# New Team Onboarding Activities That Actually Bond People Fast > The first 90 days set the culture. Here are the onboarding activities that create genuine connection quickly — for in-person teams in Luxembourg and remote teams worldwide. **Source:** https://chefpassport.com/blog/new-team-onboarding-activities/ **Category:** Onboarding & New Teams **Author:** Matteo Ressa, Founder & CEO, ChefPassport **Published:** 2026-04-02 · **Updated:** 2026-06-13 --- Research consistently shows that the first 90 days determine whether a new hire stays for the long term. Culture fit, team relationships, and a sense of belonging are the leading predictors of retention — and they're all set during that initial window. The problem is that most onboarding programmes focus on the transactional: system access, compliance training, process documentation. These are necessary, but they don't create belonging. That requires a different kind of investment. ## What actually creates connection quickly Connection comes from shared experience, not shared information. Sitting in the same orientation session doesn't bond people — it just puts them in the same room. What bonds people is doing something together that involves some level of challenge, vulnerability, or creative output. The most effective onboarding activities have three features: - **A shared novice baseline** — activities where everyone is equally inexperienced remove the seniority dynamic and the "new person disadvantage." - **Physical doing** — making something with your hands creates a different kind of engagement than talking or listening. - **A shared output** — something the whole group made or achieved together, which becomes the first shared story. ## The best onboarding activities ### 1. Cooking class (in-person or virtual) Consistently the highest-rated onboarding activity we run. New hires and established colleagues follow the same chef, make the same food, and eat together — all within about two hours. The combination of novice starting point, physical engagement, and shared meal makes it more effective than any icebreaker format. For in-person teams in Luxembourg: [ChefPassport at Kachatelier](/luxembourg/new-team-onboarding-luxembourg/), groups of 8–40. For remote hires: [virtual cooking class with worldwide ingredient delivery](/virtual-team-building-new-team/). ### 2. City or neighbourhood exploration For teams based in a physical location, a guided or self-guided exploration of the area creates shared local knowledge and natural conversation. In Luxembourg, this might be a walk through the old town with stops at meaningful locations. Simple, low-cost, and surprisingly effective. ### 3. Team challenge (escape room or problem-solving) Escape rooms and similar challenge formats work well for analytically-oriented teams. The collaborative pressure reveals how people think and communicate under stress — valuable information for a new team. Best for groups of 6–15. ### 4. Workshop or skills session A session where an expert teaches the whole group something new — photography, mixology, pottery, a language — creates shared novelty. The key is choosing something genuinely interesting rather than obviously work-related. ### 5. Informal meal together Never underestimate a good lunch. Unstructured shared meals have been building team relationships since long before "team building" was a category. The difference from a cooking class is that cooking produces the meal collaboratively — the making is as important as the eating. ## Onboarding remote and hybrid new hires The hardest onboarding challenge today is the distributed new hire — someone who joins a team they've never met in person. Standard onboarding activities often inadvertently exclude them: they watch the team do something together on camera rather than participating. The fix is to choose activities designed for genuine remote participation. A virtual cooking class where every participant — office-based and remote — cooks simultaneously from their own kitchen is the closest to an equal shared experience you can create without everyone being in the same room. For truly distributed teams joining from multiple countries, worldwide ingredient kit delivery (available through ChefPassport's HelloFresh partnership) means no participant has to source ingredients themselves — everyone just opens the box and cooks. ## Timing and sequencing The best onboarding activity is the first thing the new team does together — before individual tasks, before system setup if possible. Some companies run a cooking lunch on Day 1; others wait until the end of Week 1 to let people settle. One underrated option: run the onboarding activity before the formal start date, as a "welcome to the team" moment. It sets a tone of investment and warmth before the operational stress begins. ## Frequently asked questions **When is the best time to run an onboarding team building activity?** Week 1 or 2 is ideal — before cliques form and before new hires get lost in their individual onboarding tasks. Some companies run it on Day 1 as the very first shared experience. Others prefer end of Week 1 as a "we survived" celebration. Both work; the key is early. **What makes a good onboarding activity for new teams?** Three things: it should require no prior knowledge or skill (so no one is disadvantaged), it should involve physical doing rather than passive listening, and it should generate genuine conversation rather than scripted icebreakers. Cooking together scores on all three counts. **How do you onboard remote hires who can't come to the office?** Virtual cooking classes are the closest equivalent to a shared in-person experience for remote hires. Ingredient kits delivered to their home, a live chef, and the whole team cooking simultaneously — it removes the "new person on a Zoom call watching everyone else" dynamic entirely. **How do you integrate new team members into an existing team?** The goal is to give the new person something they can contribute to immediately, on equal footing with established colleagues. Cooking works because no one in a corporate team is a professional chef — the new hire and the 10-year veteran are equally novice, which levels the playing field instantly. **What is a good budget for new team onboarding activities?** For in-person events in Luxembourg, budget €90–150 per person for a quality 2–3 hour experience. For virtual events, €80–120 per person including ingredient kit delivery. The ROI case is straightforward: the cost of re-hiring a poor-fit new employee far exceeds the cost of a good onboarding programme. --- _ChefPassport — corporate cooking team building in Luxembourg & virtual worldwide. https://chefpassport.com_