Fun employee survey questions are the secret sauce that set the mood for successful team building. In this article, I’m sharing 40 creative prompts you can use at offsites, team socials, and company gatherings—each designed to ignite conversations and laughter before the event even starts.
Sending a quick pre-event icebreakers survey not only breaks the ice but gets everyone engaged and talking, long before the first drink or activity. With tools like Specific’s AI survey builder, creating these playful surveys is faster (and more fun) than ever.
Personal quirks and preferences: 10 icebreaker questions
What’s your go-to karaoke song? (Uncovers musical taste and boldness!)
Coffee person or tea person? (Classic, yet sneakily revealing.)
Pineapple on pizza: yes or no? (Immediate spark for friendly debate.)
What’s your guilty-pleasure TV show? (Opens the door for shared laughs.)
Dogs, cats, or… other? (Celebrates pet people—and outliers.)
What’s your favorite rainy-day activity? (Shows comfort-zone hobbies.)
Early bird, night owl, or permanently sleepy? (Sets up self-deprecating humor.)
What’s a food you can’t stand? (Funny stories almost guaranteed.)
Talent nobody would expect from you? (Spotlights hidden skills.)
If you could teleport anywhere for lunch today, where would it be? (Sparks wanderlust and food talk.)
Why these work: Personal preference questions are fun and totally non-threatening—they let people dip a toe in, share something quirky, and reveal a little personality. When you use AI follow-ups with your survey, you get these hilarious or surprising backstories that make for perfect event banter.
Work style with a twist: 10 questions that reveal how teams tick
Early bird or night owl for deep work?
What’s your ideal work superpower (e.g., instant inbox zero, endless creativity)?
Headphones on or open office chatter for focus?
Best snack for surviving deadline week?
Stand-up meetings: vital routine or best skipped?
Dream office location anywhere on Earth—where?
Which emoji sums up your work style?
If your calendar was an animal, what would it be?
What’s the most creative way you’ve solved a work problem?
Give your job a funny “movie title”.
Team insights: Getting a sense for your crew’s collaboration and work quirks is a goldmine for understanding how to build engagement—and keep things fun. Gallup’s 2024 research shows that only 21% of employees globally feel engaged at work[1], so rethinking how you start conversations can have a surprisingly positive effect. I recommend setting a playful tone that encourages everyone to be themselves right away. Try using a tone instruction like:
Keep it fun and casual, like chatting with a friend at happy hour.
Creative scenarios: 10 'what if' questions for memorable conversations
If our team was a band, what instrument would you play?
If you could invite any three people (living or dead) to a team meeting, who would you pick?
You’ve been given a time machine — what work meeting do you relive (or skip)?
Trapped on a desert island with the team: who’s in charge of food, shelter, and entertainment?
If the office was a sitcom, what would the catchphrase be?
Would you rather have to work in mime all day or narrate everything you do?
What’s our team mascot and why?
If you could instantly master one skill to help our team, which and why?
Which fictional workplace best matches ours?
If you could swap roles with anyone on the team for a day, who and what do you hope to learn?
Story potential: Hypothetical scenarios aren’t just fun—they pull people out of their day-to-day roles and invite some wild creativity. These spark stories that you’ll want to share at the event. With AI-powered follow-ups, your survey can dig into the “why” behind these imaginative answers, turning short replies into great stories.
Generic Team Building Questions | Creative Team Building Questions |
What’s your favorite color? | If our team was a band, what instrument would you play? |
Where are you from? | Would you rather work in mime or narrate your work aloud all day? |
What’s your role at the company? | Which fictional workplace best matches ours? |
Shared experiences: 10 questions to surface team stories
What’s the funniest thing that’s happened on a video call?
Share your proudest team accomplishment.
Who’s the unofficial “organizer” on our team?
Which moment made you laugh hardest at work?
Best team lunch or celebration memory?
Most unlikely but successful idea we’ve tried?
Unexpected teamwork moment you loved?
Who’s famous for sending the best memes?
What event or inside joke always comes up?
Share a time you felt especially valued by the team.
Building connections: Questions about shared team experiences surface the kind of stories—funny, moving, or memorable—that instantly create bonds. And when you gather them through Conversational Survey Pages, people answer more naturally and conversationally, just like a chat.
Setting up your pre-event survey with Survey Pages
With Survey Pages, you create a shareable survey link—perfect for Slack, email, or any team communication channel. There’s no tech hassle; just copy the link and send.
Quick setup: The AI survey builder creates your whole survey from a single prompt—just describe what you want, and it designs thoughtful, playful questions (plus follow-ups). For example:
“Create a 10-question team building survey with fun, creative, and easy icebreakers for our next offsite. Questions should mix favorites, hypotheticals, and memories, using a lively, casual tone.”
Customizing your survey’s style is fast: set the tone to match your company’s culture, make sure it stays playful and inclusive, and let the AI handle the flow. Try adding specific style instructions like:
“Be enthusiastic and playful, use emojis occasionally, keep it conversational.”
You’ll find all these customization options in the AI survey editor, so your survey always feels right for your team.
Distribution tips: Getting everyone excited to participate
Slack distribution: Post your survey link in team channels with a quick preview of the funniest or most creative questions. Teasing a question like “What’s your karaoke go-to?” grabs attention.
Email campaigns: Hit inboxes with subject lines that spark natural curiosity, like “Which meme should represent our team?” or “Vote: does pineapple belong on pizza?”
Timing matters: For best response rates, I recommend sending your survey 1–2 weeks ahead of the event—participants are less busy and have time to mull over their answers. With AI-generated follow-ups, your survey actually feels like a conversation—not a dull form—so people are far more likely to finish and share memorable details. Not only does this increase participation, but it helps build an actual buzz. And if you share the best anonymous responses with the team, you get everyone talking before the main event.
From responses to event magic: Using AI analysis
Once the surveys start rolling in, tap into AI-powered analysis to reveal patterns and the great stories hiding in everyone’s answers. Whether you’re searching for recurring jokes, favorite inside stories, or surprising opinions, AI surfaces them instantly.
Icebreaker cards: Pull the funniest or most insightful responses right into your event as printed cards (“Guess which teammate said this!”) to spark conversations.
Team trivia: Turn unique survey answers into trivia for your event (“Who on the team secretly wants to be our band’s drummer?”). This not only makes activities more fun, but links them back to real team personalities and memories.
My favorite move: chat with AI about the responses and uncover connections no spreadsheet would surface. Dive in via AI survey response analysis features, or prompt the AI like this:
“What are the most surprising similarities and differences in our team’s work superpower answers? Which stories would make the best icebreakers?”
Ready to energize your next team event?
Great questions for team building don’t just break the ice—they spark real engagement that lasts before, during, and after your event. When you pair creative fun employee survey questions with AI-driven follow-ups, you’re guaranteed memorable moments and authentic team connections. And when you launch a conversational survey, responses come in naturally—no need to chase people or decode cryptic forms.
If you want higher participation, more laughs, and a team that arrives already engaged, create your own survey and see how the energy shifts for your next team gathering.