Indoor Team Building Activities: 12 Ideas For Your Workplace

It goes without saying that indoor team building activities have the potential to boost trust and team morale.

 

They also help employees improve their communication, collaboration, leadership, creativity and problem-solving skills!

 

According to recent research analysed by HR World, 75% of employees want more team building events with their colleagues.

 

Some of the most popular team building activities in the UK are outdoor ones, such as paintball, karting, rafting and so on.

 

But there are some key advantages to indoor ones. They are not weather or light dependent, so you can do them all year round and they tend to be much cheaper too – venue hire fees for outdoor activities can really add up.

 

All of the activities in the list below are easy to organise in your very own workplace, rather than indoor activities at an external location, such as an escape room. Instead of an escape room, why not host your own scavenger hunt?

 

Before you set a date for your staff to try out these team building challenges, just make sure you have things covered from a commercial cleaning perspective first.

 

Some of these activities may (temporarily) make a bit of a mess and it’s crucial to prioritise hygiene, health and safety for your employees!

 

#1 Logic puzzles

 

Let’s start with a quick and easy idea that may not be the most adrenaline-pumping activity on this list, but it is a great way to get your colleagues working together as a team!

 

Logic puzzles are easy to find online – they’ll give your staff a problem to solve, requiring them to bounce ideas off each other and come up with a plausible solution.

 

#2 Team quizzes

 

Bring out their competitive side and have some fun with a staff quiz. Put a small prize up for grabs and they’re sure to take it seriously!

 

Again it’s easy to find a bunch of trivia questions online, or you could tailor them to your company – e.g. closest answer wins, how many clients did your business have in 2023?

 

#3 Buffet lunch

 

Ask your employees to forego their lunch al desko for one day and lay on a finger food buffet for them instead.

 

Find a large area and spread the food and drinks across tables along the edges of the room, encouraging staff to move around rather than forming a long queue.

 

You could make it a more structured lunch by tasking employees with talking to someone they don’t usually work with, giving them a list of pre-prepared questions to ask each other.

 

Just make a plan in advance for any leftover food, saving as much of it as possible and making sure you maintain a clean office space for your employees after lunch is over.

 

#4 Scavenger hunt

 

If you want to get people moving about and boost their energy levels, a scavenger hunt is a great way to do this.

 

Hide some items around your workplace, divide your staff into teams, then give them a list of clues to work out within a strict time limit.

 

With hard enough clues this activity involves plenty of collaboration and also replicates working under pressure, but in a fun way!

 

#5 Jigsaw puzzle race

 

Prefer to stay in one spot? Divide your employees into teams, give them a blank desk to share and a jigsaw puzzle to solve.

 

Nothing too big – just 100 or 200 pieces, not 1000 or it will take hours! Give them a time limit or offer a prize for the team that finishes first.

 

The winning team will likely be the one that works out how to be the most efficient at finding the right pieces and putting them together, giving each employee a task or puzzle section.

 

#6 Crazy eights

 

Here’s an activity that gets the energy levels up even though everyone’s staying still – crazy eights.

 

Your teams sit or stand in circles, with the first person throwing a beanbag to someone else, that person doing the same and so on, but the beanbag cannot go to any person twice.

 

When everyone has had a turn, they work together to keep track of the order in which people received the beanbag. Each team repeats their pattern and sees how fast they can do it – with perhaps a prize for the fastest successful repetition.

 

#7 Marshmallow spaghetti towers

 

Another fun indoor challenge involving plenty of teamwork involves packets of marshmallows and dry spaghetti. A different variation of this activity also involves tape and string.

 

Which team can build the tallest tower within the time limit only using these few items? There are right and wrong ways to do it, so it’s a good test of teamwork and problem solving skills.

 

For this game, we recommend putting down some old sheets first as it’s easy to end up with small bits of dried spaghetti lying all over the floor. After a while, a dirty workplace can cause discontent – here’s how to improve staff morale with a clean space. 

 

Icebreaker games

 

A key part of indoor team building activities is getting to know each other better – games with an icebreaker element are great for that. Some common ones include:

 

• #8: Two truths and a lie – Staff take turns sharing three statements about themselves, two true and one false. Others must guess which statement is the lie. This icebreaker encourages interaction, humor, and reveals surprising facts about colleagues.
• #9: One-minute interviews – Employees pair up for brief interviews, asking and answering questions within a minute. Ideal for team-building, it makes quick connections and introduces colleagues in a fun, efficient manner.
• #10: Fast fives – Ask staff to introduce themselves with five facts! This game promotes networking, breaks the ice and encourages people to learn more about their coworkers in a fun and interactive way.
• #11: 20 questions – One team member is given the name of an employee they know on a piece of card and the others can ask up to 20 questions to work out who it is. Alternatively, you can ask everyone 20 interesting questions about themselves and they stand up if the answer is yes.
• #12: Human bingo – Staff receive bingo cards with unique traits or experiences. To fill their cards, they interact with colleagues to find individuals who match each description.

 

These games help people feel more comfortable around each other, quickly!

 

Final thoughts: Indoor team building activities for your workplace

 

Hopefully this list has given you some inspiration for designing a set of team building games indoors that will have several benefits for your staff.

 

Incorporating your team building ideas into a broader work party? We have some more ideas for you in our guide on work Christmas party ideas for your office.

 

If you’re running the activities in your workplace, you’ll want the space to look professionally clean and tidy.

 

These days with more and more hybrid working arrangements, some of your staff may not have visited the workplace in a while – now’s the time to make a great impression.

 

Whether you need daily office cleaning, communal areas cleaning or something else… We are dedicated to delivering exceptional commercial cleaning.

 

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the Think FM team with any queries or for more information.

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