Are you searching for engaging and entertaining methods to maintain your team’s motivation? Discover the top 17 enjoyable 5-minute team building activities designed to strengthen workplace connections.
17 Fun 5-Minute Team Building Activities
The human element serves as the foundation of every successful business and organization.
Studies indicate that team wellness directly correlates with profitability and engagement, highlighting the critical importance of fostering team connections across the entire workforce.
Incorporating team building activities into your organizational culture becomes essential when you want your team to maintain focus while handling challenging assignments.
However, work hours present time constraints, requiring efficient solutions. These 17 enjoyable 5-minute team building activities provide exactly what your entire team requires.
3 Tips Before You Choose Team Building Games
Research demonstrates that team experiences and team building activities assist organizations in improving team morale and productivity while helping team members feel more valued over time.
Nevertheless, some employers may initially resist team building activities that appear time-consuming to them.
Additionally, since workplace time often remains quite limited, finding excellent yet quick team building activities becomes imperative for both small and large groups.
Therefore, to avoid extending a valuable team building activity beyond its intended duration, you must follow three essential tips.
1. Carefully Think About the Goal of the Activity
Not every team building activity shares the same objective – the purpose will depend on what you aim to accomplish with newer, experienced, and other team members.
Consequently, before selecting any team building activity, consider these five goals you must keep in mind:
Break the ice: When you want to break barriers and boost team spirit before a significant task, then a quick game that also happens to be enjoyable becomes your optimal choice. Team Building Icebreakers have proven highly effective in both large and small teams.
Unleash creativity: A quick yet entertaining game serves as an excellent option to stimulate people’s creative thinking immediately before an important meeting or a task requiring brainstorming.
Learn more about your team: Whether you want to connect more deeply with team members or enhance team morale, five-minute games provide an enjoyable way to energize team meetings.
Spend time with team members naturally: You do not always need a major objective in mind to participate in a team building activity – perhaps you simply want to encourage team communication, which remains equally valid.
Introduce new team members: When one team member experiences difficulty integrating into the group, icebreaker questions and quick games offer an excellent method to strengthen that employee’s social connections with the entire team.
2. Select the Best Time of the Day for the Activity
We do not recommend engaging in a team building activity immediately before the workday concludes – instead, you want to choose the optimal time for the game carefully, ensuring it provides others with a positive mindset.
Therefore, three ideal times exist for 5-minute team building activities:
Before a meeting: When a team meeting approaches, several rounds of an enjoyable game immediately before the meeting can significantly enhance the team’s communication skills naturally.
Before the day starts: In certain companies, beginning the day with an excellent team building activity helps ease the remainder of the day in an enjoyable manner.
During breaks: Not every employee wants to spend their entire break playing a game, but a quick break of just 5 minutes will benefit them significantly without causing impatience throughout the day.
3. Remote Teams vs. In-Office Teams Activities
Some 5-minute team building activities function better within the office environment, while others suit remote teams more effectively.
Virtual Team Building has gained increasing importance recently as numerous companies have recognized the profitability and benefits of remote work.
Research proves that remote employees may feel isolated after working from home for extended periods, so implementing virtual team building activities immediately before virtual meetings can provide them with the mental break they require.
Remote teams will have different requirements than office teams, so as a team leader, understanding this distinction and choosing a quick team building activity that makes sense in your work environment becomes your responsibility.
17 Fun 5-Minute Team Building Activities
Three essential factors must be considered when selecting a 5-minute team building activity:
You must be able to explain the game briefly to the team.
The game or activity must provide clear mental benefits (it should exceed a classic praise session, for instance).
It must be an enjoyable and simple game – avoid overcomplicating matters.
With these considerations in mind, here are the top 17 entertaining team-building games and activities you can implement at work.
1. Would You Rather?
When you want to encourage people to communicate immediately before an important task, nothing surpasses a classic round of Would You Rather.
The key involves encouraging employee engagement by making them consider fictional yet exciting scenarios and explaining the reasoning behind their choices.
Best For: small and medium teams (from 5 to 10 people). What You Will Need: nothing but imagination! You can prepare a list of “Would You Rather” questions before starting. How to Play: Ask the employees a question with this format: “Would you rather (A) or would you rather (B)?” Remember that explaining why they choose one option over the other remains important.
2. Marooned On an Island
Marooned On an Island works excellently for both in-office and remote teams. This 5-minute team building game allows others to learn more about all team members, and the best part is that no wrong answers exist!
Best For: all kinds of groups (small, medium, large). What You Will Need: nothing but creativity. How to Play: Ask each team member about an album, movie, book, or video game they would take with them if marooned on a desert island – request that they elaborate on their answers as well!
3. Draw Your Mood
Psychology experts have proven the benefits of drawing games for several years now.
When you believe that one member (or more) of the team is experiencing difficulty, asking them to draw their moods might help them significantly.
Best For: small and remote groups. What You Will Need: paper, colors, and pencils. How to Play: Give each team member a piece of paper and ask them to draw something: it can be their ideal vacation, weekend trip, current mood, and more. Then, ask them to elaborate on their drawing.
4. Show and Tell
Show and Tell is a game that preschoolers have enjoyed for years for one simple reason: it brings amazingly beneficial mental advantages that adults can enjoy too.
This game works perfectly for remote teams, and although it can work for in-office members as well, you will need some time to plan it.
Best For: remote teams. What You Will Need: you need to bring your own item to show to others. How to Play: If remote, ask your employees to take a quick break and look for an item that means something interesting, unique, or special to them. If in-office, ask the same thing to your employees, but with at least 2 days’ notice.
5. Two Truths and A Lie
Two Truths and a Lie provides an excellent option to learn about each other naturally. The game works amazingly for team bonding, whether you work in an in-office or remote setting.
Best For: all kinds of groups. What You Will Need: nothing but facts about yourself. How to Play: Ask employees to say three things about themselves: two truths, and one lie hidden there. Others must guess the truth and lie through reasoning.
6. Team Stretching
Team Stretching is not a mental or talking game – instead, you will literally ask your team members to stretch together.
Having a brief stretching session before the day starts helps significantly, so stretching at work should not be overlooked.
Best For: all kinds of groups. What You Will Need: basic yoga or stretching knowledge. How to Play: Simply gather your team first thing in the morning and perform a quick 5-minute stretching session.
7. Listen Up
Listen Up is a game that not only strengthens employees’ listening skills, but also helps them learn about each other more than they currently do.
Best For: small and medium groups. What You Will Need: 10 random controversial or interesting topics written on small pieces of paper. How to Play: Write 10 topics on individual pieces of paper, pair up employees, and make them pick one paper. They must talk for a few minutes about their opinion on the topic, and after the first person finishes, the other must recap the information told by their team member as detailed as they can.
8. Word Association
Word games have amazing brain-boosting benefits for people of all age groups, including your employees.
Thus, the Word Association game serves as an excellent activity to kick off the day or before a meeting.
Best For: all kinds of groups. What You Will Need: nothing. How to Play: Provide your team with a prompt and tell them to say just one word that they associate with that prompt and why.
9. What’s My Name?
What’s My Name is a game that people often play at parties because it’s really enjoyable, but you can play it at the office as well.
It does not work well in remote teams, but you can still attempt it.
Best For: small and medium groups. What You Will Need: little pieces of paper when you write a name on them, preferably sticky notes. How to Play: Pair team members up, write a name on sticky notes, paste it to their foreheads, and make them guess the name assigned to them based on clues and conversation.
10. Never Have I Ever
Never Have I Ever is widely known as a drinking game, but, honestly, it works in professional environments as well.
You can learn more about other people, as long as you maintain appropriate boundaries with your coworkers.
Best For: all kinds of groups. What You Will Need: nothing. How to Play: Ask team members to raise 5 fingers up. Then, make a sentence using the “Never Have I Ever (A)” format, and if they have done so, then they must put one finger down. The last one with more fingers up wins!
11. Secret Office Friend Game
The Secret Office Friend game is one of the finest activities that you can implement to get your team members to know each other, mostly if they hardly interact with them.
It serves as an excellent team building activity that can be quickly set up and lasts for more than a single day.
Best For: in-office groups of all sizes. What You Will Need: small pieces of paper to write the name of the workers. How to Play: Write the name of all participants on small papers, and make them randomly pick one. They will be assigned a random person, and over the course of a week, they must leave secret notes or even small gifts (such as sweets) to the person in an anonymous way. After a week passes, they must try to guess who their secret friend is.
12. Dance Session at the Office
Getting your workers to dance might not be simple, but it remains clear that dance benefits can greatly improve an employee’s mood and physical condition.
The key here involves not pushing anyone – if they prefer not to dance, they have the right to do so.
Best For: small and medium in-office groups. What You Will Need: basic dancing knowledge. How to Play: Gather your team before the day starts, and ask them to dance by following a pre-set choreography. Try to choose easy-level choreographies to start with.
13. Tallest Paper Tower
The Tallest Paper Tower is a classic competitive game where your workers must assemble a paper tower using nothing but recycled pieces of paper available at the office.
Best For: in-office small and medium-sized teams. What You Will Need: recycled sheets and pieces of paper that have no use inside the office. How to Play: Group the workers in pairs or trios, and give them papers. The first team who manages to build the tallest paper tower within the span of 4 minutes wins!
14. The Worst Job
Do you think that you have the worst job in the world? Think again! The Worst Job serves as an excellent game to get your team to talk immediately before an important meeting. It might even get them to appreciate their jobs even more!
Best For: remote and in-office groups. What You Will Need: nothing. How to Play: Ask workers to explain one by one what’s the worst job according to them and why. The answers might be amusing!
15. Trivia Slack Mini Game
When you have a remote team, then you probably use Slack for daily communication activities.
There exists a Trivia for Slack mini-game where you and your remote team can demonstrate your knowledge and problem-solving skills in just a few minutes.
Best For: remote teams. What You Will Need: Slack platform. How to Play: Install the Trivia Mini Game for Slack, and set it up. There are different topics, time limits, and a number of questions to choose from. Gather your virtual team and start playing!
16. Bucket List Game
The Bucket List is a timeless game that helps teams create a bond with each other by understanding their life goals and dreams.
Best For: all kinds of groups. What You Will Need: nothing. How to Play: Gather your team and ask them to say three things that are on their Bucket List of things to do before they die. Let them elaborate and speak for as long as they want.
17. The Birth Map
Learning about the origins of your team helps promote diversity inside the office and better work culture for everyone, and you can accomplish this with the Birth Map game.
Best For: remote and in-office teams. What You Will Need: a physical world map or Google Maps for remote teams. How to Play: Ask each team member to mark up their place of birth on a map, either physically or digitally, through Google Maps. Then, make them tell you more about the place where they were born.
People Also Ask Team Building Activities Questions
Is Virtual Team Building Effective?
Yes, team building is and will continue to be an effective method to improve work environments in all kinds of companies. According to recent statistics, 2500% more companies are investing in virtual team building in 2022 and the years ahead.
Does Teamwork Boost Workers’ Morale?
It does – a recent study by NDMU shows that teamwork enhances the morale of workers, making them feel more engaged and appreciated within their workplace, whether we discuss in-office or remote jobs.
Hello, I’m Daisy Sadie, a writer at Azaadpuns. I explore the dynamic world of puns and wordplay, delivering captivating linguistic twists that will make you laugh and groan. Join me on Azaadpuns.com for the latest in clever wordplay that makes language fun again.