10 Best Team Building Activities For Interns & New Hires

10 Best Team Building Activities for Interns and New Hires

Team-building activities designed to build trust and boost morale can help your interns and new hires feel welcome — and there's nothing like some healthy competition and friendly rivalries to break the ice and spark creativity.

At Feet First Eventertainment, we offer a range of one-of-a-kind team-building activities that bring employees together (even those shy newbies). Here are our top picks for interns and new hires:

1. Amazing Race

Ready to send your new hires racing through city streets like they're competing for a million bucks? The Amazing Race drops teams into a two-hour adventure where they'll decipher puzzles, track down locations on their map and tackle challenges that test both mental and physical skills.

We'll equip each team with a video camera to capture all the shenanigans — and trust us, you'll want the footage. Teams will complete video tasks like:

Reenacting famous movie scenes: Whether it's “Titanic” or “The Godfather”, teams bring Hollywood drama to the streets.
Busting out hilarious dance moves: Choreography optional, embarrassment guaranteed.
Staging a zombie apocalypse: Nothing says team bonding like pretending the undead have taken over downtown.

Along the way, they'll encounter actors stationed around the area who throw additional challenges their way. When time's up, everyone reconvenes at a restaurant to watch the videos, tally scores and crown the winners. It's chaos, cameras and competition, creating the perfect recipe for new hires to bond.

amazing race corporate team building group outside jumpin

2. Survivor Games

Do you think your interns can outwit, outplay and outlast the competition? Survivor Games puts that theory to the test with 1.5 to 2 hours of challenges designed by actual consultants for the “Survivor” TV show — yes, that's us. But don't let the name scare anyone off. We won't vote anyone off the island, you don't have to eat any bugs and you definitely don't need to be athletic to crush it.

Teams tackle hilarious challenges that test both brains and coordination:

Rubber Chicken Slingshot: Launch rubber chickens over 100 feet using giant three-person slingshots aimed at a massive bullseye.
Human Bobsleds: Form human bobsleds while racking up steps on pedometers. It's teamwork meets cardio.
Muscle Build Dance-Off: Go head-to-head in a dance competition wearing giant onesies stuffed with balloons.
Giant Words With Friends: Test your vocabulary with an oversized version of everyone's favorite word game.

Mix in some optional dodgeball or Wiffle Ball Home Run Derby, and you've got the perfect blend of mental and physical fun that ends with a super-fun awards ceremony.

3. Project Funway

Runway, but make it fun. Looking for an all-hands-on-deck activity for the whole team? Project Funway has you covered. This two-hour creative showdown starts when we give each employee or team their “inspiration” to work from. Once they've formed an idea, the magic begins.

Teams begin by sketching their designs before going head-to-head in a high-energy auction to earn supplies (like coffee filters, scrap fabric, etc.) that bring their vision to life. After nominating a team member to model the finished high-fashion look on The Runway, participants cast ballots for Best Garment and Best Model. Winners take a victory strut down the catwalk to showcase their team's talent!

4. American (or Your Company!) Idol

Lights, Camera, Action! In American (or Your Company!) Idol, we place participants into groups and set them up to give the performance of a lifetime by assigning each a well-known song. It's up to them whether they want to keep it classic with the regular version or flex their range with the karaoke option.

Either way, they've got to rehearse and choreograph a winning performance (complete with props and costumes) to perform in front of our “celebrity” judges. Each team can expect humorous feedback, but only one can be crowned the next American (or Your Company!) Idol!

5. Michael-CAN-gelo

What's better than boosting team spirits? How about building famous landmarks that help you give back to the community while also strengthening morale? Michael-CAN-gelo is ideal for bringing new interns together. Perfect for small or large groups, this exercise helps new hires get acquainted with colleagues and improve connections.

Teams have two hours to recreate a famous statue, building or landmark using hundreds of cans of food. We'll also give them the option to win extra building supplies through fun challenges. Once all the structures are built, we'll snap some pictures and let participants vote on their favorite. The best part is that all cans are donated to local food banks, so everyone leaves a winner knowing they helped someone.

6. Room Escape Battle

Escape rooms are great — until you realize they max out at 15 people and your intern class has 50. Enter Room Escape Battle, where we bring the puzzle-solving intensity to groups of up to 300 people. Each team gets its own table with identical puzzles and clues, and the race is on.

For 1.5 hours, teams crack codes, hunt for information hidden around the room and piece together clues displayed on screens, all while dramatic music builds the suspense. The first team to find the final puzzle piece wins bragging rights as the Room Escape Battle Champions. It's all the adrenaline of a traditional escape room, scaled up so no one gets left out.

7. LEGO Build

Time to tap in to that childhood nostalgia and maybe some hidden engineering genius with LEGO Build. This intern team-building activity is a two-hour event that unfolds in three exciting phases:

Quick build challenges: Teams race to build the tallest self-standing tower or the widest bridge using massive piles of LEGO bricks. Winners earn Coins for the next phase.
World landmark replica: Each team receives a photo of a famous landmark and recreates it in LEGO form. Spend those hard-earned Coins on bonus supplies like pipe cleaners, tape and cotton balls to make your vision pop.
Presentations and voting: Team spokespersons present their creations — complete with historical facts and totally made-up trivia — before everyone votes on the best replica.

It's creative, collaborative and way more fun than your average icebreaker.

8. Communication Breakthrough

Communication Breakthrough is a fun-filled team-building adventure that tests employees' communication and leadership abilities. We'll guide your groups through various games that boost morale and emphasize soft skills, like:

Active listening: It's not just about hearing — everyone from interns to experienced employees can benefit from the skill of absorbing what people are actually saying. Master this and watch trust, connection and collaboration practically explode across the team. (Bonus: fewer awkward silences.)
Time management: Procrastination? Never heard of her. New hires who nail this become deadline-slaying ninjas, keeping the whole team's gears greased and humming like a well-oiled machine.
Problem-solving: This skill turns employees into proactive communicators, independent thinkers and productivity powerhouses.
Empathy: Look, we've all been the new kid. Experienced team members with empathy don't just tolerate newbies — they're the cool older siblings who help them find their footing. Practicing this skill is how you build a workplace where everyone actually likes showing up.

9. Bike Build

Want to see your new hires compete in team building AND make a real difference? Bike Build delivers both. Teams jump into fast-paced challenges similar to those in Minute to Win It. With every challenge they complete, groups earn both points and actual bicycle parts.

Once teams have won enough parts, they'll assemble complete bikes that get donated to children through partnerships with Boys and Girls Clubs across the country. When possible, kids from the organization show up to receive the bikes in person, which makes the whole experience truly heartwarming — and incredibly fun. The winning team gets announced, but honestly, everyone wins when thousands of bicycles find new homes with kids who need them.

10. Flugtag!

Up, Up and Away! These are the cheers that will erupt from new hires and interns as they launch their airplanes skyward during Flugtag. This activity uniquely challenges both creativity and engineering skills. Employees are greeted with airplane-inspired music before each team is tasked with building their very own airplane. We'll give each group a selection of random tools and materials to help them build a makeshift airplane, complete with an action-figure pilot.

The airplanes are then set to fly over the tarmac, with some crashing instantly and others soaring. Teams are judged on distance, style and how close they hit their assigned target.

Plan a Team-Building Activity to Remember With Feet First Eventertainment

At Feet First Events, we dedicate ourselves to ensuring your team-building events are anything but cheesy or boring. And with 31 years of experience facilitating and developing team building for businesses and earning titles like “Best Team Building Services Provider” (thanks, Manage HR magazine!), you know you're in the right hands.