The Ultimate Team Building Scavenger Hunt with Examples

Updated: August 08, 2022

A scavenger hunt is known to be a fun activity for friends and coworkers alike, but if you’re on the planning end, it can seem daunting! Especially in the corporate space, where a team building scavenger hunt can be a vital part of a broader employee engagement and team building strategy, the idea can seem intimidating.

But, it doesn’t have to be that way! There are a few things to consider when planning and launching a team building scavenger hunt, and this article will get you aligned for success!

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What to Include in Your Team Building Scavenger Hunt

Oftentimes the creation of the actual challenges in an corporate scavenger hunt is what trips people up as they start the planning process. Creative challenges can be hard to find, which is why it’s important to come up with ideas in a number of different formats, as described below.

Use this list as a starting point, and you’ll be surprised at how quickly the ideas come for your team scavenger hunt!

Photos

Incorporating photos is a great way to both get pictorial evidence of tasks completed by your employees and capture the fun they’re having as part of your corporate hunt!

Example: Find a colleague with your same hair color and do your best Glamour Shots impression.

Videos

Similar to photos, videos are another great medium for capturing employee fun as they complete various video-related tasks during the team-building process.

Example: Record a teammate lip-syncing to a Backstreet Boys song.

Trivia

Everyone loves showing off their pop culture knowledge, so incorporate fun trivia into your scavenger hunt and let your employees show off their stuff!

Examples: in what year was Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” released?

Find Hidden QR Codes

A QR code allows you to incorporate specific or hidden objects into your scavenger hunt. Create a riddle that directs employees to find and scan hidden a hidden or placed QR code, verifying that they located the item successfully.

Example: Before heading out today, scan the QR code on the smallest company mascot in the building.

Locations using GPS Check-ins

Location-specific challenges are a great way to broaden the scope of your team building scavenger hunt and ensure people visit certain locations. They also add variety to your list for you team as you mix location check-ins with other challenge types.

Example: In France I’m known as a “beignet au chocolat”. Come find me at the only 24-hour “pâtisserie” in town.

Open Ended Questions

This is a great way to collect helpful information from employees - ask them questions about the office or their experience, and find a way to celebrate and use the information they provide you after the fact.

Example: What is your favorite thing about our company culture?

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How to Create Your Team Building Scavenger Hunt List

As you dive into creating your specific scavenger hunt list, you can use the formats above as a starting point, but embrace the areas below as you start to get tactical.

Encourage Creativity

Go outside the norm, because the norm is boring. Try to inspire yourself and your team to push beyond the boundaries of what’s been done.

Examples: Find someone you’ve never spoken to in the office and do a 30-second speed round of Q&A until you feel like you’re friends.

Use the Entire Team

Your employees are your greatest resource, so be sure to leverage all of them as you go through the process of building out the hunt.

Examples: Find a member of another team and have them introduce you to everyone on their team (whether you know them or not).

Get Outside the Comfort Zone

Push people to get creative and go outside of the zone where they typically exist and feel most comfortable.

Examples: Find a stranger on the street and convince them to tell you a secret (record this).

Work in the Company Mission and Values

Your company mission and values are the most important guiding features in your organization, so be sure that your hunt addresses these where and when it makes sense.

Examples: Record yourself reciting the company’s mission statement.

Make Learning Fun

Don’t be afraid to incorporate non-work related themes into your team building scavenger hunt. Things like historical knowledge, pop culture, and news trivia are all helpful to engage employees in areas outside of the office.

Examples: Who played Michael Scott in the US-adaptation of the Office?

Re-create Iconic Photos and Videos

It can be incredibly fun to take existing photos and videos (whether historical or modern) and task your employees to recreate them as part of the hunt.

Examples: Recreate the opening scene to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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What’s the best way to organize my scavenger hunt? Use an App.

Once you have your ideas starting to percolate, you might run into an organizational problem. This is natural, and thankfully there’s an easy solution: our mobile app! Apps are an easy way to eliminate the organizational and planning burden of a team building scavenger hunt, and give you a simple way to structure and deploy your challenge list to employees!

The benefits of using an app are numerous and include:

Displays an Organized Challenge List

Keep all of your challenges in one central location, organized, and always available for easy reference and review.

Easy Tracking for Your Teams

Your employees can easily see what tasks are remaining on their digital scavenger hunt challenge list when using an app.

Automatic Submission Verification

You’ll no longer have to manually verify when a task is completed and submitted, it’s all done by the app!

Real-time Progress Tracking

An app does the heavy lifting for you by tracking employee completion status as they advance through the various tasks you’ve created.

Leaderboard Scoring in Real-time

All of your employees will have up-to-the-minute scoring information with live leaderboards to further foster a healthy sense of competitive spirit during your office scavenger hunt.

Photostreams for Maximum Engagement

All photo submissions from employees display to highlight the fun and the progress made by all (keeping everyone updated on the fun!).

Getting Social

Social media-related functionality, in addition to comments and likes on other teams photos and videos, further increases interaction within the app and between your employees.

Push Notifications

With an app, you can send live announcements to employees during the course of the hunt, ensuring that everyone is kept in the loop as they go!

Admin View of Real-time Progress

You and your other admins are able to watch as teams progress in real-time through the hunt, giving you great insight into who is doing what.

Start/end Time Scheduling

You no longer have to manually start and end your scavenger hunts, as the app takes care of this piece without the need for any intervention on your part.

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How to Get Started

Once you’ve got your app and a general notion of the types of challenges you want to deploy - you’re finally ready to get started curating your detailed list of tasks and questions.

Start with Something Out of the Box

If you want a starting point for your corporate scavenger hunt challenge list, you can turn to our Turn Key Team Building Solution - an off-the-shelf package which includes a complete challenge list.

...Or build your own

If you want to start fresh, you can build your own list from scratch! Just be sure to incorporate a dynamic and interesting mix of challenge types (which are allow adequate for the time you plan to devote to the activity).

Customize Your List

Once you have your draft list ready, get a few members of a trusted team together for a final customization review: here you can make tweaks based on timing, creativity, and incorporating any further company-related elements.

Launch and Go!

And, with that, you’re ready to start it off! Get your employees primed up for some fun, and let them on their way for a scavenger hunt they’ll never forget.

Go The Extra Mile

Need some additional incentives to really get your team ready for the challenge, or want to spread the scavenger hunt love even further? There are a number of easy ways to incorporate a few extra things to ensure that everyone sees the value of the hunt (and is inspired to do their very best).

Prizes

Even a small prize can go a long way in motivating behavior: figure out what works best to incentivize your employees (e.g., a happy hour, a gift card, etc.) and announce that the winner will receive it once the hunt is done!

Team SWAG

Everyone loves representing their company, so think about small items that can be used as giveaways or prizes for the team who wins in a number of areas (e.g., overall winner, most supportive, most creative, etc.).

Team T-Shirts

T-shirts are another way to bond teams together, plus it’s easy to see who is on each team when they’re color-coded or similarly themed. This is a great chance for any avid designers in your org to take a stab at t-shirt fashion!

Share the Photos and Videos

If you really want to amp up the value and visibility of your work on the hunt, it’s incredibly easy to share the photo and video generated by employees after the fact with your various social media or other outlets (e.g., a company intranet). You can also host a post-event wrap up with a slideshow of the best photos and videos for everyone to see. It’s a great and simple way to show the fruits of your labor, and get even more people onboard and interested for future outings!