What 950+ Employee Reviews Reveal About Team Engagement: 5 Findings for HR Leaders

Why this data exists

I'm Claudine Fle, MBA. For six years my company has hosted virtual team-building sessions for corporate teams, and we've collected more than 950 verified post-session reviews at a 5.0 average rating: 790 from Airbnb Experiences (2019–2024), 130 from BookElevent (2023–2026), and 37 on Google. Of those, 875 include written comments, and I analyzed every one.

I'm not writing this to sell you a session. I'm writing it because if you're an HR leader or a team manager, you're the one who has to answer the hardest question in the room: did that actually engage anyone? I didn't look at the star ratings. I read the words people wrote, all 875 reviews of them, and this is what they tell me.

1. "Fun" is the metric nobody measures, and everybody mentions

Roughly four in ten reviewers use the word "fun" without being asked. They don't say "effective" or "well organized." They say fun. We measure engagement with surveys and eNPS scores, yet the most consistent signal across 875 reviews is the simplest one. Adults at work are hungry for real enjoyment, and they remember exactly which experiences gave it to them. If your team wouldn't call the activity fun afterward, the rest of your planning doesn't matter much.

2. Psychological safety is the real engagement driver

About one in seven reviewers say they felt comfortable, included, or at ease, and they often add that "everyone" could take part. Reviewers keep praising sessions where introverts and extroverts both found a way in, where nobody was put on the spot, and where joining in felt like an invitation, not a performance.

The best-reviewed sessions aren't the ones with the most energy in the room. They're the ones where the quietest person felt safe enough to speak.

If you're comparing vendors, ask them this: what happens to the quietest person on my team during your session?

3. Depth disguised as play outperforms both

Fifteen to eighteen percent of reviewers describe the experience as insightful, deep, thoughtful, or meaningful. That surprised me, for something people booked as entertainment. They came for a good time and left having learned something real about how they communicate, what they value, and what they need more of.

So the format that works best is not "fun" or "developmental." It's play on the surface with substance underneath. Activities that are only serious feel like work. Activities that are only silly are forgotten by Friday.

4. The annual ritual beats the one-off event

The reviews show something our bookings confirm: teams come back. One private client has booked sixteen sessions. Companies including Hometap, Pager, Hinge Health, and Navan have reviews from several teams across separate bookings. Meta's teams booked holiday sessions two Decembers in a row, and World of Good came back two years running.

The team building that pays off most is not one big offsite. It's a ritual your team looks forward to every year. Plan a calendar of traditions, not a list of events.

5. Remote teams don't want another webinar. They want to feel like a team

One in ten reviews mentions the virtual format, and the wish to connect shows up again and again. Distributed teams aren't asking for better video calls. They want an hour where geography stops mattering: laughing at the same moment, reacting to the same surprise, and leaving with a story they all share.

The bottom line

Here's what I tell every HR leader and team manager I work with.

Proof of engagement is really hard to get. People are off video, multitasking, half there, and no survey captures that in the moment. But bring people on camera with an activity that truly surprises them, and something shifts. The team connects in a way no slide deck can.

I call it the WIIFM factor, "what's in it for me?" When every person in the room gets something out of the experience for themselves, and something as a team, you've hit the jackpot. People stay on camera and stay interested when they sense something is going to shift for them personally, and for their sense of belonging to the team at the same time. Plan for both, or you're planning for neither.

Choose the kind of engagement on purpose, too. An escape room or a puzzle exercises the intellect. That's valuable, but it's only one channel. A tarot session engages head and heart: intuition, imagination, creativity, and the courage to say something unscripted out loud. Those are exactly the skills you want people practicing at work, and most team activities never touch them. The conversation moves from polite small talk ("so, what are you up to these days?") to something real.

Plan for the cameras-on moment. Plan for the person and the team. Engage the whole person, not just the problem solver. That's what 875 reviews are telling me.