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29 Actually Good New Year’s Team-Building Activities for Work

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Nothing is as fulfilling as working at an organization that treats its employees as a family. Workers perform better when they work as a team. This is why it’s essential to engage in team-building activities. New Year’s team-building activities are critical because they set the tone for the rest of the year.

New Year’s Team-Building Activities

team-building activities create a collaborative culture within your organization. Workers who interact and can learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Thus, you can identify which workers to assign certain roles depending on the evaluation of the team-building activities. team-building activities at the start of a year can play a role in the success of your business.

 

Knowing your team members, especially those working virtually, helps them feel valued. team-building activities lead to greater inclusivity and organizational cohesiveness. New Year’s team-building activities help you celebrate the achievements made by the organization. This can act as a motivating factor to help workers become more productive in the next year.

 

Team-building activities can range from playing games to participating in dance fitness lessons together. The activities play a critical role in enhancing job satisfaction. Modern-day workers want to work for an organization that prioritizes their well-being. Team building at the beginning of the year will help improve work relationships.

 

Whether you are a small or large firm, team-building activities can help improve organizational performance and boost profit growth. Let’s look at some of the best New Year’s team-building activities.

New Year’s Eve Party Team-Building Activities

1. Murder Mystery Games

Bond with your coworkers by trying to solve a murder mystery. This simple game allows your team to work on their problem-solving and creative skills. The great thing about murder mystery games is that everyone can participate, even those working virtually.

2. Scavenger Hunt for Presents

Set up clues for your workers to lead them to presents or other items. Creating a scavenger hunt is easy and good for team building because it fosters collaboration and critical thinking.

3. Follow the Leader

This team-building exercise is all about emulating whatever the leader does. The game is simple and designates anyone to be a leader. Everyone else has to follow what the leader says. To make the game more interesting, make it an elimination process, where those who do not “follow the leader” get disqualified.

4. Snowball

Snowball is a team-building exercise where you ask participants to answer a common question on a piece of paper and then crumble it. Invite members to have a snowball fight. After the snowball, ask members to collect an answer and find out who wrote it. 

 

This is a perfect Team building exercise for organizations with few members who do not know each other well.

5. Guess the Celebrity

A celebrity party is a game designed to act as an interactive icebreaker or pass the time as workers get to know each other. The game works by asking members to give details of a celebrity to help determine their identity.

6. Egg Drop Challenge

Break your members into groups of two or three and challenge them to create a structure to prevent an egg from breaking when dropped from a certain height. The materials used for the structure should be available from the office. This exercise is great for bonding and problem-solving.

7. Team Music Game

A New Year’s Eve party often has music. You can create a team music game to make the party more fun. You can improvise various ways to play this game, such as breaking the group into teams and challenging them to sing a duet.

8. Board Games

Set up several board games for team members to play during the New Year’s Eve party. But make it more interesting by turning several board games into a tournament where two or three teams compete for prizes.

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New Year’s team-building activities help you celebrate the achievements made by the organization.

Competitive Team-Building activities

Sometimes the best kind of team-building activities are the ones that encourage competition. Your team members can get motivated to outdo each other by participating in the following New Year’s team-building activities.

9. Paintball

Divide your employees into different teams and engage in a paintball competition. The exercise is simple and encourages competitiveness, as there can only be one winner. Paintball competitions are great at the end of the year, but you can hold them 3 or 4 times each year as a Team building exercise.

10. Paper Plane Tournament

You can create a paper plane tournament where the employee who flies their paper plane the furthest wins. This is a simple exercise, and it does not require a team. It is also less time-consuming compared to other team-building activities.

11. Go-Karting

Set up go-kart races for your employees at the start of every year. Go-karts are easy to drive and perfect for your employees to interact and compete with each other.

12. Minefield

To engage in this exercise, break down your employees into small teams. The game is easy to play because it is about team members guiding a blindfolded group member through different obstacles to reach a certain point. The game enhances competition and cooperation among team members.

13. Trivia Games

Trivia games are often fun, but they can be highly competitive. For instance, create prizes for teams or employees who get the most answers right. 

 

Trivia games are easy to set up and can be easily modified to meet organizational needs. In addition, workers do not have to be physically present to participate.

people holding sparklers and champagne glasses

Team-Building Activities To Build Trust

If you have a relatively new workforce, then the best New Year’s team-building activities are those that build trust.

14. Skribbl

A game where one person draws something, and another tries to guess what it is. The game is simple and helps build trust by promoting non-verbal communication between members.

15. Coat of Arms

This activity consists of members drawing a personal representation of what they believe to be their coat of arms. After the drawing, the members give a colleague the duty of interpreting the coat of arms. 

This is a great New Year’s Team building activity because it strengthens already-established bonds and helps people get to know each other better.

16. Back-to-Back Painting

This activity is usually done by two people sitting back-to-back. One person describes a shape or object, and the other individual paints it to the best of their ability. Participants get to trust each other as they collaborate.

17. Team Jigsaw Puzzles

Complete a jigsaw puzzle, but with the difficulty of mixing puzzle pieces and putting them in different teams. Thus, teams have to work together to solve the puzzle. Forcing employees to work together even in opposing teams helps them trust each other.

18. The Sneak a Peek Game

Group your employees into different teams and challenge them to build a structure they can see for a limited time. Each member gets to sneak a peek at what they should build. You can make this game more fun by offering prizes. But the objective of this exercise is to promote teamwork.

19. Tied Together

An easy exercise where employees get tied together; and have to complete a series of tasks. The tasks ought to play to each individual’s strengths, so they must rely on each other to complete them. 

For instance, you can ask the team to build a Lego structure. You can tie the employees together at the wrists or ankles.

Fun New Year’s Team-Building Activities

Not all team-building activities have to come with a specific goal. Some are good because they are fun and bring people closer together.

20. Karaoke

Hire a karaoke machine and let employees take a chance singing along to their favorite songs. Karaoke is an excellent Team building exercise because it helps team members learn more about each other. It is also a fun exercise that helps employees feel more comfortable with each other.

21. Improv

Prepare some scenes on post-it notes and have your members memorize them. Then ask them to act out what was in the notes non-verbally. Try to make the scenarios and actions as fun as possible and encourage members to have fun.

22. Portrait Games

Encourage team members to become more creative by dividing them into two groups and daring them to make portraits of each other. Group A should create portraits of members of group B within 1 to 2 minutes.

Each member of the group making the portraits should participate. Thus, they will have to draw quickly and pass on the portrait to the next person until time runs out.

23. Two Truths and a Lie

Employees can reveal three details about themselves as a new year’s Team building exercise. The details have to include one lie, and the challenge to other team members is to determine what details are true.

fireworks exploding in the night sky

Virtual Team-Building Activities

Many organizations have workers in different branches in various parts of the world. Such organizations also need activities they can use to forge greater collaboration and teamwork among their workers. 

24. Photo Slideshow

Have employees create a slideshow of all the activities they did during the year. You can collect the slideshow before the New Year’s party and present it when everyone is online. This Team building exercise helps members share what they are most proud of and get to know each other better.

25. Never Have I Ever

Considered a popular game for informal party settings, you can play this game virtually with all employees. The topics under discussion should center on work activities or specific personal life experiences from the year.

26. Online Games

You can have a live gaming session with all your employees if it is impossible to meet up physically. Many online games now have multiplayer options. 

 

Thus, employees can divide themselves into different groups and play. Some popular games you can play are Alice in Wonderland and War of the Wizards.

27. Team Building Bingo

Provide each member with a Bingo card or template with a list of statements or action plans. The person moderating the game will pick out various actions, and the person with the mentioned item on their card crosses it out. It is similar to real Bingo, and the team bonding experience is the same.

28. Werewolf

You can play Werewolf with members of the workforce virtually. Assign each member a role privately and have a moderator or game master begin the activity. The game is easy to play virtually and enhances critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

29. Virtual Dance Party

Easily one of the more fun New Year’s team-building activities your employees can engage in. a virtual dance-off or party helps your workers feel more comfortable with each other. 

 

Those who are shy to dance in the presence of other people can upload a one-minute dance video to the platform. The goal is to ensure everyone gets a chance to dance and show off their moves.

Start Your Year With Team Building

New Year’s parties and events allow employees to interact and celebrate the year’s achievements. Engaging in New Year’s team-building activities provide you with an opportunity to help workers get to know each other better, especially if you have brought new employees on board.

 

You can participate in several Team building exercises, whether you are in person or through Zoom. We hope you get inspired to do something fun this coming New Year’s Eve party.

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