

13 Active listener
Schedule what your team thinks is a routine meeting. Deliver a
boring speech filled with jargon, but sprinkle random unrelated

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 sentences in every so often. Quiz your team to see who was
listening.

14 Jigsaw puzzle pieces

Give different teams plastic bags with puzzle pieces.
Unbeknownst to them, theyll end up having to partner with other
08 teams to complete the puzzle.

15 Group timeline
Have different teams sort themselves by height, age, how long
theyve been with the company, how many states theyve been in,
etc. Quickest team wins.

16 18 & under
Ask your employees to write down on a piece of paper their
biggest accomplishment that occurred before they turned 18. Put
the answers in a bowl and pass it around. Have employees pick
out one answer then the other employees must guess whose
accomplishment it is.

17 Pair up
Write a bunch of pairs on different pieces of paper (e.g., Thelma
and Louise, salt and peppers, Mario and Luigi, etc.). Tape them to
your employees backs. Have them walk around trying to figure
out who they are and find their complementary colleague.

18 Work Jeopardy!
Come up with five questions for six categories that pertain to your
business. Break the group up into teams, and select one lucky
employee to play Alex Trebek.

19 No smiling
Before you start a meeting, tell your employees theyre not
allowed to smile. See who can last the longest.

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20 The dinner party
Take turns asking which three people (dead or alive) your
employees would have dinner with and why.

21 Snack time
Everybody likes free food especially when its delicious.
Schedule an afternoon snack once a week. Ice cream works
wonders in the summer.

22 Lights, camera, action

See what 5-minute cinematic masterpieces your team can come
up with in an hour or two.

23 Secret Santa
Bring the holiday game to your office. Not only does everyone like
to get presents, gift buyers will be forced to think long and hard
about what to get their coworkers.

24 Human rock, paper, scissors

Organize a rock, paper, scissors tournament. The catch? Players
dont use their hands they use their entire bodies.

25 Lucky penny
Ask your employees to reach into their pockets to grab a coin.
(You may want to supply coins on your own because everyone
pays digitally these days.) See whether your team members are
able to share something that happened the year the coin was
minted.

26 Blind date lunches

Like a team lunch, except no one knows who theyre going to eat
with. Pick four or so employees who dont interact with one
another much and treat them to lunch. Not only will they get to
know each other, they may come up with fantastic business
ideas.
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27 Movie ball
Have your team sit in a circle, and give each person a piece of
paper and a pen. Each person will write the first sentence to a
short story. Pass the paper to the right, and have them add the
second sentence to the next story. Repeat the process until the
original person gets his or her story back. Have them read it
08 aloud.

28 Donation swap
Tell your staff to bring in two or three possessions theyd
otherwise bring to the thrift store. Put those on a communal table.
Take turns allowing each worker to grab an item. If theres
anything left over, donate it.

29 Who am I?
Put clues pertaining to famous people or your employees on
sheets of paper. Have your staff try to guess whoevers being
described.

30 Office mimes
Write down a number of routine business processes that happen
at your company. Things like dealing with an irate customer,
having to contact IT, or taking a personal phone call will suffice.
Put the activities into a hat and have employees pick one and act
it out like a mime.

31 Professional development
Send some of your team to a conference or a workshop. Not only
will they gain knowledge that will make them more effective
workers, theyll get to know one another that much better.

32 Paintbar
Who doesnt like a field trip? Head to a nearby paintbar (fingers
crossed theyre in your area) and spend the afternoon painting the
same masterpiece with your team while enjoying a drink or two.

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33 Would you rather
The game makes employees share and explain their preferences.
Would you rather go to the doctor or go to the dentist? Would you
rather travel to Hawaii or the Galapagos Islands? Would you
rather take a very cold shower in the winter or a very hot shower in
the summer?

33 Murder mystery
Why not bring the classic party game to the office? Play the
22 whodunit on a lazy summer afternoon or during a holiday
celebration.

34 The name game

Sit in a circle, and have each employee add an alliterative
adjective to the beginning of their name. Jovial Johnny, Sassy
Susan, Grumpy Gus, etc. See whether the last person to go can
remember everyones new monikers.

35 Employee bingo
Come up with 25 different actions e.g., eating lunch at your
desk, exercising during the day, and attending company happy
hours and play a classic game of Bingo. Winner gets a prize.

36 Tallest tower
See how high of a tower different teams can build with the same
materials.

37 Happy hour
Last but certainly not least, when all else fails and youve run out
of ideas, you can always head to the nearest watering hole for a
good old-fashioned team happy hour. You may find you get more
engagement.

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About TINYpulse
Companies make an effort to consistently track revenue, financial returns, and
productivity. But theyre forgetting one of the most important aspects of their
organization: their people. And thats where TINYpulse comes in.

Our Mission
Founded in 2012, TINYpulse works hard to make employees happy. Our goal is to
give leaders a pulse on how engaged or frustrated their employees are, helping
managers spark dialogue that results in organizational change.

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What We Do
We believe that information empowers leaders to create an engaging work
environment and culture where people can thrive. Here is how we do that:

Pulsing surveys: Our weekly pulse survey measures employee

engagement using just one question. TINYpulse is a lightweight solution
that captures anonymous feedback from your team to reveal insights,
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results.

Peer-to-peer recognition: TINYpulses Cheers for Peers peer-to-peer

recognition tool captures the appreciation, extra effort, and little things
that are often overlooked by leaders. Peers can easily send a quick shout-
out to their colleagues to brighten up their daybecause a little
recognition goes a long way.

Virtual suggestions: Our virtual suggestion box lets employees have direct
input on how to improve the workplace. The anonymous format makes
employees feel comfortable being honest and offering actionable ideas to
improve their workplace.

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