Hybrid teams have a problem that no amount of Slack messages or video calls fully solves: the people on them don’t spend enough time together to build the trust that good collaboration runs on. Gallup’s 2024 study of 2,877 hybrid workers found that half (48%) are on a team with no agreed plan for how to collaborate in a hybrid environment, and the practice with the single biggest impact on engagement, prioritizing collaboration and team building during on-site time, is also the least used, followed by just 29% of teams with a plan in place at all.

That gap is where in-person team building earns its place back on the calendar. Not as a one-off “offsite” that gets scheduled once a year and forgotten, but as a recurring, on-demand activity that hybrid teams can book when they actually need it: before a big project kicks off, after a reorg, when a team has grown too fast to know each other properly, or simply on a fixed quarterly rhythm.

Why hybrid teams struggle with collaboration specifically

Hybrid work isn’t the same problem as fully remote work, but it isn’t the same as fully in-office work either. It sits in an awkward middle ground where teams get some face-to-face time but rarely enough of it to build the kind of rapport that makes collaboration effortless.

Gallup’s research is specific about what goes wrong. Teams without a clear plan for hybrid collaboration are 66% less likely to have engaged employees and more likely to report burnout than teams with one. And even among hybrid workers whose teams do have some kind of plan, most of it is administrative: 67% have regular check-in meetings and 62% have guidelines on when to be available, but only 29% have any guidance on what to actually prioritize when the team is physically together. In-person time is happening. It just isn’t being used for the thing that would benefit most from it: collaboration and team building.

This matters because the same Gallup study found that teams with ongoing discussions about how to improve hybrid teamwork report 84% better collaboration and 50% higher engagement than teams that never revisit the question. Separately, Deloitte research on collaborative work found that employees who collaborate well work 15% faster, produce work rated 73% better by their own assessment, and report 56% higher satisfaction. The data points in one direction: collaboration in hybrid teams doesn’t happen by default, it has to be built deliberately, and in-person time is the highest-leverage place to build it.

What “on-demand” team building actually solves

Most team building gets treated as a fixed annual line item: one big offsite, once a year, usually timed around a conference or a summer calendar slot rather than around what the team actually needs. That works less well for hybrid teams, whose challenges are more situational. A team that has just onboarded four new hires needs something different from a team that hasn’t been in the same room together since March, and a team spread across three offices needs something different again from a team that’s mostly co-located with a few remote members.

An on-demand model means a business can book an in-person activity when a specific moment calls for it, rather than waiting for the next scheduled offsite. In practice that looks like:

  • A team lead noticing engagement is dipping after a stretch of fully remote weeks and booking a half-day indoor activity for the next time the team is due in the office.
  • A people team building a fixed quarterly rhythm of shorter, 60–90 minute activities rather than one long annual one, so collaboration gets reinforced regularly instead of once a year.
  • A company running the same activity simultaneously across multiple offices to give geographically split teams a genuinely shared experience on the same day, rather than a series of disconnected local events.

That last scenario is a real and common one for organizations operating across several sites. In a multi-city case study with Amazon, Wildgoose ran The Ultimate Challenge simultaneously across offices in London (Shoreditch), Luxembourg and Madrid, connecting 113 colleagues on one shared leaderboard rather than three separate local activities, briefed through the existing conference Zoom call rather than a separate session. Karley Ray, Executive Assistant at Amazon, liked it enough to book a second multi-city activity the following year, saying simply: “We did the Ultimate with you in October and my team loved it.”

What makes an in-person activity actually build collaboration, not just fun for an afternoon

Not every team building activity does the job. The ones that move the needle on collaboration and cohesion tend to share a few features:

They require the team to solve something together, not just stand near each other. Quizzes and structured challenges that force communication, division of labor, and shared problem-solving under mild time pressure build working patterns that transfer back to actual projects, in a way that a meal out or a passive activity doesn’t.

They work with a hybrid team’s real constraints. A team split across a downtown venue and a home-working contingent needs a format that can flex between GPS-based outdoor challenges, weatherproof indoor game-screen formats for whatever the forecast throws at the day, and virtual participation for anyone who genuinely can’t attend in person, all feeding into the same live leaderboard so nobody is playing a lesser version of the activity.

They’re repeatable without feeling repetitive. A team that only does one team building activity a year treats it as a novelty. A team that can book a fresh, app-driven challenge every quarter treats collaboration as an ongoing practice, which is closer to what the Gallup data suggests actually moves engagement.

They give people something concrete to point back to. Photo and video challenges captured through the day, and a live leaderboard people can see building in real time, give a team shared references that outlast the activity itself, the inside jokes and “remember when we found that clue” conversations that keep showing up in Slack months later.

Building a habit, not a one-off

The organizations getting the most out of in-person team building for hybrid teams tend to treat it the way Gallup’s research suggests they should treat hybrid collaboration generally: as something with an actual plan behind it, revisited regularly, rather than a single annual event. That could mean a standing quarterly slot, a trigger tied to specific moments (a new team forming, a merger, a return from a long remote stretch), or a mix of hosted flagship activities and shorter, self-managed sessions a manager can run with minimal notice.

The format matters less than the consistency. A 30-minute indoor energizer before a quarterly business review does more for a hybrid team’s collaboration, cumulatively, than one elaborate offsite that happens once and isn’t repeated for another twelve months.

Frequently asked questions

Does in-person team building actually improve collaboration for hybrid teams, or is it just a nice-to-have?

The evidence points to a real, measurable effect. Gallup found hybrid teams with a plan for using in-person time well are 66% more likely to be engaged and 29% less likely to be burned out than teams without one, and teams that regularly revisit how they collaborate report 84% better teamwork than teams that never do.

How often should a hybrid team do in-person team building?

There’s no universal number, but treating it as a recurring practice rather than an annual event gets better results. A short quarterly activity, plus additional sessions triggered by specific moments (onboarding a new team, a reorg, a stretch of low engagement), tends to outperform a single long annual offsite.

Can in-person team building work for a team that’s spread across multiple offices?

Yes. Activities that run through a shared app-based format, with GPS-based outdoor challenges, indoor game-screen formats, and virtual participation feeding into the same live leaderboard, let teams across different cities or countries take part in one genuinely shared experience on the same day, rather than separate local versions of an activity.

What’s the difference between a hosted and a self-managed team building activity?

A hosted activity has a professional host running the briefing, energy, and wrap-up, either on-site or over video link. A self-managed activity gives the client step-by-step guides and video tutorials to run it independently, which suits teams that want the flexibility to book something at short notice without arranging external hosting.

Does team building need to be tailored to the company to be effective, or does an off-the-shelf activity work?

Off-the-shelf activities work well for general collaboration and engagement goals. Custom content, such as company-specific questions or branded elements, tends to add the most value when a team building activity is being used to reinforce a specific internal message, like values, milestones, or induction content, rather than for general team cohesion.

Thinking about a regular in-person rhythm for your hybrid team? Get in touch with the Wildgoose team.