75 Icebreaker Questions for Work: Funny, Quick, and Safe for Any Meeting

Good icebreaker questions for work follow two rules. Anyone can answer in ten seconds, and nobody has to overshare to play along. Every question below passes both tests, so pick a group, grab three, and go.

Funny Icebreaker Questions for Work

1. What is the most useless talent you have?
2. What would your job title be if it described what you actually do all day?
3. Which fictional character would be the worst coworker?
4. What is the worst piece of advice you have ever followed?
5. What food do you refuse to share, no matter who asks?
6. What is your most irrational fear?
7. If you had to eat one condiment for a year, which one?
8. What is the strangest thing in your search history this week that you are willing to admit?
9. Which app on your phone would embarrass you most if someone opened it?
10. What is your go-to karaoke song, and how bad is it?
11. What did you get in trouble for most as a kid?
12. What smell do you love that most people find weird?
13. If your pet could talk, what is the first complaint they would file?
14. What is the pettiest hill you will die on?
15. What is a food combination you love that sounds disgusting?
16. What is your walk-up song if you were a baseball player?
17. What is the worst haircut you ever had, and who was responsible?
18. Which household chore do you secretly enjoy?
19. What was your first screen name or email address?
20. What is the most ridiculous thing you have ever bought at 2am?

Quick One-Word Answers

These are ideal for the chat box. Everyone types at once, you read the results.

21. One word for your week so far.
22. Coffee, tea, or neither.
23. Beach or mountains.
24. Your favorite day of the week.
25. Cats or dogs.
26. Sweet or salty.
27. The last thing you ate.
28. Morning person or night person.
29. Your current phone battery percentage.
30. One word for your desk right now.
31. Favorite season.
32. The last show you finished.
33. Pancakes or waffles.
34. Your most-used emoji.
35. Window seat or aisle.

Would You Rather: Office Edition

36. Would you rather have unlimited vacation but no remote work, or unlimited remote work but no vacation?
37. Would you rather have every meeting be ten minutes shorter, or start ten minutes later?
38. Would you rather your camera always be on, or your mic always be on?
39. Would you rather have a free lunch every day or leave an hour early every Friday?
40. Would you rather present to the CEO or present to a room full of new hires?
41. Would you rather never reply-all again or never get a reply-all again?
42. Would you rather have a standing desk you cannot lower or a chair you cannot raise?
43. Would you rather your calendar be public or your Slack status be always accurate?
44. Would you rather work four ten-hour days or five eight-hour days?
45. Would you rather your inbox reset to zero every night or never get a notification again?

Icebreaker Questions for New Teams

46. What is one thing you want this team to know about how you work best?
47. What is your favorite part of the job so far?
48. What did you do before this, in one sentence?
49. What is the best team you have ever been on, and what made it good?
50. Where are you calling in from, and what is one thing worth seeing there?
51. What is a skill you have that has nothing to do with this job?
52. How do you like to get feedback?
53. What time of day are you sharpest?
54. What is one thing that always makes you laugh?
55. What is a project you were proud of, anywhere, ever?

Icebreaker Questions for Remote Teams

56. Show us the view from your window, or describe it if the camera cannot reach.
57. What is the most distracting thing in your workspace right now?
58. What is your work-from-home uniform?
59. What is the strangest place you have taken a work call?
60. What is one thing in your background you have never explained?
61. How many browser tabs are open right now? Be honest.
62. What is your go-to lunch when you are working from home?
63. What sound do you hear most during the day?
64. What is the best thing about not commuting?
65. What is one thing you miss about being in an office?

Icebreaker Questions for Monday Mornings

66. What is one good thing that happened over the weekend?
67. What is the first thing you did this morning?
68. What is one thing you are looking forward to this week?
69. What did you eat for breakfast?
70. What is one small win from last week?
71. What is your energy level from one to ten, and why?
72. What song is stuck in your head?
73. What is one thing you want to get off your plate by Friday?
74. What was the best thing you watched, read, or listened to this weekend?
75. What is one thing that would make this week easier?

How To Run Them on a Call

Use chat for anything with a one-word answer. Everyone types at once, nobody waits, and you read the funniest ones aloud. Use unmute for the longer questions, but pick three or four people by name rather than opening the floor. Open floors on video produce silence, then two people talking at once.

Two questions per meeting is plenty for a regular check-in. Save the funny ice breaker questions for adults who already know each other, and the new team questions for a group’s first two weeks. Creative ice breaker questions are only creative the first time, so rotate the list.

Go first every single time. If you answer your own question with a real answer, the group follows. If you read it off a slide and wait, the group waits too.

If you want more than questions, the Virtual Office Shenanigans Game is a 60-minute live-hosted session built around games rather than prompts, for teams of 10 to 50 who have run out of icebreakers and want everyone actually on camera and laughing.

The best question is the one you can answer with a straight face in front of your boss. Everything else is optional.