Office Scavenger Hunt: Team-Building Clues and a Run Sheet for 10 to 60 Coworkers
This scavenger hunt for the office fits in a 45-minute slot. It uses 16 clues whose answers are shared places in an office (the printer, the coffee machine, the notice board), teams of 5 to 8 people, and a clue trail where each team starts at a different stop. The card maker prints the cards in team colors and gives the host a hiding list that says which card goes where.
Load the office clues for 4 teamsThe 16 office clues
Every answer is a shared space or shared equipment. None of them is anyone's workstation, a restroom, a server or IT room, an exit, or fire equipment. Before printing, delete any card your office does not have (not every floor has a parcel shelf or a lost-and-found box). The trail still works with the cards that are left.
| # | Clue | Answer (a place) | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | I make copies of everything and still jam when it matters most. | Printer | 1 |
| 2 | Mondays depend on me. Look beside my drip tray. | Coffee machine | 1 |
| 3 | Ideas get drawn on me, then wiped away before anyone saves them. | Whiteboard | 2 |
| 4 | Pens, sticky notes and staples come back to life here. | Supply cabinet | 1 |
| 5 | Visitors wait on me until someone comes to collect them. | Visitor seating | 1 |
| 6 | Paper goes in one of us and cans in the other. Check between us. | Recycling bins | 2 |
| 7 | Flyers, notices and a sign-up sheet nobody signed are pinned to me. | Notice board | 2 |
| 8 | Lunches with names on them chill inside me. The clue is on my door, not inside. | Office fridge | 1 |
| 9 | I sit by the window doing photosynthesis while everyone else does spreadsheets. | Biggest office plant | 2 |
| 10 | Packages wait on me until someone remembers ordering them. | Parcel shelf | 2 |
| 11 | Coats and wet umbrellas hang on me all winter. | Coat rack | 1 |
| 12 | For once, no meeting is booked in me. Look under my table. | Small meeting room | 2 |
| 13 | I gurgle every time somebody fills a cup. | Water cooler | 1 |
| 14 | I tell the time to everyone who walks in late. | Wall clock | 1 |
| 15 | Trophies, plaques and one framed certificate nobody remembers winning. | Awards shelf | 3 |
| 16 | Odd gloves, a lone umbrella and a water bottle wait in me to be claimed. | Lost and found box | 2 |
The set is worth 25 points; the harder riddles carry 2 or 3.
How many teams for 10, 30 or 60 people
The card maker handles up to 8 teams. Each team starts at a different stop of the same 16-stop loop. Every stop holds one card per team, so 8 teams means 8 cards to hide at each place. Team colors keep them apart.
| People | Teams | Team size | Start stops | Cards to print |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 2 | 5 and 5 | 1, 9 | 34 |
| 30 | 6 | 5 each | 1, 3, 6, 9, 11, 14 | 102 |
| 60 | 8 | four of 8, four of 7 | 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 | 136 |
Cards to print = teams × (16 clue cards + 1 finish card). Start stops come from the card maker's rule: with k teams, team t (counting from 0) starts at stop ⌊t × 16 ÷ k⌋ + 1. Each team's own cards are numbered from 1 whichever stop it starts at.
Above 60 people, run a second round when the first group is back, and book a second slot for it, rather than making teams of 10, where most of the team stands behind whoever holds the card.
?teams=4. The four flags on the loop mark the start stops 1, 5, 9, 13. Open this example in the card maker.The 45-minute run sheet
| Time | What happens | Host's job |
|---|---|---|
| Before | Print the cards and the answer key; hide the cards using the hiding list | Hide each stop's cards together. Team colors let teams take only their own. |
| 0:00–0:05 | Briefing in the meeting room | Out of bounds: people's desks, restrooms, IT rooms, exits, other companies' spaces. Hand each team its card 1. |
| 0:05–0:35 | Teams follow their trail | Stay in the meeting room with the answer key. Each team's finish card brings it back there. |
| 0:35 | Time is up | Teams still out come back with the cards they have. |
| 0:35–0:45 | Scoring and prizes | Add up each team's points from the cards collected. The first full set back breaks a tie. |
Why a 30-minute cap and not "until everyone finishes": the hunt then ends on time even if one team gets stuck on the same card for ten minutes. The score is the points on the cards each team brings back, so a team that stopped early still has a number.
Printing color-coded cards
Print player cards puts every team's cards on the same sheets, three across, with the team name and color on each card and the place it should be hidden. Cut them on the dashed lines. Print answer key prints the hiding list and the answers separately from the player cards, for the host's eyes only.
A remote version for video calls
A trail needs a building, so remote teams play a find-it list instead. The host reads one item at a time and everyone has 60 seconds to find it at home and hold it up to the camera. The host ticks off whoever shows it in time. The 16 items (28 points) are things most homes have, and none of them asks people to show a room they would rather keep private.
| # | Find and show | What counts | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A mug with a logo on it | Any logo, shown to the camera | 1 |
| 2 | A pet, or a photo of one | Live pets score the same as photos | 1 |
| 3 | A sock without its pair | One sock, held up | 1 |
| 4 | Something that makes a noise | Play the noise on mic | 1 |
| 5 | Something round that is not a plate | Coin, ball, clock: the host decides | 1 |
| 6 | A hat, worn on camera | Must stay on until the next item | 1 |
| 7 | A book with a color in its title | Show the cover | 2 |
| 8 | Something from another country | Say where it is from | 2 |
| 9 | A house plant you have kept alive for a year | Honesty rules | 2 |
| 10 | The oldest piece of tech in the house | Show it and say the year | 2 |
| 11 | A handwritten note or card | Any handwriting counts | 2 |
| 12 | A souvenir from a trip | Say where it came from | 2 |
| 13 | Something that starts with the first letter of your name | Say the word out loud | 2 |
| 14 | A kitchen gadget you use every day | Show it and say what it does | 2 |
| 15 | Something older than you | Tell its story in one sentence | 3 |
| 16 | The thing on your desk most likely to make the team laugh | The team votes | 3 |
Next steps
- Need harder clues for a team that likes riddles? Mix in cards from the teens and adults set.
- Running it at the holiday party? Christmas scavenger hunt formats has a photo hunt and a team race with prize ideas.
- Something for the same party that needs only one phone: PartyDeck's Christmas party games.