Would You Rather Questions for Work

Would you rather questions for work give a team two harmless options and one small job: pick a side and say why. This page has 120 work-appropriate would you rather questions in three tones: light, funny, and thoughtful. Use the card picker above to draw a random question, share it fullscreen in a meeting, start the 30-second timer, copy a card into the chat, or print the whole set. Every question is also listed below.

How to Use Would You Rather in a Work Meeting

One card is enough for a regular meeting. Choose a tone in the picker, press Next card, and let people answer in the way that suits the room: a raised hand, a word in the chat, or a step to one side. Answering is always optional, and "pass" is a fine answer.

Match the tone to the audience. For a client meeting or a call with people from other departments, stay on Light: those cards are about desks, lunch, and meetings, and nobody needs context to answer. Keep Funny for a team social or a group that already jokes together, and Thoughtful for sessions with time to talk.

The 5-Minute Meeting Warm-Up

1. Under Setting, leave only Meeting warm-up selected. Under Tone, keep Light or Funny.
2. Press Present fullscreen or read the card aloud.
3. Start the 30-second timer. Everyone picks a side with a raised hand.
4. Ask one person from each side for a one-sentence reason.
5. Draw a second card if there is time, then start the agenda.

This works as a set of would you rather morning meeting questions for a daily stand-up as well: one card, one show of hands, no follow-up needed.

In a room of up to about 12 people, a show of hands is quick to count. With a quiet group, vote first and talk second: ask everyone to point left or right at the same moment, then give your own answer and reason before inviting anyone else to speak.

On Zoom or Teams

1. Under Setting, leave only Virtual selected.
2. Share your screen and press Present fullscreen.
3. Ask everyone to type A or B in the chat, or to use two different reactions.
4. Press Copy and paste the card into the chat so people who joined by phone can read it.
5. Invite two people to unmute and explain. Keep cameras optional.

For a 50-person all-hands, skip the unmuting. Run a two-option poll if your meeting tool has one, or count the reactions, read out the split, and move on within two minutes. Chat votes also suit a quiet team, because typing one letter is easier than being the first to speak.

For longer remote sessions, pair a few cards with one of these remote meeting games.

At a Team Building Day

1. Under Setting, leave only Team building selected, and keep the Thoughtful tone.
2. Read the card and name one side of the room for each option. People walk to their side.
3. Give each side one minute to agree on its best reason, then let one person share it.
4. After five or six cards, ask what surprised people about where the group stood.

With a large group, press Print cards and give each table its own stack. More activities for a full session are in the team building icebreakers guide.

Fun Would You Rather Questions for Work

These are the light cards: everyday preferences about desks, meetings, and lunch. They need no thinking time, so they suit the first minute of a meeting and groups that have just met.

• Would you rather start the day with your hardest task or your easiest task?
• Would you rather have a desk by the window or a desk by the snack shelf?
• Would you rather take notes on paper or take notes on a screen?
• Would you rather have a meeting first thing in the morning or right after lunch?
• Would you rather plan a new project or wrap up a finished one?
• Would you rather listen to a podcast while you work or the same playlist on repeat?
• Would you rather get a short answer right away or a detailed answer tomorrow?
• Would you rather meet in a room with a big whiteboard or meet outside at a picnic table?
• Would you rather have a tidy desk and a messy desktop or a messy desk and a tidy desktop?
• Would you rather learn a new tool every month or use the same tools for five years?
• Would you rather write the first draft or edit someone else's draft?
• Would you rather have a pen that never runs out or a notebook that never fills up?
• Would you rather eat lunch at the same time every day or eat whenever you get hungry?
• Would you rather organize the team lunch or pick the team playlist?
• Would you rather spend a day on one big task or on ten small tasks?
• Would you rather get the agenda a week early or get the notes right after the meeting?
• Would you rather name every file perfectly or never need to search for a file again?
• Would you rather have a week of meeting-free mornings or a week of meeting-free afternoons?
• Would you rather be the person who opens the meeting or the person who wraps it up?
• Would you rather brainstorm out loud with the group or think alone first and then share?
• Would you rather have a bigger monitor or a comfier chair?
• Would you rather try a new lunch spot every week or have one favorite you never get tired of?
• Would you rather cross items off a list or drag cards across a board?
• Would you rather learn a shortcut that saves ten minutes a day or a trick that makes every slide look good?
• Would you rather present the opening slide or the closing slide?
• Would you rather work on a brand-new idea or improve something that already works?
• Would you rather have a team offsite in the mountains or a team offsite by the sea?
• Would you rather decorate your desk with plants or with pictures of places you want to visit?
• Would you rather start the week with a team check-in or end the week with a team recap?
• Would you rather get a handwritten thank-you note or a shout-out at the team meeting?

Funny Would You Rather Questions for Coworkers

Silly office scenarios for a team that already knows each other a little. The jokes are about printers, meeting rooms, and email, never about people.

• Would you rather have every meeting start with a drumroll or end with a round of applause?
• Would you rather have your emails read aloud by a movie trailer voice or by a sports announcer?
• Would you rather have an office slide between floors or an office zip line to the car park?
• Would you rather have a robot that refills your mug or a robot that finds your missing pens?
• Would you rather only speak in questions for one meeting or start every sentence with "breaking news"?
• Would you rather have a desk chair that spins forever or a desk that rolls wherever you point?
• Would you rather have a theme song play when you enter a room or a sound effect every time you hit send?
• Would you rather work with a stapler that gives compliments or a keyboard that hums along as you type?
• Would you rather replace every chart with a hand-drawn doodle or every bullet point with an emoji?
• Would you rather hold a meeting on a Ferris wheel or on a slow-moving train?
• Would you rather have an office dog that attends every meeting or an office cat that sits on every keyboard?
• Would you rather give a presentation using only sock puppets or only stick-figure drawings?
• Would you rather have a vending machine that only sells surprises or one that only sells your second-favorite snack?
• Would you rather write every email as a haiku or as a limerick?
• Would you rather have a conference room shaped like a treehouse or shaped like a submarine?
• Would you rather get to work by hot air balloon or by rowboat?
• Would you rather have the printer work every single time or the meeting room screen connect on the first try?
• Would you rather wear a cape on Mondays or a party hat on Fridays?
• Would you rather have a desk that turns into a ping-pong table or a chair that turns into a hammock?
• Would you rather find out the office plant has been listening to every meeting or the coffee machine has been keeping a diary?
• Would you rather have a gong to ring when a task is done or confetti that falls when a project ships?
• Would you rather name every meeting room after a snack or after a cartoon character?
• Would you rather have a calendar that schedules a surprise break every day or one that cancels a random meeting every week?
• Would you rather explain your job using only emojis or using only three words?
• Would you rather have a llama as the team mascot or a very serious goose as the team mascot?
• Would you rather have a whiteboard that erases itself or a marker that always draws straight lines?
• Would you rather swap desks with a lighthouse keeper for a day or with a zookeeper for a day?
• Would you rather have the elevator play your favorite song or tell you a joke on every ride?
• Would you rather have a lunch that is always a surprise or a lunch that is always tacos?
• Would you rather hold the next all-hands in a bouncy castle or in a blanket fort?

Thoughtful Would You Rather Questions for Teams

These cards ask how people like to work, learn, and decide. Use them at a team building session, a retrospective, or a kickoff, and leave a minute for discussion after each one. The answers often tell a team something useful about how to work together.

• Would you rather get feedback right away or after you've had time to reflect?
• Would you rather be known for great ideas or for getting things finished?
• Would you rather master one skill deeply or be good at many skills?
• Would you rather have a clear plan that might change or an open path you shape as you go?
• Would you rather get more time for a project or more people to help with it?
• Would you rather hear about a problem early with few details or later with the full story?
• Would you rather teach a skill you know well or learn a skill from scratch?
• Would you rather make a quick decision and adjust later or a slow decision and stick with it?
• Would you rather build something many people use a little or something a few people rely on every day?
• Would you rather be asked for advice or be asked for help?
• Would you rather have a mentor in your field or a mentor from a completely different field?
• Would you rather celebrate small wins every week or one big win at the end?
• Would you rather start with the big picture or start with the details?
• Would you rather spend an hour preventing a problem or an hour fixing one?
• Would you rather have one long stretch of focus time or several short ones?
• Would you rather hear what went well first or hear what to improve first?
• Would you rather lead a project you know well or join a project where everything is new?
• Would you rather write down what you learned this week or what you want to learn next week?
• Would you rather solve a puzzle with one clear answer or explore a question with many answers?
• Would you rather know exactly what next month looks like or be surprised by it?
• Would you rather keep a tradition the team already has or start a new one?
• Would you rather shadow a teammate in another role for a day or have them shadow you for a day?
• Would you rather read a book about your craft or a book that has nothing to do with work?
• Would you rather ask one great question in a meeting or give one great answer?
• Would you rather have clear instructions or room to figure it out yourself?
• Would you rather finish one thing perfectly or three things well enough?
• Would you rather be the first to try a new process or wait until the kinks are worked out?
• Would you rather spend a workshop day learning from an expert or building something with your team?
• Would you rather write down how you do a task or record a short video showing it?
• Would you rather look back at what the team did last year or look ahead to next year?

Would You Rather Questions for Virtual Meetings

These 30 cards were written for video calls and chat: ten light, ten funny, and ten thoughtful. The Virtual setting in the picker shows these plus other cards that are easy to answer by typing A or B.

• Would you rather join a call five minutes early or exactly on time?
• Would you rather answer in the chat or unmute and say it out loud?
• Would you rather use a beach virtual background or a bookshelf virtual background?
• Would you rather react with a thumbs-up or react with a party emoji?
• Would you rather take a video call from a quiet library or from a sunny porch?
• Would you rather share your screen or be the one taking notes?
• Would you rather get one message with all the details or five short messages in a row?
• Would you rather have a 15-minute call or get a well-written message instead?
• Would you rather work from a cabin in the woods for a week or from a café by the beach for a week?
• Would you rather have a team channel for pet photos or a team channel for lunch photos?
• Would you rather be stuck with a potato filter for one call or a cat filter for one call?
• Would you rather have your pet walk across the keyboard mid-sentence or your doorbell ring every time you unmute?
• Would you rather say "you're on mute" a hundred times or hear "can you see my screen?" a hundred times?
• Would you rather have a virtual background that changes every minute or one that is always a dancing banana?
• Would you rather send every chat message in all caps for a day or end every message with five exclamation points?
• Would you rather accidentally reply all with "thanks!" or accidentally send a cat GIF to the whole company?
• Would you rather have your video freeze in a heroic pose or freeze in the middle of a wave?
• Would you rather join a call narrated by a nature documentary voice or a call with a live laugh track?
• Would you rather only communicate in GIFs for a day or only in voice memos for a day?
• Would you rather have a mute button for background noise in real life or an unmute chime that sounds like a trumpet fanfare?
• Would you rather start a remote day with a team call or with quiet time to plan?
• Would you rather get a question in a public channel or in a direct message?
• Would you rather watch a recorded update when it suits you or join a live update where you can ask questions?
• Would you rather explain everything in one long written update or send a short note and follow up on a call?
• Would you rather work the same hours as your team or hours that fit your own rhythm?
• Would you rather meet a remote teammate in person once a year or have a casual video chat with them every month?
• Would you rather turn off notifications for a whole morning or check them once an hour?
• Would you rather have a shared document everyone edits together or one owner who gathers everyone's comments?
• Would you rather end a call with clear next steps or with five minutes of open conversation?
• Would you rather welcome a new remote teammate with a group call or with a series of one-to-one chats?

What Makes a Work-Appropriate Would You Rather Question

A work-appropriate would you rather question is one that anyone on the team can answer out loud without giving away something private. Every card on this page follows the same rules:

• No politics or religion. People should not have to show where they stand in order to join in.
• No money. Nothing about pay, bonuses, spending, or what anyone can afford.
• No bodies, appearance, or health. Nothing gross, and nothing about how people look or feel physically.
• No private relationships. Nothing about dating, partners, or family.
• No comparing coworkers. No card asks anyone to choose between teammates or rate them.
• Both options are fine to pick. If one choice would make a person look bad, careless, or odd, the card is rewritten.
• Passing is allowed. The host says so before the first card.

If you write your own questions, one check is enough: would you be comfortable reading both options, and your own answer, to the whole team? If not, change the question.

When a question passes that check but you are still unsure, look at four details:

1. Both options are acceptable, so neither side looks bad for choosing it.
2. The answer shows a preference, not a private fact about someone's life outside work.
3. A new hire can answer it, with no inside jokes or references to one team's history.
4. Nobody is named or compared, including managers and other departments.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some fun questions to ask coworkers?

Start with small choices about the workday. "Would you rather have a desk by the window or a desk by the snack shelf?" and "Would you rather write the first draft or edit someone else's draft?" are easy to answer and start a short conversation. For open-ended prompts instead of two choices, see the icebreaker questions guide.

What are good would you rather questions for work?

Good ones are short, have two options that are both acceptable, and are about work habits, food, tools, or harmless imaginary situations. Use the light and funny cards for regular meetings and the thoughtful cards when you have time to talk. The rules and variations of the game itself are on the Would You Rather page.

How do you keep would you rather questions work-appropriate?

Leave out politics, religion, money, bodies and health, private relationships, and anything that compares teammates. Read both options before the meeting and ask whether everyone could answer out loud. Tell the group that passing is fine. Seasonal sets need the same care, as in these Halloween icebreakers for work.

How long should a meeting icebreaker take?

Two to five minutes is enough for a regular meeting. One card with a 30-second vote and two short explanations takes about two minutes. If that is still too long, This or That is quicker because the options are one or two words each.