Are you on an offsite trip with your team which seems dull and you see nothing but droopy shoulders around you? Sounds like it’s time to organize some offsite games for your team.

Offsite games are a great way to allow your team to have some fun on field trips or meetings while also facilitating team bonding and professional development activities. But how do you find great ideas for offsite games? Sure, you could google some team bonding activities for starters but that’s not enough to spark the real excitement.

So, here is a list of really exciting, fun, team bonding and professional development games to liven up your offsite trip:

1. Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts are loved by most of the people. They are very easy to plan and are inexpensive when you consider how much fun you get out of a generally light investment.

To play scavenger hunt, divide your team into equal-sized groups, and send them out with a list of items to locate and bring back. It can be inside a building or around a particular area outside your building. The ultimate goal is to get back first with the most items. You may want to set a time limit so that all groups are back in a reasonable time, whether they found all items or not. A scavenger hunt can be themed and might involve a variety of clues or other twists that force a team to get creative and work together.

Purpose: A scavenger hunt is a fun activity that forces people to work together as a team. It spurs creativity, particularly if clues or riddles are involved.

2. What’s my name?

You might have seen this game played before. It goes by different names, and the more people who play, the better it is.

What’s My Name is an activity where each player is assigned the name of a person – dead or alive. Then that name is displayed on their back, in such a way that only the other players can read the name. You can write these names on index cards or post-it notes. Once everyone has been assigned a name, the players mingle with one another, treating their coworkers the way they’d treat the person listed on that coworker’s card. They can also ask questions about their own hidden identity until they correctly guess who they are.

Purpose: “What’s My Name” doesn’t have complicated rules, nor does it make things too competitive. It’s simply a fun, empathy-building game – a critical ingredient of good company culture.

3. Cook-off

This is a culinary team-building activity that could end in dessert or disaster – in a fun way. Creating new dishes together requires creativity and will require everyone to put their team and leadership skills into action. Divide your team into smaller teams, pick a food category, and challenge each team to whip up something delicious. The category could be anything from ice cream, to salsa, to pizza.

You can add a fun twist to this game. Pick a single ingredient that all teams must use, like maple syrup or Oreos. Or, have each team get creative with the shape of its food – you can make pizzas into almost any shape.

Purpose: Delicious food is that one thing that works wonders in bonding everyone and eases the employee’s tension about meetings and conferences. So, this game works as the best team bonding activity as a group of people come together and use their creative ideas to craft a delicious dish and serve it to their coworkers.

4. Sneak Peek

Sneak a peek is like adding a test of memory to a game of Pictionary. In this game, people break off into groups of at least four and take turns recreating objects from memory.

Using LEGOs, clay, building blocks, or a similar set of construction items, one game leader will craft an object or structure for every group to recreate. A member of each group then has 10 seconds to “sneak a peek” at the structure (which is concealed from view), return to their groups, and describe what they saw to their group members so they can recreate it.

Each group has their own LEGOs, clay, or building blocks. If after a minute of recreating the structure, it isn’t complete, another member of each group sneaks a 10-second peek at the game leader’s object and comes back to further construct it. This rotation continues until a group is confident they have recreated the item. The winner of the game will be the first group to recreate it.

Purpose: Not only does this game help employees practice project management, but it shows you how to accomplish tasks using input from a variety of sources. It’s also just a fun way to see how good your workers are at retaining information.

5. Karaoke Nights

What better way to get your employees to break out of their shells than to have them get up and sing some karaoke? You can even have a contest for best group karaoke performance. This works best for a more extroverted group. So if your team isn’t open to being on stage and singing, consider an idea on this list that caters more toward those personalities.

Purpose: This exercise creates a fun environment at your offsite and allows your employees to show off their singing skills to their colleagues.

6. The “suddenly” story

If you’ve ever told stories around a campfire, you might have told a variation of the “Suddenly” Story. With this activity, you are not just telling a story– you are building a story together using the (often hilarious) imagination of your co-workers.

To tell the “Suddenly” Story, gather your team in a circle, and offer the opening three sentences of a story about anything. At the end of the three sentences, say “Suddenly …” and pass the story onto the person next to you. It’s their job now to take your three sentences and build on the story with another three sentences, followed by “Suddenly …”. Each mention of “Suddenly” allows the story to take a turn. What that turn looks like is up to the next person in the circle. The “Suddenly” Story helps people find ways of building on content that came before them, while also being creative when all ears are on them. Try it the next time you take your team for an offsite meeting and you’re sure to get everyone laughing.

Purpose: This activity tends to create a lot of laughter. And, it allows people to take an existing piece of the story and build over it using their creativity.

7. Catch Phrase

In this classic game, players team up and take turns describing words and phrases to their teammates without saying the word or phrase itself. Phrases can include celebrities, expressions, or just simple things found around the house. If my phrase is “needle in a haystack,” for example, a clue I might give to my teammates could be “a pointy object buried inside farm equipment.”

Purpose: Catch Phrase is the perfect way to get your employees together and teach them how to better understand and communicate with one another.

8. Volunteer

Giving time to support a good cause isn’t just good for the soul; it’s also a great way for your team members to bond. You can have your team participate in volunteering activities nearby like volunteering at a local soup kitchen, helping build a Habitat for Humanity house, or delivering gifts to children’s hospitals during the holidays.

Skill-based volunteering is also a cool way to stretch your employees’ expertise: It’s when your team volunteers its time and uses its professional skills – anything from marketing to app development to writing – to help a nonprofit.

Purpose: This activity is not only soul-fulfilling but also encourages each one of your employees to contribute their part to a noble cause in their own unique way.

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