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Icebreakers are the perfect way to bring everyone together during the work week, and icebreaker activities for the office can help drive cross-team communication. We have gathered 10 icebreaker activities for large groups of co-workers, and we will break them down for you in this short guide.
Icebreakers in the workplace help create a more productive work environment where co-workers feel comfortable sharing ideas and contributing to the team. To boost cross-team communication, you should consider organizing quick icebreaker activities for your team. If you can put aside time to launch icebreaker activities, these will pay dividends in the long run.
Workplace communication statistics show that 86% of employees cite the lack of effective communication and collaboration as the leading causes for workplace failures. Teams with good cross-team communication may increase their productivity by as much as 25%. Investing time into team building and icebreaker activities is an effective strategy to boost team productivity.
Water Cooler Trivia is now the must-have platform for fun among organizations attempting to boost cross-team communication. The quizzes, hand-written by trivia pros, can be delivered to your inbox or Slack channel weekly. Team leaders can customize the quiz length, difficulty, and categories. Much of the solution is automated - making this a no-brainer for team leaders short on time.
With the support of Water Cooler Trivia, launching a trivia quiz doesn’t have to come with a time or logistics commitment. The platform takes care of the heavy lifting, including the time-intensive process of searching for genuinely engaging trivia. If you’re trying to build team culture and improve cross-team communication, Water Cooler Trivia will get your team talking.
Pass The Buck encourages team members to share insightful information about themselves. Ask participants to take a $1 bill out of their pocket. In pairs, each person can share one piece of valuable information. If the listener feels the speaker provided value, they give them their $1 bill. If they don’t, they can keep the money or request further information until they feel it is of value.
As part of a speech to employees, you must decide on two words or phrases that you would like team members to walk away remembering. Team members can participate in your speech by shouting out specific terms when pointing with either your left or right hand. If these words are yes or no, you could ask the audience icebreaker questions throughout the speech.
The goal of this icebreaker is to help employees feel more connected with their co-workers through commonalities. You can break the team into small groups and instruct each group to find 10 things in common. These commonalities should not be work-related. Once each group has found 10 commonalities, you can share these with the team as a whole.
A scavenger hunt is an effective way to introduce new team members into the workplace and get everyone talking to each other. You should break the team into small groups and give each group a list of items to find in the office. Set a timer for 10 minutes and instruct the groups to find as many objects on the list as possible. The more obscurely hidden they are, the better.
How long can groups of co-workers keep balloons in the air? You should start by giving each group of co-workers an inflated balloon. One person in each group must act as a timekeeper. Each group has 3 minutes to try and keep their balloon in the air for as long as possible. The twist? You cannot allow team members to make contact with the balloons in any way.
The Line Up Game leans into the importance and value of having a team with diverse qualities. Instruct your team to form an orderly line based on a specific quality, such as their birthdays. In this example, those born in January would be furthest to the left, and those born in December would be furthest to the right. Once complete, they can call out their birthdays from left to right. For a challenge, disallow participants from verbally speaking while lining up.
This icebreaker has the potential to unearth intriguing and usual facts about team members. Each participant must hold up a certain number of fingers. In turn, each participant must state one activity that they have never done. If the participant has done the activity, they must put a finger down. The first person on the team to run out of fingers wins the icebreaker.
Most Likely To is a simple icebreaker for large groups, where team members decide who is most likely to do certain activities. Before the game, the leader should build a list of activities. You can kick off the icebreaker by gathering everyone into a circle and reading out the first activity on your list. Each participant can vote on who is most likely to complete that activity.
The Neverending Story is an excellent icebreaker to get your team’s creative juices flowing on a Monday morning. To begin, you can start telling the first sentence of a story. You can then pass the story around the team and ask each person to elaborate on what the previous person has said. With plenty of minds contributing to the story, you can end up with a rich and complex plot.
Water Cooler Trivia is well-positioned to help leaders boost cross-team communication. The platform comes with all you need to energize your team and spark lighthearted conversations. With the ability to customize the quiz difficulty and length, you can design trivia quizzes that appeal directly to the interests of your team members.
Last but not least, Water Cooler Trivia offers a free four-week trial. Get started with a four-week trial of Water Cooler Trivia today!
