5 Minute Team-Building Activities for Engagement & Recognition

“How long is this going to take?” Unless you have something really fun ($$$) planned, some employees inevitably feel like team-building cuts into time they need for other tasks. This hurts participation and engagement as much as it does strong team development.

Then leadership and HR have to deal with their own constraints. Team-building needs to be a consistent effort, but there’s only so much time and budget we can dedicate. 

If you’re truly passionate about seeing the results of team-building, none of this should be an issue. Effective team-building takes mere minutes and costs next to nothing. Today, HeyTaco is sharing 5 minute team building activities for the workplace, indoors and never cutting into anyone’s coffee break. 

When to add 5-minute team-building activities

Do you just pull these out at random? It’ll seem like it. In reality, you’ll work them regularly and intentionally into a few of these brief time slots. 

As part of your regular meetings

Open and/or close weekly meetings with some ideas we’re sharing today. Opening with a fun activity is a good way to loosen everyone up while closing with thoughtful questions or special recognition caps things off in a positive manner.

When there’s a new team member

Introducing someone new is one of the best times to break out fun getting-to-know-you-questions as well as activities that best reflect your company culture. It will help fresh talent settle in faster and make it clear from the jump that recognition and team participation are part of the environment.

Before or after lunch

Transition from one phase of the day to another with quick team-building checkups. Doing communication activities beforehand can encourage employees to maintain camaraderie and rapport-building throughout lunch. 

A quick brain teaser afterward can put everyone back into work mode.

As a break from the grind 

It’s going to be a long afternoon. Help everyone get through it together by using team-building activities to break up arduous tasks and grueling sessions. Just five minutes can help reignite creativity and motivation. 

To start retreats and workshops

Kick off company retreats, workshops, conventions, and other off-site engagements with a quick team-building exercise. It gets everyone in the team spirit, helping everyone represent the organization in the most positive light. 

When things slow down

Many of the 5-minute team-building activities we’re sharing today can serve as a reset when productivity gets sluggish or the mood drops. They’re also a useful way to fill any gaps in the workday. 

Waiting to get the go-ahead to proceed to the next step? Do some team-building. Big task took way less time to complete than anticipated? Team building time.

Before sharing something important

If you have big news, not-so-great news, or a complex concept to break down, preface it with a short team-building exercise. Taking a beat to do something lighthearted or reinforce everyone’s sense of community makes everything easier to get through.

13 easy, effective 5-minute team-building activities

A few of these may require some prep or supply-gathering beforehand. That includes employee familiarity with how to carry out the activity. But assuming everyone’s on the same page, it takes just a few minutes for engagement and workplace happiness to rise. 

1. In so many words

If everyone’s inboxes are stuffed with meandering explanations or the point keeps getting lost, try an exercise that fosters clear, concise communication. 

“In so many words” asks the team to spend a few minutes writing down a set of instructions for something, such as making a taco dinner. Then have them edit it to be shorter by half, highlighting the importance of brevity. Ask what is truly missing without the extra words.

2. Human bingo

Acknowledge team members or get to know them better with a game of human bingo. A human bingo card will have a series of team members’ attributes. Players mark off the relevant boxes as everyone’s names are called. The first one to get bingo wins.

3. Would you rather?

A work-related “would you rather” session can highlight individual preferences and reveal shared struggles or opinions. “Would you rather use Slack or Microsoft for the team chat?” “Would you rather work four 10-hour workdays or five eight-hour days?” 

4. Icebreakers

Sharing strengthens teams. What better way to get someone to open up than an interesting question? 

For team-building, questions such as “If you had to make one coworker CEO, who would it be?” can spark an interesting convo. If you don’t like that one, we have 40 more icebreaker questions for you.

5. Spot the difference

A desk askew, a picture moved to another wall. A new rug, or a potted plant moved to a different window. Make slight changes to a common area and give the team just five minutes to identify all of them. The most observant team member can give the others hints to draw it out.

6. Create a personal shield

Recognizing oneself is underrated in workplace culture. The personal shield gives everyone a chance to do just that. Each team member gets a sheet of paper with a shield or coat of arms divided into four sections. They have a few minutes to add their four best qualities to it, boosting confidence and talking up their strengths to others. 

7. Telephone

This middle school throwback is still a strong activity for teams working on communication. Take a complex phrase and whisper it to one team member. Everyone goes down the line, relaying the message as they understand it. Compare this to the original message and have them discuss where it changed and why.

8. Check-in questions

Check-in questions are a great exercise for engagement, but also a means of providing support. For example, a team asking one another what the most important part of their role is–and what it takes to accomplish that–is a way to appreciate their effort. 

See our post with 50 check-in questions for more inspiration.

9. Emoji decoder

🌽 🥬 🥩🍅 🧀 🌶️ 🥑

Create codes or puzzles out of emojis and have the team solve them. If they do it super-fast, challenge the winner to come up with their own. All of the emojis above are the raw ingredients for a taco. You can make these as literal or vague as you like. For instance, this would be salsa: 💃

10. Show and tell

It takes no more than five minutes to learn something cool about a teammate or hear them out as they explain their hobbies, experiences, or collections. A weekly show and tell can cap off team meetings by getting to know someone a little better and showing interest in what they love. 

11. The one-word story

Get teams used to this one, and they can create some wild tales in five minutes flat. A team member starts with a single word. Teammates take turns building onto it with one word of their own. The key is to go quickly and not overthink the word choice.

12. Birth map

This is one of the best (and simplest) 5-minute team-building exercises for virtual teams. Have everyone add a dot or pin to the location where they were born to a world map. Larger or far-flung teams can better visualize and appreciate their global community, strengthening virtual bonds.

13. Taco shower

This one works for remote teams too, but we recommend everyone give it a shot. Dedicate five minutes for gratitude in the team chat. As everyone gives thanks to those who did their best and why, their teammates can shower them with virtual tacos of recognition. 

This is a team-building ritual Australian tech company Liven has seen a lot of success with. Every two weeks, they host Taco Love in their Slack chat. They present their projects as their teammates take turns dropping 🌮’s to recognize their impact.

HeyTaco is for teams

Small habits build into impactful rituals that define our experience in the workplace. Anything from quick questions to virtual tacos becomes part of everyday team interactions, imbuing our roles with positivity and recognition.

In the time it took to read this blog, you could have carried out a team-building exercise. So what are you waiting for? Get a month of HeyTaco on us, and you have 5 minute team building activities on deck.