Finding ways to connect a team, regardless of the weather outside, is important. Indoor team building is crucial to any business, with 73% of employees surveyed in a recent study wishing their company would invest more in team building. Employees want team building activities because they encourage creativity, improve communication, and can boost team morale.
However, deciding what indoor team building activities to do with your team can be tough. With so many to pick from, it can feel a little overwhelming to find activities suitable for your time limit, team type, and resources. That’s why we’re here to help. In this post, we will cover 17 of the best indoor team building activities. This way, you can spend less time researching the best indoor team building ideas and more time experiencing them!
Table of Contents
Why Choose Indoor Team Building Activities?
17 Of The Best Indoor Team Building Activities
5-Minute Indoor Team Building Activities
15-Minute Indoor Team Building Activities
30-minute Team Building Activities (and Longer)
60+-minute Team Building Activities
What is indoor team building?
Team building is any activity that encourages a group of people to strengthen their bonds with each other and work cohesively and efficiently towards a common goal.
What is indoor team building? Well, it’s just any of these activities that can be carried out inside. Board games, quizzes, trivia, or escape rooms can all delight and inspire employees, allowing them to hone their team spirit, learn, and develop.
Why choose indoor team building activities?
There are many benefits of team building activities. They promote better problem-solving skills, encourage good workmanship, identify leaders, create trusting relationships, and increase collaboration within teams. Team building activities also encourage employee engagement, which in return leads to better team performance, increased productivity, and higher employee retention.
So, now you know why you should choose team building activities in general; why should you choose indoor team building activities?
Firstly, you can carry out indoor team building activities whatever the weather. Rain or shine, with indoor team building your team can always get together to work on their connections and goals. Indoor team building activities also create a relaxed environment, which gently encourages team members to work together and breakdown barriers without pushing them too far out of their comfort zone.
Finally, indoor team building activities can be used on virtual teams and in-person making them versatile team building options. In this article, we will note whether our 5, 15, and 30-minute indoor team building activities are suitable for virtual teams or in-person teams (or for both!).
17 of the Best Indoor Team Building Activities – 5-, 15- & 30-Minute Games
Below is a list of the best indoor team building activities that are designed to get your team working together toward a common goal. If you’re looking for something short but sweet, check out our 5-minute indoor team building activities. If you have more time, check out our 15-minute and 30-minute team building activities.
5-minute Indoor Team Building Activities
There’s a lot you can do in just 5 minutes, and a team building activity is one of those things! Check out the five best 5-minute indoor team building activities.
1. Show and Tell
· Team type: Remote and in-person
· Duration: 5 minutes
· Equipment: None
Although this team building activity might take you back to elementary school, show and tell is a team building activity not to be frowned upon. It is a fantastic way to get your team members to connect a little better, and it pushes them outside their comfort zone. Pushing your team members outside their comfort zone by getting them to present in front of each other, will build their confidence, help them practice public speaking skills, and allow them to get to know their coworkers better.
How to play:
· Ask two members of your team to bring something in from home with a story behind it.
· Your two team members then present this object to the rest of the team and explain their story.
· Carry out this activity with two different team members every week until everyone has had the chance to present.
· To make this game suitable for virtual teams, follow the same format but the team members present their objects over a video call, as opposed to in person.
2. Office Pen Pal
· Team type: Remote and in-person
· Duration: 5 minutes
· Equipment: None
One of the biggest reasons employees are unmotivated or disengaged at work is because they can feel isolated. The Office Pen Pal indoor team building activity encourages team members to connect and feel less alone. On top of this, writing by hand has been found to improve our mood and reduce stress as it allows us to better express ourselves and note down our emotions.
How to play:
· Randomly assign everyone in the office a pen pal.
· Ask everyone to regularly handwrite letters to each other (you can set specific 5-minute time slots to do this). The letters can cover anything your team members, from workplace worries to what they are having for lunch.
· To make this suitable for virtual teams, you can ask your team members to email the letters to each other.
3. Paper Tower
· Team type: In-person teams
· Duration: 5 minutes
· Equipment: Sheets of paper
The paper tower team building activity is an excellent way to grow your team’s problem-solving skills and encourage teamwork. It allows each team member to showcase their creativity, capability, collaboration, and commitment to the team and to winning!
How to play:
· Split your team into groups of around 4 players.
· Give each team 20 sheets of paper.
· Teams then have 5 minutes to build the tallest tower they can out of the paper with no tape or glue.
· The team whose tower is the tallest (and stays up) at the end is crowned the winner.
4. Never Have I Ever
· Team type: Remote and in-person
- Duration: 5 minutes
· Equipment: Candy
As a fantastic conversation starter, this 5-minute indoor team building activity gets your team connecting on a much deeper level. They will get to share things about each other that their colleagues might not already know, which is bound to start some interesting conversations!
How to play:
· Team members must say “Never have I ever” and end the sentence with something they have never done. For example, “Never have I ever gone skydiving”.
· If anyone in the group has gone skydiving, they must say. Give this person a piece of candy and tell them not to eat it just yet!
· Go around the room so that every player has a chance to say their “Never Have I Ever” sentence.
· The player with the most candy at the end wins.
15-minute Indoor Team Building Activities
If you have slightly more time, here are the five best 15-minute corporate team building activities indoors.
1. Lucky Penny
· Team type: In-person
· Duration: 15 -20 minutes
· Equipment: Pennies (more pennies than participants) and a hat
The lucky penny team building activity is the perfect 15-minute activity to get your team members to share something interesting about themselves, without pushing them too far outside their comfort zone. As a result, it is perfect for teams that are newly formed and don’t know each other too well just yet.
How to play:
· Gather some pennies that were minted in various years and place them into a hat.
· Team members then reach into the hat and grab a penny.
· They must then share something meaningful that happened to them on the year that the coin was minted (if your team is comprised of young members, make sure you pick coins that were minted more recently!).
· Top tip: if your team members seem uncomfortable sharing personal information, you can switch it up so that they share a historical fact about something that happened that year instead.
2. Two Truths and a Lie
· Team type: Remote and in-person
· Duration: 15-minutes
· Equipment: None
Two Truths and a Lie is a fantastic way for your whole team, no matter how small or large it is, to get to know each other on a personal level. The team building activity encourages team members to open up and share personal information, which therefore creates trust within a team.
How to play:
· Either in a meeting room or on an online video call, go around the team and ask each player to say two truths and one lie about themselves. For example, “I was born in the U.K. (truth), I have a pet cat (truth) and I studied Law in College (lie)”.
· Team members must then vote on what they think is a lie and what they think is the truth.
3. Hello, My Name is…
· Team type: Remote and in-person
· Duration: 15-minutes
· Equipment: Post-it notes (if playing in-person)
This 15-minute indoor team building activity encourages your team members to act in front of each other, pushing them outside their comfort zone and creating a safe place for expression within the team. It also gets everyone laughing together, which builds rapport and camaraderie.
How to play:
· Write adjectives that describe a personality trait and/or mood on a post-it note.
· Put the adjectives into a hat and employees will then pull a post-it note out of the hat.
· Employees must then act out the mood or personality trait on the card and other employees must guess what they are acting out.
· If you’re doing this with a virtual team, you can send each team member an adjective to act out on a video call via chat.
4. Keep the Balloons Up
· Team type: In-person
· Duration: 15-minutes
· Equipment: Balloons
Keep the Balloons Up is a simple yet fun game to play in the office. It will introduce some friendly competition, elevate your team’s spirits, get them moving around, and enable them to work closely together towards a common goal.
How to play:
· Find a large indoor meeting room and split your employees into teams
· Blow up three times the number of balloons than there are members in each team, and make sure each team has its own color balloons.
· The team’s job is to make sure none of their colored balloons touch the floor. If any one of the balloons touches the floor, that team is out.
5. Minefield
· Team type: In-person
· Duration: 15-minutes
· Equipment: Blindfolds and various objects
As team members are required to be blindfolded and led around a room by their colleagues, this team building activity promotes trust, communication, and effective listening like no other.
How to play:
· Split your team into two’s and assign one player per pair to wear a blindfold.
· The blindfolded player is led around the room by their teammate who must ensure that they do not step on any objects.
· The leading player is only allowed to use verbal instructions, they cannot touch the blindfolded player at any point.
30-minute Team Building Activities (and Longer)
As team building is so important for boosting team morale, increasing productivity, and enhancing trust, it is important to put aside more time for these activities.
Below are the nine best 30-minute and over team building activities.
1. Trivia
· Team type: Both
· Duration: 30 minutes
· Equipment: List of questions
Trivia is a great way for employees to engage with each other, share their knowledge and learn something new. Suitable for either remote or in-person teams, Trivia is an excellent DIY indoor team building activity.
How to play:
· Split your team into two even groups.
· Create a list of questions you want to ask your team. These can either be general knowledge questions (e.g., “what is the capital of Finland?”), or they can be workplace-specific, for example, “what does B2B stand for?” if working with a sales team.
· Call out questions and the team that answers the question first wins a point. Play until you’ve gone over all your questions.
2. Team Feud
· Team type: In-person and remote teams
· Duration: 30-minutes
· Equipment: Questionnaires (filled out prior) and a bell
Like the popular TV show Family Feud, this activity will be incredibly entertaining! This indoor team building activity is perfect for getting a newly formed team that doesn’t know each other very well yet to work together and have fun.
How to play:
· Create a questionnaire that asks questions such as “what’s your favorite hot drink?”, “what’s your favorite alcoholic drink?” or “what’s your favorite animal?”.
· Get as many people as possible in the office to answer the question and tally up the five most popular answers.
· In a team meeting, divide your team into groups of 4 to 6 participants, set up a table with a bell in the middle, and explain that only one member from each team can press the bell at a time.
· Ask your team the survey questions and whoever rings the bell first must answer what they think the most common answer is.
· If they are right, they get a point. If not, the other teams can have a chance to ring the bell (competing against the other) and if they get it right, they can have half a point.
3. Memory Wall
· Team type: In-person
· Duration: 30-minutes
· Equipment: Paper and pens
A memory wall is an excellent team building activity for sparking creativity and allowing your team members to reminisce on some shared experiences. This trip down memory lane will spark conversations and promote community between team members.
How to play:
· Write work-related topics on a large piece of paper. This paper is meant to represent a wall. Some topic ideas: an employee’s first day at work, the funniest office moment, when the team landed a new client, or the implementation of a new system.
· Gather your team around and get them to write their favorite work-related memory on a piece of paper and stick it onto the wall next to the topic it corresponds best with.
· Select participants at random and ask them to share why they wrote that memory and why it resonates with them.
4. Scavenger Hunt
· Team type: Remote and in-person
· Duration: 30-minutes
· Equipment: List of objects
Whether you decide to play a scavenger hunt in person or over a computer, it is the perfect team building activity if you’re looking for a fast-paced, unique, and competitive way to engage a team. It combines friendly competition, socialization, and exercise, making it a great 30-minute team building activity.
How to play:
· Create a list of five objects that you want your team to collect. If you’re playing in the office, make these objects ones that can be found in the office (e.g., pens, paper, staplers). If you’re playing online and your team is remote, you can add in household objects.
· Tell your team what objects you would like them to collect and send them away with a 2-minute time limit to collect all objects.
· The first person to come back with all the correct items wins the round.
· Carry out as many rounds as you like, we recommend 3 to 4 rounds for the ultimate experience.
60+-minute Team Building Activities
1. Virtual Escape Rooms
· Team type: Remote teams
· Duration: 60+ minutes
· Equipment: Zoom
Hosted by industry experts, you can trust that these engaging online adventures will be both challenging and unforgettable. First, pick a virtual escape room theme, such as completing a prison break, exploring ocean depths, searching for gold, or pulling off a museum heist. Then the team races against the clock to find clues, solve puzzles, and complete their virtual escape room in time.
How to play:
· Book your virtual escape room with The Escape Game and set up a meeting.
· Use your custom Zoom link when it’s time for the event and where your team meets your Game Guide and host.
· With a go-pro attached to their head, the Game Guide serves as your team’s eyes, hands, and feet, in the escape room. All you have to do is tell them what to do! Your team will direct the Guide through the escape room to find clues and solve puzzles before the 60 minutes is up.
2. Mystery Games
· Team type: Remote and in-person
· Duration: 60+ minutes
· Equipment: Zoom or the game material (comes with your event)
Exciting, fast-paced, and engaging, online mystery games will get your team working together to uncover digital evidence and solve a devious crime. You can also play this adventure as an in-person event!
How to play:
· Your group will first split up into smaller teams of 8 players. They then work together to review surveillance footage, evidence, and mysterious clues to solve a crime.
· The first team to solve the case wins!
3. Online Game Show
· Team Type: Remote Team
- Duration: 60+ minutes
· Equipment: Zoom
Get your virtual team excited and engaged with five rounds of fast-paced fun. With plenty of online games to pick from, such as a puzzle game show or a holiday game show, your team can put their problem-solving and collaboration skills to the test. Watch as they work through various brain teasers and code-cracking problems having just as much fun as they would in a real-life TV show.
How to play:
– Fill out a contact form and plan your event with an expert team builder.
– Set a time to play the online game show with your whole team. Everyone will receive a Zoom link prior to the event!
– Led by an experienced host, your team will play through all the rounds trying to rack up points, earn badges, and beat the competition on the leaderboard.
4. Escape Room
· Team type: In-person teams
· Duration: 60+ minutes
· Equipment: None
As a social, immersive, and challenging experience, a live Escape Room is a fantastic way to get your team working together towards a common goal. Chose from a number of different escape room themes, such as a 1950s prison or deep space, and dive into a unique hands-on experience to fulfill everyone’s sense of adventure!
How to play:
- Contact The Escape Game and arrange a time for your team to go in.
- Pick an immersive escape room theme like being a Special Ops agent, breaking out of prison, or getting your rocket ship off of Mars.
- Follow clues, solve puzzles, and complete your mission in under 60 minutes!
5. Board Game Tournament
· Team type: In-person teams
· Duration: 60+ minutes
· Equipment: Board games
Although a slightly longer team building activity, a board game tournament is a great way to get your entire team having fun and participating in a bit of friendly competition.
How to play:
· Choose board games that move quickly and secure a large room to spread board games around the space.
· Participants can choose what board game they’d like to start on, or they can pull straws to decide.
· Once everyone has a board game, start round one. Whoever wins this round then makes it through to round two.
· Keep the rounds going until the final two players are competing against each other to be crowned the winner.
Final Thoughts
Indoor team building activities are great ways to enhance your team’s motivation, collaboration, engagement, and morale. They are fantastic team-building options because they can be played at any time, regardless of the weather.
If you’ve loved what you’ve read and you’re ready to take the next step to increase your team’s productivity and engagement, try a free round of our Online Game show – a perfect indoor team building activity for your team!