Break the ice and get down to business. Although they may seem silly at first glance, team icebreakers are a necessary part of building healthy work relationships and can be critical to the success of a team. They help create trust and rapport among team members and can encourage communication and collaboration.
Icebreakers can also help to dispel any pre-existing negative perceptions about other team members and improve team morale. According to reports, disengaged employees cost U.S. companies more than $55 billion each year. Healthy and trustworthy work relationships, motivating company goals, and well-designed roles are cited as ways to mitigate disengagement.
In this article, we will discuss one type of team icebreaker: icebreaker memes. An icebreaker meme is a great way for companies to stay relevant, generate conversations and laughter, and keep employees engaged and comfortable from the get-go.
Let's look at some common icebreaker memes that you can use to hype up your team.
What Are Team Icebreakers?
Team icebreakers are activities used to start a meeting and get participants to engage in a discussion. Originating from the common metaphor "break the ice,” this refers to anything—whether it is a game, an event, or a presentation—that relieves tension or starts a conversation at the beginning of a team event or social occasion.
There are a variety of icebreakers to choose from, ranging from simple question exercises to online team building games. Although icebreakers are designed to help employees be comfortable and have fun, they should also be result-driven. This is why it is essential to find the right balance between keeping a fun work setting and staying work-relevant.
Why Are Team Icebreakers Important?
Whether it is Zoom meetings or physical introductory meetings, the goal of team icebreakers is to jumpstart team discussions. Since everyone participates in icebreaker activities, regardless of job titles, hierarchy, or team department, they break down barriers in the workplace.
When team members feel comfortable and the tension eases down, especially when they are meeting each other for the first time, team morale and productivity can gain a significant boost. In turn, team icebreakers are reflected in workplace happiness, which is a key indicator of workplace success.
When you take into account that, based on research, company culture may affect employee happiness more than salary or perks, it makes sense that employees are more productive if they feel respected and cared for.
Icebreaker Memes
Most team meetings, whether they are daily standups or sprint retrospective meetings, can benefit from some humor, so icebreaker memes are a no-brainer. Still, icebreakers are surprisingly underutilized in the workplace.
As a whole, team members need a bit of laughter, and what better way to start off a meeting than to present an icebreaker meme that can give the workplace an edge in staying relevant with meme culture, as well as keeping the meeting results-driven to stay focused and productive.
Here are 20 icebreaker memes to kick off your team meeting right!
1. What about some meta-commentary to start the meeting? Self-referential humor always works. Trust us.
2. When new people hear icebreakers, they usually freeze up because they have to interact with others, but this eases the tension soon enough, and they'll thank you later.
3. Simple questions can work as icebreakers, giving the team a quick boost and getting them thinking.
4. Start off with a Sparta meme to liven the meeting (without the “kicking down the well” part).
5. A meeting in the morning? Reveal that sad yet relatable Kanye meme.
6. "Interesting facts about yourself" is one of the most notorious icebreakers, so Michael Scott's face pretty much sums it up.
7. A high-energy icebreaker in a stressful work week or hectic month? Oof—it's probably best not to do it.
8. Some say that the stress of White Walkers coming to invade Westeros feels just like bracing for an icebreaker.
9. How about let’s do an icebreaker, *literally.*
10. You may not be asking for it, but crack out the Oprah meme because everyone’s getting an icebreaker for today’s meeting!
11. The moment you least expect it, an icebreaker suddenly pops up.
12. As Harvey Dent from The Dark Knight said, “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
13. At this point, icebreakers are unavoidable and simply cannot be stopped.
14. Cut the tension with a cleverly smooth Dos Equis beer commercial meme.
15. For your Zoom meeting, how about revealing a not-so-hidden secret that many of us do?
16. To the unsung hero who actually looks forward to icebreakers, this one’s for you!
17. Start on a paw-sitive note with a cute cat meme and pun!
18. Didn't break a sweat during your team icebreaker? Achievement unlocked!
19. Seeing corporate culture express itself through memes can be endearing and is definitely appreciated.
20. Finally, here’s everyone looking away and pretending they don’t exist.
Final Thoughts
Memes seem to be everywhere on the internet, but finding memes dedicated to work can be difficult. We collected these icebreaker memes as well as these Scrum Team memes to have easy access to the most relatable memes for your teams, so that your next meeting can begin right.
If you’re looking to make your meetings even more special and personal, you should use our Agile Meme Generator tool that easily lets you create memes from our templates of 25+ meme templates with completely customizable text.
stablished, which ultimately results in a more productive work environment.
Fostering healthy work collaborations also helps achieve successful team retrospectives, so that team members can learn together from each other's work. You can manage your team's retrospectives effectively by using tools such as GoRetro, which provides an intuitive dashboard, flexible statuses, analytics tools, and more.
Sign up with GoRetro and experience better team collaboration and communication for your company today!