Most end-of-year activities look the same, food, a few speeches, maybe an award or two. But when done right, they can be the perfect mix of fun, reflection, and real team connection. Here are eight activities that are practical, engaging, and genuinely valuable for company growth, no matter if your team is hybrid, remote, or office-based.
Turn your company’s biggest milestones into an interactive challenge. Instead of passively listening to a year-end presentation, teams discover achievements through quizzes, photo prompts, and creative missions.
How to run it:
Use a scavenger hunt app like PlayTours to combine trivia, photo challenges, and time-based missions.
Challenge Ideas:
Have your team capture short videos or photos that represent their favorite moments from the year, such as fun meetings, milestones, or inside jokes. It’s a refreshing way to spark creativity while letting everyone relive their highlights.
How to run it:
Ask teams to submit short clips or photos that represent an unforgettable memory, milestone, or inside joke. It encourages reflection, sparks storytelling, and produces content that can be turned into a year-end highlight video.
Challenge Ideas:
Turn your workspace into a live scavenger adventure where each “station” represents a different department and their achievements. It’s a fun way to break silos, learn what other teams accomplished, and boost interdepartmental appreciation.
How to run it:
If your team is on-site, use QR or GPS checkpoints for each stop, adding trivia or fun facts about that department’s success. For remote teams, you can recreate this experience digitally with PlayTours’ scavenger hunt app, where each “stop” is a virtual mission that reveals a department's story or challenge.
Challenge Ideas:
Transform real business challenges into missions. It’s a creative and engaging way to crowdsource ideas for continuous improvement. And, a great way to close the year with fresh ideas and actionable insights.
How to run it:
Ask teams to brainstorm solutions to real problems and pitch their ideas either in person or by submitting a short video, so every team can participate regardless of location. Use a scoring system to rate creativity, feasibility, and impact. Add small prizes to boost engagement and encourage teams to put real effort into their proposals.
Challenge Ideas:
Perfect for hybrid or international teams, this gratitude-themed challenge invites everyone to express appreciation toward their peers. It strengthens relationships, fosters empathy, and creates an uplifting tone to end the year on.
How to run it:
Start by creating simple missions where employees can share gratitude in different formats, such as written notes, short audio messages, selfie videos, or even photos of handwritten thank-you letters.
For onsite teams, you can also place “Gratitude Drop Points” around the office (tables or boards with markers and cards). Participants snap a photo of their handwritten message and upload it through scavenger hunt app like PlayTours.
Challenge Ideas:
Turn planning for 2026 into a gamified experience. Each chapter in the game can represent a phase, reflection, brainstorming, and action. Encourages engagement and ensures everyone contributes to next year’s goals.
How to run it:
Set up 3 - 4 chapters that guide your team through planning for 2026, such as Reflection, Brainstorm, Innovation, and Action. Add simple missions like submitting one bold idea that could move the company forward, plus a voting task so everyone can rank the most impactful priorities. After the game ends, review the submissions together and convert the highest-voted ideas into your 2026 action plan.
Challenge Ideas:
Gamify daily productivity habits to create friendly competition before the new year. Encourage employees to declutter their inboxes, document lessons learned, or share personal organization tips. Encourages self-improvement and a sense of friendly competition.
How to run it:
Create a simple points-based game with tasks that reward employees for organizing, documenting, or improving small work habits. Let them submit proof through text, photo, or video by using a reliable scavenger hunt app like PlayTours. At the end, review the top scorers, highlight the most useful tips shared, and reward the winners with small but meaningful prizes.
Challenge Ideas:
End your event on a high note with an interactive game that blends company trivia, quick-fire challenges, and team shoutouts. This works especially well as the final segment of a year-end gathering because it brings the whole company together in one shared moment of fun, recognition, and energy.
How to run it
You can combine several games into this one, such as starting with the Company Quest at the beginning of the event and including reflective activities like the Gratitude Hunt before dinner. Mix formats, photo, video, and quiz to make participation easy. Share highlights and shoutouts to close the year on a fun, memorable note.
Use PlayTours’ live leaderboard and gallery features to keep energy high and engagement visible. Participants can watch scores rise in real-time, and the gallery exhibit becomes a living memory wall of the year’s best moments.
Challenge Ideas:
For corporate teams hosting large or complex events, PlayTours offers the flexibility and scalability needed to manage hundreds of participants across locations.
If you want to deliver interactive, smooth, and memorable year-end experiences, PlayTours makes it simple.
Want to try your own game? Download our free scavenger hunt template and customize it for your team.
That's it! If you need help, do email us at hello@playtours.app
