15 Unique Team Building Activities for Coworkers You’ve Never Heard Of

Whether you are hosting an office meeting or an outdoor team building event. Team building activities for coworkers and Team building games are a perfect way to help with team bonding and get everyone to work together. In this post, I am sharing 15 unique team-building games that I am sure you have never played before. These games are perfect for corporate team building and cover work skills like collaboration, communication, listening, and trust. And these team-building games for coworkers are fun to play. Make sure to try them at your next work gathering or virtual meet.

One-Sentence Instructions

This is a quick team-building game that help player realize better understand communication and listening skills. To play this game, the organizer must list some tasks on a piece of paper and hand it to one player. The player must explain this to their team, but in just 1 sentence. It can be a picture of something simple, like a house, arranging things in order, write an email. Anything that can be done in about 5 minutes.

The player must take a minute and think carefully to come up with a sentence that will clearly communicate to the team. The team members must listen carefully and understand the instructions.

This will help everyone understand how easily messages can be misunderstood and help everyone see the other sides of the situation.

Back-to-Back Builder

This is another game around the team-building activity focusing on communication. 2 players will sit back-to-back so they cannot see each other. One person has the image or object to be created ( describer), and the other has the material(builder). The person with the material needs to ask questions to the other person to get details to make the thing the first person is holding accurately. It can be a LEGO shape or an image.

Set a timer for 1 or 5 minutes depending on the complexity of the task and the time available. Team who completes the task or is most accurate wins.

Say It Without Saying It

This game is about building teamwork, communication, and adaptability skills. In this game, one player is given a common workplace word or phrase, like deadline, ETA, CAPEX, and the player needs to explain it to the team, but without using that word or any related buzzwords.

In a ways its like charades, except that you can speak. The rest of the team listens and tries to guess what the word or phrase is based on the explanation.

Emoji Translation

This is a quick game to build understanding and interpretation. On a piece of paper, write some work-related words or phrases, like last-minute email or project kick-off meeting. The player from the team needs to write this phrase or explain this phrase to other team members, using only emojis. Totally light-hearted, there is no right or wrong; you just need to explain them in a way that the team will get it.

Give a few minutes for the player to make the emoji statement; they can use a mobile or computer to make it. The other team members will be given 3 minutes to guess the phrase.

This teaches communicating at the level a person can understand and allows others to expand on the interpretation.

Rank It Together

This game helps the team to learn to work together on decision-making and align together. To each team, give a list of items, tasks, or options, and the team must work together to rank them in order of priority or importance. The key rule is that the group must work together and collectively come to a common decision. You can make a fictional scenario related to work or non-work. Each player must share their thoughts, and everyone must agree on a common ranking.

This encourages everyone to share their view and solve problems together. I feel it is better if you give an outside work situation for everyone to relate to, especially if you have team members from different departments.

One Goal, Many Paths

This game is all about encouraging everyone to come up with solutions and be able to communicate them to the team and make them belive its possible. To play this game, give the team a hypothetical situation, and they have to come up with multiple solutions, at least 1 from each member. Based on the participation, you can choose the depth question. For example, it can be how you will reach New York if you have just $50. Or, how will you improve customer satisfaction?

This game helps the team to think outside the box and come up with creative, collaborative ideas.

Build the Dream

This game will help the team to collaborate and work on each other’s strengths. To play this game, give each team a topic; it can be a dream project, a perfect client pitch, or a perfect workday. Each team player must share an idea that will make it their perfect version, like a dream. Once the vision of the topic is decided, the team must outline it and decide on what each person’s contribution will be to achieve the same. This helps the teams to learn to share their leverage or strengths to fulfil the team’s goal and seek help where they fall short.

The 10-Minute Fix

This is a simple team building game, but it will help the team put their head to solve a problem. Give each team a simple problem and set the time for 10 minutes. The team must collectively discuss, research, and come up with a solution to the given problem.

Give them a logical problem to solve. Something like the scenario of a farmer who needs to cross a river with a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain. The boat can carry only 2 things at a time, and certain items cannot be left alone together. These kinds of problems help the team figure out the correct sequence of crossings by questioning and thinking together.

What Can Break It?

This game is about the team working together on risk identification and critical thinking. You give the team any object or a perfect scenario, and they need to come up with all possible and practical reasons that can break it. For example, it can be a globe placed on the table or a hypothetical situation of a perfect client meeting. Give them a few minutes to discuss, and the team must come up with all possible things that they think can break it, and how they will prevent or mitigate them. This game helps the team bond on a common mission to find risk.

Role Reverse

This game is all about helping the team bond and understand each other’s difficulties and empathize across different roles. In this game, each player takes on the role of a coworker and explains their role and challenges. For example, a developer explains the responsibilities of a sales manager. This helps coworkers put themselves in other people’s shoes to clear misunderstandings and appreciate each other’s challenges.

Only Three-Question

This team-building game helps teams learn about asking the right questions. One member of the team will be given a piece of paper that has the name of a colleague. The team has to guess it, but can ask only 3 questions. It is easy to play and helps the team to agree on a common question to ask.

Silent Planning

This is a team bonding game that focuses on being efficient when working with the team. Each team will be given a task or small project, and they need to make a plan of action, but without speaking. They can write notes, draw, or use chat or whiteboards. All team members must silently contribute to the task. This teaches them to collaborate and work with efficient communication.

What’s Common

This is a simple team bonding activity that will help the team connect with each other by finding things that are common among them. Each team must chat with team members and come up with things that are in common with them. These can be education, habits, a favorite book, or a movie. These simple common interests help them feel more connected and build opportunities for bonding and ignore differences.

You are my Eyes

In this game, a team member is blindfolded and needs to draw an image or object on the board with the help of the team members. All the members of the team act as the person’s eyes and guide. This helps teams build trust and improve instructions.

I am Lost, Help

This team-building game is about teamwork and trust. A member of the team will be given a problem like a logical puzzle or word search, and team members must guide them to the solution. Even if the player knows the solution, they cannot use any of their skills and must strictly follow the instructions given by the team member. This game is all about being a team player, listening, and trust.

I hope you found these team-building games for the office interesting, useful, and fun to play at work with your coworkers and learn valuable teamwork skills in a fun way.

Related posts you may like:

10 Fun Ice Breaker Office Games