New Hire Onboarding Activities: Try a Game Night

Most new hire onboarding activities fail at the one thing that predicts whether someone stays: helping them know people. The welcome lunch is awkward. The buddy program depends on the buddy. The all-hands introduction lasts eleven seconds. A game night, done right, gives a new hire an hour of real conversation with a dozen colleagues before the end of week one.

This is a guide for HR leads and hiring managers who want to add a game night to onboarding, with enough structure that it works for the shy hire as well as the outgoing one.

Why does a game night work for onboarding?

New hires face a specific social problem. Everyone else already knows each other. Every conversation requires the new person to initiate, to ask a question, to have a reason to walk up to someone. Most people, even confident ones, do this far less than they would like to.

A game solves that problem by handing everyone a reason to talk. Nobody has to invent small talk when the table is arguing about whether “lukewarm” counts as warm in Wavelength. The new hire is not the new person at the table; they are the person who gave the clue.

Gallup’s research on best friends at work has found, for example, that women who strongly agree they have one are more than twice as likely to be engaged as those who do not, and that only about two in ten U.S. employees say they have one at all. You cannot assign a best friend. You can create the conditions where one becomes likely, and a game table is one of the cheapest ways to do it.

When in onboarding should the game night happen?

Timing matters more than most people expect.

• Day one is too early. The new hire is exhausted and overwhelmed. Names will not stick.
• End of week one is about right. They know where the bathroom is and have met their team. They are ready to meet everyone else.
• Week three or four is the second window. By now they have questions about how things really work, and informal time with people outside their team is when those get answered.

If you onboard in cohorts, run the game night at the end of the first week with the whole cohort plus a handful of tenured staff. If you onboard one at a time, a standing monthly game night that every new hire is invited to works better than a one-off.

What should the room look like?

A few decisions make or break the evening.

Ratio of new to tenured

Aim for one new hire for every two or three existing employees. Too many new hires and they cluster together. Too few and the new person becomes a spectacle.

Who you invite from the existing team

Not just the new hire’s manager and immediate team. Invite people from the departments they will depend on: the finance person who approves their expenses, the IT person who fixes their laptop, the ops lead they will email every week. One hour of playing Just One with the IT person is worth a dozen tickets.

Table size and rotation

Tables of four to six. Rotate after each game so the new hire sits with at least three different groups over the evening. Assign the first seating; let the second and third be looser.

Hosts

Every table needs someone who already knows the games. Teaching from a rulebook in front of new colleagues is the opposite of welcoming. If you do not have confident teachers in-house, that is what a service like ours is for.

Which games are right for onboarding?

The games for onboarding are a subset of good team building board games. The extra filter is that they should be easy for someone who has never heard of them and should produce conversation, not silence.

Avoid heavy strategy games, anything with player elimination, and anything where a tenured employee’s experience gives them a lopsided advantage. The new hire should be able to win, or at least contribute to a win, in their first game.

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How do you structure the evening?

A ninety-minute plan that has worked for teams from ten to sixty:

1. First fifteen minutes: food and drinks, no games yet. Let people arrive. Put a name tag on everyone, including tenured staff. New hires should not be the only ones labeled.
2. Game one, assigned seating (20 min). Something quick and cooperative. Just One or So Clover!. The new hire sits with people from outside their team.
3. Rotate (5 min). Call it. Half of each table moves.
4. Game two (30 min). Wavelength or Codenames. Slightly more personality on display.
5. Rotate again, loosely (5 min). Let people choose this time, with a nudge.
6. Game three or open play (20 min). Several games out, people pick. Some will just talk. Let them.
7. Close with one question. “What is one thing you learned about someone tonight?” Thirty seconds each, optional. Then let it end.

Do not run over. End while people still want more. The ones who want to keep playing will, and that is the best outcome.

What about remote and hybrid new hires?

A remote hire’s first in-person visit is the moment to do this. If they are flying in for a week, put the game night early in that week so the rest of the visit builds on it. We cover the broader problem in remote team, one day in person: make it count.

For fully remote onboarding, a video game night with Codenames in the browser or Wavelength’s online version is better than nothing, but hold it to forty-five minutes and keep groups to five or six. The energy of a room does not translate, and small groups compensate.

What does success look like?

The measure is not whether people had fun, though they will. The measure is whether the new hire, two weeks later, has someone outside their team they would message with a question. Ask them. If the answer is yes and the name is someone from the game night, the hour did its job.

A game night will not fix a bad onboarding process. It will make a decent one feel human, and that is often the difference between a hire who stays and one who starts looking at six months. The game is the reason. The people are the point.

FAQ

What are good onboarding activities for new hires beyond the welcome lunch?

A game night at the end of week one, with mixed tables of new and tenured staff, gives new hires real conversations with colleagues across departments.

How long should an onboarding game night be?

Ninety minutes: a short cooperative opener, a rotation, a more social second game, and open play to finish.

Which games are best for onboarding new employees?

Just One, Wavelength, Codenames, and Telestrations. All teach in minutes, require no game experience, and get people talking.

Should managers attend the onboarding game night?

Yes, but seated at a different table from their new report for the first game. The new hire should meet people they do not already answer to.

Want help with your first one?

The Ludarium runs corporate tabletop events in Indianapolis and nearby, including onboarding game nights with hosts at every table so your new hires meet colleagues instead of rulebooks. If you would rather build it in-house, subscribe to the newsletter for new workplace game ideas, tested on real teams.