Help me come up with a Remote Work Team Social event that doesn't suck
September 24, 2022 7:43 PM Subscribe
I manage a growing team of web developers. Due to Covid and a new appetite for remote hiring, I want to come up with low-stakes, low-structure social "things", especially for "Welcome, new team mate" 1-hour meetings, where the goal is nebulous but basically "See? You're working with Friendly Humans".
These are held remotely via zoom, usually lunch-adjacent. For a while, or I suppose for about 3 new-hires in the last 18 months, we were playing skribbl.io because I like it and it is easy to get everyone involved/talking a little during the game. Word games aren't fun for everyone on the team, though, and I'd like to have a few other go-to options.
These are optional but encouraged events with the immediate team. In a fully colocated in-office environment this would be a team lunch and I'm having a hard time coming up with alternatives. I don't want to require anyone to install additional software, so steam games or something are out.
Hope me, MeFi!
These are held remotely via zoom, usually lunch-adjacent. For a while, or I suppose for about 3 new-hires in the last 18 months, we were playing skribbl.io because I like it and it is easy to get everyone involved/talking a little during the game. Word games aren't fun for everyone on the team, though, and I'd like to have a few other go-to options.
These are optional but encouraged events with the immediate team. In a fully colocated in-office environment this would be a team lunch and I'm having a hard time coming up with alternatives. I don't want to require anyone to install additional software, so steam games or something are out.
Hope me, MeFi!
Best answer: If it would be a team lunch anyway, keep it a team lunch. Send everyone a $15 door dash (or whatever) credit a few days beforehand to sponsor it.
You can still chat and play games, but being fed is nice. And it can also spawn some filler content between longer activities: set up a poll for what is the best take out, or a word cloud for what folks ordered.
posted by phunniemee at 9:49 PM on September 24, 2022 [11 favorites]
You can still chat and play games, but being fed is nice. And it can also spawn some filler content between longer activities: set up a poll for what is the best take out, or a word cloud for what folks ordered.
posted by phunniemee at 9:49 PM on September 24, 2022 [11 favorites]
Best answer: A nice thing I've seen done is make a shared PowerPoint & have everyone take a slide & use it to tell the group something about themselves with pictures.
posted by bleep at 10:28 PM on September 24, 2022
posted by bleep at 10:28 PM on September 24, 2022
Gartic Phone is a fun telephone drawing game.
posted by Aleyn at 11:50 PM on September 24, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Aleyn at 11:50 PM on September 24, 2022 [7 favorites]
Best answer: Seconding gartic phone: it's a regular fixture in our monthly social calls in an all-remote company.
I once proposed Among Us but someone quietly mentioned that they find such games of deception very uncomfortable to play. Your colleagues may vary.
We played "guess the first line" where each player described a favourite books and others had to guess which of 3 sentences is the real opening sentence. It was fun, even in a team where English is not everyone's first language.
posted by wjt at 1:28 AM on September 25, 2022
I once proposed Among Us but someone quietly mentioned that they find such games of deception very uncomfortable to play. Your colleagues may vary.
We played "guess the first line" where each player described a favourite books and others had to guess which of 3 sentences is the real opening sentence. It was fun, even in a team where English is not everyone's first language.
posted by wjt at 1:28 AM on September 25, 2022
Best answer: We did team scavenger hunts online with google maps which can be fun, especially if you come up with a geographical limit (only in this city e.g.). If you do the speed-dating thing to introduce the team, come up with a play-along bingo card of interesting things about people - we had stuff like only child, has two tattoos, can't do a cartwheel, has eaten insects, etc that we'd gathered before from everyone. It makes a good ice-breaker to say "Hi, are you left-handed or have you ever flown in a hot air balloon? I'm so close to Bingo!"
We do once a month virtual 30min presentations, but honestly they can be a bit stressful and if you're not interested in the topic, dull. The 5min quick presentations sound like way more fun, especially if you make it a no-work-related topics zone.
And please send people food vouchers. It is very nice to have a takeaway by the office and chat with everyone else about what they ordered.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 1:34 AM on September 25, 2022
We do once a month virtual 30min presentations, but honestly they can be a bit stressful and if you're not interested in the topic, dull. The 5min quick presentations sound like way more fun, especially if you make it a no-work-related topics zone.
And please send people food vouchers. It is very nice to have a takeaway by the office and chat with everyone else about what they ordered.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 1:34 AM on September 25, 2022
Best answer: I've been working on this too, so I'll be interested in seeing suggestions.
I didn't want to do a scavenger hunt as a competition or race, so I was trying to think of quirky things to ask for the day before. The first one is going to be asking people to bring something older than they are. This will be followed by an icebreaker question (also provided the day before so people can think about it). Some of the ones I've thought of are:
What was the first fashion trend you remember following?
What was a toy you wanted as a child, but never got?
What is the most embarrassing album/CD/cassette/whatever-the-kids-use-these-days you ever bought?
What is your best Zombie apocalypse skill?
Who was your first celebrity crush?
If you could instantly know any language, which one would you choose and why?
posted by FencingGal at 5:22 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I didn't want to do a scavenger hunt as a competition or race, so I was trying to think of quirky things to ask for the day before. The first one is going to be asking people to bring something older than they are. This will be followed by an icebreaker question (also provided the day before so people can think about it). Some of the ones I've thought of are:
What was the first fashion trend you remember following?
What was a toy you wanted as a child, but never got?
What is the most embarrassing album/CD/cassette/whatever-the-kids-use-these-days you ever bought?
What is your best Zombie apocalypse skill?
Who was your first celebrity crush?
If you could instantly know any language, which one would you choose and why?
posted by FencingGal at 5:22 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: These are optional but encouraged events with the immediate team.
Make sure you mean what you say here, and make sure you're willing to accept it when someone (like me) takes you at your word and declines to participate because it's optional.
Also be aware that some of the folks participating are only doing so because they've learned that "optional" is a lie and they know that those who don't participate in the optional but actually mandatory fun-times get a big target painted on their back. So they're hating the event and hating you for forcing them to do something that feels pretty much the opposite of fun.
That being said, what we've done a few times is a team lunch with folks on Zoom just chatting (cameras optional), or a team happy hour at the end of the week, also on Zoom with folks just chatting.
Sometimes they play some game where someone has a word and they have to draw a picture of the word and everyone tries to guess, but I just drop off the call when that starts up so I don't remember the name. Everyone seems to enjoy it, though.
posted by ralan at 6:51 AM on September 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
Make sure you mean what you say here, and make sure you're willing to accept it when someone (like me) takes you at your word and declines to participate because it's optional.
Also be aware that some of the folks participating are only doing so because they've learned that "optional" is a lie and they know that those who don't participate in the optional but actually mandatory fun-times get a big target painted on their back. So they're hating the event and hating you for forcing them to do something that feels pretty much the opposite of fun.
That being said, what we've done a few times is a team lunch with folks on Zoom just chatting (cameras optional), or a team happy hour at the end of the week, also on Zoom with folks just chatting.
Sometimes they play some game where someone has a word and they have to draw a picture of the word and everyone tries to guess, but I just drop off the call when that starts up so I don't remember the name. Everyone seems to enjoy it, though.
posted by ralan at 6:51 AM on September 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I once proposed Among Us but someone quietly mentioned that they find such games of deception very uncomfortable to play. Your colleagues may vary.
I've never played but I just googled and it looks like it's essentially a Mafia variant, which is a hard no for me. It's fairly common for people to find Mafia uncomfortable (for varying reasons) so avoiding Among Us is probably good. (Interestingly, I don't mind the card game Bang, even though it has the same element of being accused of things. I hate Coup because you're supposed to accuse people of lying.)
I'm on a team that does a "game standup" once a week. I pretty consistently have another meeting scheduled during that time, but they do a lot of Draw Battle.
posted by hoyland at 7:18 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've never played but I just googled and it looks like it's essentially a Mafia variant, which is a hard no for me. It's fairly common for people to find Mafia uncomfortable (for varying reasons) so avoiding Among Us is probably good. (Interestingly, I don't mind the card game Bang, even though it has the same element of being accused of things. I hate Coup because you're supposed to accuse people of lying.)
I'm on a team that does a "game standup" once a week. I pretty consistently have another meeting scheduled during that time, but they do a lot of Draw Battle.
posted by hoyland at 7:18 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I was dubious but we all surprised ourselves with the ferocity with which we (devs and other software-adjacent people) played some kind of team geoguessr (this, I guess?).
We play Jackbox games with an array of friends. They're pretty heavy on trivia, puns, and other word games, so I think it would be a little disadvantageous to play with teammates who aren't from NA/UK/IE/AUNZ even if their English is perfect, just for culture/media purposes.
I recently had an optional social event in which people who were not attending were asked (if they had a minute) to send a fun/interesting fact, recipe, website, or short video, and I didn't ask the organizer if this was to make it clear that optional is optional or to help FOMO for people who wanted to be there and couldn't or to have a moment where attendees at least thought about teammates who weren't there, but it was actually really nice to have a sense of involvement from people who weren't there. The organizer put together a powerpoint of the submitted items to show during an intermission between events. It was nice, and hopefully shouldn't have demanded more than a few minutes of effort from non-attendees.
In our case we've quickly become a very global company and it's just no longer possible for one meeting to be attendable by every employee, and there are people I (Pacific time zone) will likely never socialize with in real time, so it's cool to at be able to think of Jan in the Philippines as the guy with the cake recipe and not just someone occasionally CCd on the same email as me.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:44 PM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
We play Jackbox games with an array of friends. They're pretty heavy on trivia, puns, and other word games, so I think it would be a little disadvantageous to play with teammates who aren't from NA/UK/IE/AUNZ even if their English is perfect, just for culture/media purposes.
I recently had an optional social event in which people who were not attending were asked (if they had a minute) to send a fun/interesting fact, recipe, website, or short video, and I didn't ask the organizer if this was to make it clear that optional is optional or to help FOMO for people who wanted to be there and couldn't or to have a moment where attendees at least thought about teammates who weren't there, but it was actually really nice to have a sense of involvement from people who weren't there. The organizer put together a powerpoint of the submitted items to show during an intermission between events. It was nice, and hopefully shouldn't have demanded more than a few minutes of effort from non-attendees.
In our case we've quickly become a very global company and it's just no longer possible for one meeting to be attendable by every employee, and there are people I (Pacific time zone) will likely never socialize with in real time, so it's cool to at be able to think of Jan in the Philippines as the guy with the cake recipe and not just someone occasionally CCd on the same email as me.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:44 PM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Food (paid for by the company) + gather.town (or an alternative) to "chat." Spatial chat allows a group to have multiple simultaneous conversations (like IRL).
I would be very careful about icebreakers, because they can (inadvertently) make people feel uncomfortable. For instance, the "first celebrity crush" prompt is potentially uncomfortable for anyone who...
-is LGBTQ+
-doesn't /didn't follow popular media
-doesn't/didn't follow 'Western' popular media
-doesn't wish to reveal one's age
-comes from a background where this was not possible or 'acceptable' and/or
-doesn't want to share that level of "personal information" with work colleagues.
posted by oceano at 2:20 PM on September 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
I would be very careful about icebreakers, because they can (inadvertently) make people feel uncomfortable. For instance, the "first celebrity crush" prompt is potentially uncomfortable for anyone who...
-is LGBTQ+
-doesn't /didn't follow popular media
-doesn't/didn't follow 'Western' popular media
-doesn't wish to reveal one's age
-comes from a background where this was not possible or 'acceptable' and/or
-doesn't want to share that level of "personal information" with work colleagues.
posted by oceano at 2:20 PM on September 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
Best answer: We have a monthly "happy hour" which is during work hours and we have a billing code for it. You're not expected to do 8+1 in the name of "fun" which is a big reason we have good attendance. I'm East Coast so for me it IS "after hours" but I just get started an hour later that day and no one cares.
Not taking time out of people's actual lives for "work fun" is an important thing to remember, IMO.
We have a loose topic so that there is more talking and it's directed -- so last time it was "hobbies" and several people talked for 5-10 minutes each about their hobbies and showed pics or what have you. It was fun, and the higher ups attended but didn't hog the discussion.
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:45 AM on September 26, 2022
Not taking time out of people's actual lives for "work fun" is an important thing to remember, IMO.
We have a loose topic so that there is more talking and it's directed -- so last time it was "hobbies" and several people talked for 5-10 minutes each about their hobbies and showed pics or what have you. It was fun, and the higher ups attended but didn't hog the discussion.
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:45 AM on September 26, 2022
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- Among Us
- Jackbox party games
- Drawasaurus
- Anyone gives a 5 minute presentation about a fun topic of their choice, as silly as they want
- “Speed dating” - so one on ones that swap every 5-10 minutes
posted by sevensnowflakes at 8:08 PM on September 24, 2022 [3 favorites]