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Office Treasure Hunt Ideas

People of all ages enjoy the friendly competition and chance of a reward in a treasure hunt. Having an office treasure hunt is an effective way to raise morale and instill a bit of adventure into the everyday doldrums that often make people dread going to work. Many ideas exist to plan enjoyable treasure hunts for the workplace--an excellent way to instill team-building skills.

Photograph Hunts
- Divide your office group into teams and ask one member of each team to bring a digital or Polaroid camera to the location on the day of the hunt. It is best to conduct this type of treasure hunt at a park, zoo or other outdoor area, but you can do it in the office.
  
  Instruct members of the team to take pictures to use as proof that they found the item or performed the steps involved in the game. One idea is to ask the team members to photograph an “X” that is not on a sheet of paper. Creative team members will soon realize that they can use two fingers to form the shape of an “X” and others may photograph tree limbs that cross each other. The creative aspect will result in members of the teams working together to get through the list first so that they will win the prize.
  
  The first team to come back with acceptable photographs wins the prize. List zany requests such as taking a photograph of all the team members wearing each other’s shoes or all sitting inside a tiny car.
Clue Hunts
- This type of hunt involves riddles or cryptic clues that will lead them to objects that contain another clue. For instance, if the object is a coffeemaker, the clue may say, “Something you might think is angry because it is hot all day, but turning it off in the afternoons will help you sleep well.” Make up clues and riddles for things like a stapler, hole punch, photocopying machine or the phone and hide the next clue behind or underneath the object. Give each team different clues so that they will not be able to track each other’s progress, and vary the difficulty by giving each team simple and complex clues.
Tall Tale
- Make up a story, something that is work-related is excellent. For instance, you can say that dear old Uncle Harry (the founder of the company) left a treasure map and you just discovered the map. Your clues can lead the teams all over the city, within your office area or throughout the entire building. You can put the clues in code, such as substituting numbers for letters of the alphabet. If you really want to make it difficult, each time the team figures out the clue, finds the object and the next clue, you can change the code so that they have to begin again trying to decipher the cryptic messages.

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