An Ultimate List of Virtual Culture Ideas
Social interaction is an important component with how much people enjoy their job, but with COVID-19 keeping people remote, it’s important to continue socializing where possible.
So, how can you maintain social interaction with a dispersed team? Here’s our ultimate list of virtual culture ideas to consider.
Hanging by the Water Cooler
A great way to chat to other staff is when you’re in the kitchen making a coffee or heating your lunch...or by the water cooler. These conversations are usually short and sweet, but they add a lot of value to your day. This is something you can re-create virtually by having a daily video link where people can jump in at any time to see if anyone else is around for a 5 minute chat while you enjoy your first sip of coffee.
Happy Hour
Most staff live for Friday Happy Hour where they can share a drink with colleagues. Many companies have continued this tradition via video call, as it’s a great way to wind down at the end of the week. Better yet, send a bottle of wine or 6-pack of beer or cider to your team.
A ‘Work From Home’ Basket
Everyone loves presents! A great way to make your team feel valued is to send them a ‘work from home’ basket. Consider adding items such as coffee, tea, biscuits, candy, chocolate, desktop plant… anything you can think of! You could even send them some company swag including pen, notebook, mug or water bottle.
Workout Competition
A Harvard study revealed that regular exercise has many benefits that transfer to the workplace, including improved concentration, sharper memory, faster learning, prolonged mental stamina, enhanced creativity, and lower stress. Ways you can encourage staff to do more exercise is by turning it into a virtual challenge. This can be accomplished in several ways:
- Weekly virtual group yoga (there are many videos on YouTube, or you can hit up a local yoga studio to check if they offer virtual classes! #supportlocalbusiness).
- Divide the company into teams where they earn points for daily exercises. The team with the most points at the end can win a prize.
- If you’re using Slack, you can use one of the available fitness integrations to encourage your employees to keep moving.
Education
This is another one that can be done in a variety of ways. You can make it a challenge between individuals or teams, give staff a budget to assist, or have a prize for anyone that commits to something for 30 days in a row. Education ideas include:
- Learn a new hobby, i.e. another language, a musical instrument, knitting.
- Upgrade a skill, i.e. complete a short course on a skill in your field.
- Read a book, i.e. chapter a day challenge, 1 book per month, 1 free book from Audible.
Awards Night
Think Michael Scott at the Dundies for this one… who doesn’t want to win an award for Whitest Sneakers? Awards don’t have to be legitimate, it’s about having fun and recognizing the unique personalities of your team. It can also be an excuse to wear formal clothes while on your couch for the awards night itself! We encourage you to Google this episode of The Office ;)
Photo competition
Have staff submit photos of themselves as babies, and make it a competition for everyone to guess who it is. Or you can submit photos of your pets, your pantry, or anything at all, and guess who the owner is.
Sharing is Caring
Encourage staff to share lunch recipes, memes, random fun facts, music playlists, or a daily photo of their home office / lunch / walk outside. This can help connect people as we all go through the same social distancing struggles.
Trivia
This is a nice easy one as there are companies out there who will organize trivia events for you! All you have to do is think of team names and hope that you end up with the ‘smart’ people on your team. An alternate to pub style trivia is to do questions on your staff. You can send out a list of questions about favourite foods, fun facts, children’s names, and then everyone has to guess who it is.
Pizza Party
If you know everyone’s favourite pizza toppings (or you can simply ask them), you can organize a pizza delivery to your team. This can be for a team lunch, or just to show you care.
Wine Club
There are a couple of ways you could do this one:
- Deliver a bottle of wine to your staff and enjoy a class together via video call.
- Organize a wine tasting where everyone buys the same bottle and have team members guess the notes of the wine, i.e. oak, stone, blackberry, plum.
Online Gaming
There are so many online gaming options out there, from tic tac toe to D&D. However simple or complex the game, teams can work together on a common goal or against each other to win the MarioKart championship.
Cooking Class
People love to bond over food and a virtual cooking class could be the perfect way to bring your team together for some fun. You can give staff a gift card to a grocery store to buy the ingredients they need, then all jump online to learn to make a particular dish. Afterwards, everyone can submit a photo for how their dish turned out and the best plated dish can win an award.
No matter how big or small your team is, it is important to keep your company’s culture intact, especially while working from home. We hope this list helps give you some ideas to have fun with your colleagues.
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