Have you often wondered how to make a strong and collaborative team in your workplace? Among the various techniques, perhaps the most effective is through ice breaking sessions with your team. These include some fun games and activities with your team to increase employee engagement and motivation.
Ice breaker games enable your team to know each other in a better way and make them comfortable to work in the team. In this blog, we will discuss the benefits of ice breaking sessions with popular ice breaker games that your team will definitely like and enjoy.
Role of ice breaking sessions for teamwork:
Ice breaking sessions are simple and fun activities that help the team members to interact and know each other well. They also make your employees more relaxed, easy, and stress-free. The benefits of icebreakers are that employees feel more comfortable to work in groups.
The organization generally arranges various light-hearted and fun-filled ice-breaking sessions at the onset of a meeting or project or even during the onboarding session. These games help in trust-building among the members because they come to know one another even better. Let us see how ice breaking activities help to build stronger teams.
- It acts as trust-building among the members. When each member knows others well, they can trust each other and work feeling more comfortable and relaxed.
- These engaging sessions help in better team communication. When people get involved in openly talking to each other easefully, they can communicate and express their thoughts and ideas more effectively.
- Icebreakers promote team bonding and healthy relationships. The employees come to know about each others’ interests, hobbies and personalities. This creates a cooperative and collaborative workplace.
- Such fun games increase workplace productivity. When the employees share their ideas freely, they can contribute towards a more innovative and productive workplace.
- Simple fun activities improve team motivation. When you start a meeting or a project with playful games, the members feel energetic and motivated. They are more focused and active at their work.
Fun icebreaker games for the team:
Icebreaker games are fantastic for employee engagement in the workplace. Such games enhance the level of engagement before meeting sessions. Ice-breaking sessions are also great ways to refresh the employees' minds. You can in fact have some icebreaker games with your new hires to make them comfortable with your work culture. Include them as a part of your staff’s onboarding to welcome them to your company. These are some of the fun icebreaker games that you can do for your employees to stay positive and motivated.
- Team jigsaw :
This game requires the players to be active and energetic. It also requires some preparations and a considerable amount of time. In this game, some teams are made and each team has to solve a puzzle in the least amount of time. Some of the puzzle pieces are easier to find whereas some of them are kept in the wrong boxes. All the members of each team work together to complete the puzzle as quickly as possible. The team that finishes first is the winner.
Why to play: To prepare employees for great teamwork.
Who benefits: The project managers who get introduced to their team before the work begins.
- Charades :
Charades is a brilliant game to build confidence within the team. It also helps to overcome hesitation. Divide your employees into smaller teams. Give some nouns to each team and one member from every team will act as the given noun. The other members will guess what the nouns actually are. The team who guesses the maximum number of nouns correctly is the winner. The members initially feel shy to act but gradually they can perform as the noun confidently.
Why to play: To build members for excellent team players.
Who benefits: Employees who already know one another perfectly but don't always work together.
- Two truths one lie :
This is a very popular icebreaker game. You will get some idea about it from the very name of the game. In this game, all the employees have to tell two truths and one lie about themselves. All the staff have to guess the lies of their colleagues. The game is very interesting as it has a lot of suspense.
Why to play: To find out how well your workforce knows each other.
Who benefits: The remote workers in building stronger connections with the company and staff.
- Baby photo guessing:
This game is suitable for a workforce having fewer employees. All the staff will present a childhood photo of them on the screen. The man who guesses correctly the most is the winner.
Why to play: A funny and light game to refresh your employees.
Who benefits: Remote workers, bringing them closer to each other.
- Would - you - rather? :
Would- you - rather is an interesting icebreaker game for your team? This game is best for online meet-ups where members can vote on the screen or chat box. You will present the questions in the form of polls. These are some of the examples of “would you rather” question patterns:
- Would you rather go to a movie or go shopping during the holidays?
- Would you rather join the gym or yoga class for your health?
- Would you rather go for upskilling your technical skills or soft skills?
Why to play: To know what benefits your employees want from you.
Who benefits: All employees.
- Bowl of questions :
Bowl of questions is a good ice breaker game to engage your team in a healthy environment. Keep a bowl with small pieces of folded paper. Write down a question on each piece of paper. Remember to keep the questions light-hearted and amusing. Ask each of your members to answer in detail the questions.
You can include questions like:
- When did you tell a lie to save your friend from the teacher's beating?
- What food do you like to taste that you have never had?
- What is the most expensive gift on your last birthday?
You can take the help of template questions online or prepare your own.
Why to play: It helps your team to get motivated and focused in their work.
Who benefits: It acts as ice breaking before a meeting session for employees in small groups.
- “ No smile” challenge :
This is one of the interesting activities that employees like. Though the very name suggests “ no smile”, the game always ends up with great laughter. What you have to do is tell everyone not to laugh for a specific period, say for 5 minutes. Believe me, only some of your members can suppress their giggling while others will burst out in laughter.
Why to play: To set a tone of lightheartedness in the team.
Who benefits: Mostly the new hires. It makes them comfortable in the new environment.
Guide to effective icebreaker sessions:
It is now clear that icebreaker sessions will increase your team’s creativity, productivity, engagement, and happiness. But you should remember a few tips to make it successful as well as interesting to your members.
- Keep it entertaining and light :
Remember that one of the motives of such ice breaking sessions is to provide some relief and relaxation to your staff from their busy working hours. Therefore stressful and serious activities will not work for them. The icebreakers should be light-hearted and sometimes suspenseful so that they arouse interest among the team members.
- Focus on inclusivity :
The icebreaker sessions should be meant for all employees. Go for activities that all members can enjoy and equally benefit from them. Make sure that all the members participate in them. If your team consists of more members, ensure that the persons who didn't get a chance to play the game will surely participate in the upcoming session.
- According to your team’s interest:
Set the games according to your team’s interests and preferences. Know your team’s interests, behavior, and personality and arrange those games that they will find enjoyable. Some people opt for quiet games while others prefer active and energetic activities.
- Simple and short :
The ice breaking activities should be simple and short. Generally the duration of the activities is for 15-20 minutes. This is enough to relax and sets the tone for work. If the time limit exceeds more than that, members will feel bored.
Including the icebreakers will act as a powerful tool to build a positive and motivated workplace. Employees will be more focused and energetic toward their tasks. Regularly incorporating the ice breaking activities after a certain duration will create a strong and collaborative team. Next time when you meet your team members, just try out these simple and playful ice breaking games and see the differences they create.
Do share with us your personal opinion of ice breaking sessions that you thought of adopting for your team.
