Employees often feel disconnected from their jobs at the end of the year. It makes sense. Work projects wind down, while our personal lives get crazier thanks to the holiday season.
This is natural, but it’s not necessarily good. Fortunately, there are things you can do to improve employee connection at this time. For example, you can plan team-building activities to strengthen bonds with your team, increase collaboration, and level up engagement.
In this article, we explore the benefits of team building during the holidays. Then we share 10 activities you can use to not only improve team chemistry, but also spread holiday cheer. Even better, we also share ideas that work for both on-site and remote teams. Let’s get started!
Key Takeaways
- Holiday team-building activities foster belonging, boost morale, and strengthen employee connections across in-office and remote teams.
- Top activities include Secret Santa, holiday trivia, escape rooms, scavenger hunts, and virtual happy hours for all team types.
- Choose activities based on employee preferences, clear goals, and willingness to experiment with new ideas.
- Measure success through employee feedback, team performance improvements, and retention metrics after each activity.
- Tools like Kudoboard make memory walls and year-end celebrations effortless, keeping teams connected and engaged throughout the holiday season.
The Benefits of Team Building During the Holidays
Team building during the Christmas season offers practical benefits that directly improve how teams work together. Beyond fun and games, these activities strengthen collaboration, communication, and overall performance.
Foster a Sense of Belonging
The holidays make it easier for people to connect. A fun group activity can break the ice, spark conversations, and help teammates feel more comfortable around each other. When people feel like they belong, working together gets a whole lot easier.
Enhance Communication Skills
Team-building activities are a sneaky-good way to improve communication. People practice sharing ideas, listening, and solving problems together without it feeling like a workshop. Less awkward miscommunication, more “got it, thanks.”
Boost Employee Morale
By the time the holidays roll around, everyone is juggling a lot. A good team-building activity can lift the mood, ease stress, and bring some much-needed fun into the workday. It can also increase motivation, helping employees come back feeling more energized, engaged, and a lot more cheerful to be around.
10 Creative Holiday Team Building Activities in 2026
The Christmas season is an excellent time to build deeper employee connections. And we’ve collected 10 creative team-building ideas to help you do it. Here’s what we recommend:
1. Secret Santa Gift Exchange
Secret Santa gift exchanges are one of the more cherished holiday traditions.
If you’re unfamiliar with this activity, participants draw names and exchange gifts anonymously. But it’s about more than just collecting stuff, at least in a workplace setting. The process will encourage employees to learn about their coworkers. It’s the only way to give a good gift.
Not knowing who your gifter is also adds a layer of fun and anticipation to the activity. As such, Secret Santa is an effective way to spread joy, reinforce bonds, and spark holiday spirit.
2. Holiday Trivia Game
Put a holiday twist on a classic team-building activity.
First, split your employees into distinct teams. Then quiz them on everything from Christmas movie quotes to New Year’s customs around the world. Lastly, give the winning team a prize.
Holiday trivia games are super entertaining. They also promote friendly competition and can lead to interesting conversations, which makes them ideal activities for the workplace. After all, your team has to communicate to succeed.
Trivia can help build this skill in a fun environment. Just as important, trivia can be played by in-office and remote teams, which makes it versatile.
3. Christmas Music Karaoke
If you’re hosting holiday parties this year, why not turn them into team-building events and start a Karaoke session? Christmas music and bad singing are a delightful combination!
We know what you’re thinking, “Sounds fun. But how will this activity strengthen the bonds between team members?” It’s simple: karaoke helps employees overcome their inhibitions, build confidence, and make memories. All of these things contribute to a more connected workplace.
Think about it: confident workers are more willing to share ideas. These ideas can then be used to overcome challenges. Bonus: because your team will make memories via karaoke, they’ll enjoy working together more, which will lead to even better results.
So what are you waiting for? Throw on the holiday music, grab a microphone, and belt it out.
4. Festive Escape Rooms
Escape rooms offer an interactive experience that requires teamwork, problem-solving, and quick thinking. In other words, they are the perfect team-building activity.
Find a local establishment that offers a holiday-themed escape room. Or buy a kit and bring the escape room to your office. Remote teams can also participate by hosting a virtual holiday party and playing an online version of an escape room game. There are options for everyone.
Whichever route you choose, you’ll help your employees improve their communication skills, build trust with their colleagues, strengthen team bonds, and even improve morale. As such, there aren’t many Christmas team-building activities we recommend more than this one.
5. Holiday Origami Contest
You’re looking for a creative holiday team-building activity. Something your team hasn’t seen before, but will still engage them in a profound way. We know the answer: holiday origami.
Split your employees into multiple teams, give them stacks of paper, and ask them to complete a few origami challenges. For example, you could ask them to make five stars in five minutes. Or research and create a Christmas tree, then award a prize to the team that does it the best.
This activity encourages communication, teamwork, and mutual encouragement, all while providing participants with a much-needed break from their daily routines. Plus, the festive creations can be displayed around the office, spreading holiday cheer and a sense of accomplishment.
6. Group Volunteer Projects
Nothing ties a team together like volunteer work.
Giving back to your community will encourage teamwork and a shared sense of purpose between coworkers. Giving back during the holiday season will make the process even sweeter.
So, how are you and your employees going to volunteer? There are plenty of options. You can serve food at a local soup kitchen, participate in a toy drive, or organize a community clean-up. You could even go to an animal shelter and play with abandoned cats and dogs.
If you want to boost team morale, improve employee engagement levels, and supercharge team performance, you can’t go wrong with a group volunteer project this holiday season.
7. Christmas Decorations Competition
Get creative with a Christmas decorations competition at work.
As with the other contests we’ve talked about, split your team into groups. But instead of asking participants to answer trivia questions or do origami, see who can create the most festive office space. This will allow your employees to showcase creativity and grow closer as a team.
How so? Employees who are teammates will work together to achieve a common goal. Employees who compete against each other will develop motivation to win the contest. Both will help your company succeed in the real world. And your office will look festive at the same time.
8. Holiday Scavenger Hunt
When it comes to holiday team-building activities, a Christmas or New Year’s themed scavenger hunt is almost always a good idea. You could even go with a Thanksgiving theme if you want.
Seriously, what’s better than solving clues and searching for holiday items around the office? The answer is probably nothing. In fact, a scavenger hunt might just reinvigorate your team, build enthusiasm for future projects, and help develop chemistry between colleagues.
Also worth mentioning, scavenger hunts can be enjoyed by in-office and distributed teams. Those working remotely simply have to adjust the rules to accommodate WFH-ers.
9. Virtual Happy Hour
What if you manage a remote team and you really want to improve employee connection, but the ideas above seem like too much work? We have a solution: a virtual happy hour.
Choose a date and time, invite your employees to attend, and encourage each to prepare their favorite drink. It could be a coffee, a cocktail, or a giant cup of eggnog. Then log in to Zoom, Teams, or whatever app you like and shoot the breeze. It’s simple, but it can be very effective.
Time to relax, talk, and get to know each other will increase collaboration during work hours. It will also strengthen bonds between colleagues, which is important for peak performance.
Here’s a wild idea: mix this idea with one of the ones above. Then you and your remote team can drink together and play holiday games like trivia or an escape room. Sounds fun, right?
10. Memory Wall
A memory wall can be a great way to celebrate the year’s successes and build connections amongst team members. And tools like Kudoboard, a powerful employee connection platform, make it incredibly easy to set them up.
Sign up for a Kuboboard account and create your first board. Then invite your employees to share written messages, photos, and videos with each other. Consider giving them prompts like “What’s your favorite Christmas Eve tradition?” and “What’s a memorable work moment from this year?” to encourage participation and get the conversation flowing.
This activity fosters employee gratitude and appreciation for each other’s contributions. As such, it has a way of enhancing community and boosting team-wide satisfaction.
Choose the Right Team Building Activities This Holiday Season
Every team is different, which means there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to holiday team building. The right activity should entertain and strengthen employee connections. Here’s how to find it:
Know Your Employees
If you don’t know your employees, what they like, what they dislike, how they tick, you won’t be able to choose the right team-building activities. At least, not consistently.
So, take time to learn about the unique people on your team. What are they good at? What skills do they need to develop to progress in their careers? How do they spend their free time? Then pick activities that align with these abilities, deficiencies, and/or personal tastes.
If you have no idea which activities your team will enjoy doing, ask them. Call them into your office or conduct a simple survey to learn more about the people you work with every day. This will benefit your organization in multiple ways, so it’s definitely worth your time.
Understand Your Goals
Next, decide what you want your team-building activity to achieve.
Do you want to enhance communication between team members? Do you want to boost morale throughout your department? Maybe you just want to make your employees smile at the end of the year. Identify your goals before you choose a specific team-building activity.
Without clear goals, your team-building initiative will feel directionless. When this happens, it becomes more of a chore for all involved and rarely benefits participants.
Commit to Experimentation
One last thing: have the courage to experiment with different activities.
This will help you find new and exciting ways to connect and engage your employees. It will also prevent your team-building initiatives from getting stale. Variety is the spice of life, as they say.
Remember, you don’t have to keep doing activities that don’t resonate. You can simply move to the next one on your list, see if it works for your team, and make a decision based on the result.
How to Measure the Success of Your Team Building Efforts
How do you know if your team-building initiatives hit the mark? You measure them! Here are three tips to gauge the success of your efforts during the holidays or throughout the year.
Gather Feedback
Talk to your team. Send them a post-activity survey. Do what you can to answer the question, “Did that team building activity work for us, or should we try something else next time?“
You’ll want to keep it simple and direct. In other words, don’t send a 50-question survey to your team. Ask them if they liked the activity in question, why or why not. Then ask for suggestions for future events. That’s all you need to do. Don’t make this complicated.
Pro tip: pay attention to the suggestions you receive. Do your best to incorporate them from time to time. This will make your employees feel like valued members of the team.
Analyze Team Performance
Team performance will help you evaluate your team-building efforts, too.
Do your employees communicate better after they participate in a team-building activity? Are there fewer interpersonal conflicts in the office? Does your team achieve better results than before? Perhaps they’re more productive and/or creative than they used to be.
Just remember, the impact of team building isn’t always easy to see. You might have to assess your feelings, the energy during a meeting, and the ease with which coworkers interact with each other, etc. These aren’t quantifiable results, but they can make a difference and shouldn’t be undervalued.
Track Employee Retention
Last but not least, track employee retention metrics.
Connected employees tend to enjoy their jobs more. So, you can evaluate the success of your team-building initiative by measuring how long each person has been employed by your company.
By fostering strong team relationships and a supportive work culture through team-building activities, companies can create an environment that people genuinely want to stay in, reducing turnover and keeping the team running smoothly.
Supercharge Employee Connection With Kudoboard
Team-building activities will connect your team on a deeper level. When this happens, they’ll communicate better, enjoy their jobs more, and perform at a higher level.
Fortunately, there are tons of team-building activities you can use for your team. But the 10 we mentioned in this article add a fun holiday twist that your employees are sure to appreciate. You just have to implement a couple of them. Trust us, you’ll be glad you did!
Speaking of things you’ll be glad you did, take a moment to sign up for Kudoboard.
Once you do, you’ll have a powerful employee engagement platform at your fingertips. Use it to build a digital memory wall this holiday season. Then keep using it in the new year to recognize your team’s efforts, make sure they feel appreciated, and improve overall performance.
Connect your employees the right way
Build a digital board that facilitates team connections, enhances employee engagement, and improves team performance
Frequently Asked Questions
What are employee connections?
Employee connections are the relationships and bonds formed between colleagues in a workplace. Strong connections improve collaboration, boost morale, reduce turnover, and create a culture where employees feel valued and engaged.
How do HR leaders build employee connections in a dispersed workplace?
HR leaders strengthen employee connection through remote work strategies, such as virtual team building, regular check-ins, peer recognition platforms, and digital tools like Kudoboard that keep distributed teams engaged and connected.
How to connect with your employees?
Use employee connection solutions like team building activities, one-on-one meetings, recognition programs, and collaborative tools. Regular communication and genuine appreciation go a long way toward building meaningful workplace relationships.
Are connected employees more engaged?
Absolutely. Connected employees feel a stronger sense of belonging, perform better, and stay longer. Investing in an employee connection platform like Kudoboard ensures your team stays motivated, appreciated, and engaged year-round.
How do you measure employee connection in the workplace?
Track employee retention rates, gather post-activity feedback, monitor team performance, and conduct regular surveys. Strong employee connection shows up in lower turnover, better collaboration, and higher overall job satisfaction scores.
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