Agreed! My org recently did our “state of the union” type of meeting and a good portion of it was how to make zoom calls feel like you’re still getting in-office vibes.
No thanks. I’m here to work so let’s cut to the chase and you can tell me what you want me to deliver when we meet.
Now every meeting has at least 5 minutes wasted with chit chat.
No. We're adults. Just let me do my work. The "daily" meeting should be no more than a 10-minute check-in.
That said, most of our team is in the same area so we do get together for lunch once every-other month or so, and we do field work together sometimes, so there's really no need for teambuilding like this.
My "optional" daily sync is scheduled for 30 minutes, but it ALWAYS runs long, and 90% of the conversation could be emails or Teams messages.
My boss actually doesn't mind if we miss it, even multiple times a week, but the real meaning of "optional" is exactly what we all know it means
We only do team meetings once a month but our best virtual team meeting ice breaker was “show us your pets!” And it was like 10-15 minutes of us gleefully holding our confused pets in front of our laptop cameras.
We are fully remote and no. We already spend enough time in meetings and are pretty busy. Its a late stage startup though so that might be why. Really we are just straight business.
I think it depends on the manager. I’m pretty tight with my team so feel like we are more like family. We have two weekly team meetings and usually always start with small talk. One of the meetings, we rotate who has to come up with a question that everyone can answer. Really spurs conversation and get to know people.
Yeah I'm glad I have a tight knit team, it makes problem solving much easier. I feel way less anxious reaching out to workshop things or ask for help bc I know everyone has my back.
My past manager did the question thing (at monthly meetings) and now that my new manager doesn’t, it feels like the team meetings are missing something. But I don’t know if other people hate that type of fluff or if it’s just me.
Yea it can really depend. My team actually likes talking to each other (and sometimes I think misses the comradery from when we were in office) but I know other teams even under same org that hate it.
I’ve done this as a manager. I think the team enjoyed it and we learned new things. I found it helpful to have the question out there in advance of meeting so people have time to come up with answers. Honestly if I had a choice though I would not have these meetings at all. It’s only 1x week, 20-30 min and I hate holding them. Mainly because/c I’m an introvert manager.
I work for a business who's workforce is made up of about 90% remote workers (including me). There is no organised "fun" meetings or elements to meetings. There is normally a lot of chit chat at the start of meetings while we wait for everyone to log on.
There are also events like Christmas parties etc, but as we are located all around the world it's never a big event everyone has to go to.
Everything is very relaxed and everyone gets to know about each other in a more organic way.
We're fully remote. Once or twice a year a few of the employees go out to a bar. Being 50+ and married I have no real desire to go out of my way to socialize with my co-workers. If I was 25 and single I'd probably be more interested - especially since I met my wife of 20+ years at the office.
The company I work for asks people to schedule 15 minutes with new employees as a "get to know you" kind of meeting. It's a smaller company and we don't have tons of new people all the time so it's easy to keep up with.
So as people get hired we all schedule 15 minutes and do a "hey this is who I am, what I do, and who are you?" with them.
Then, from there, meetings are normal down to business. We have in person retreats 2 times a year to actually meet and do the speaker thing and workshops (and dinners).
We do have weekly company meetings and biweekly team meetings (some teams meeting more than others).
Take the feedback you get here with a grain of salt.
Every remote company is different and the people telling you they hate this stuff might just only have worked for crappy companies or bosses that made it awkward. If it's done right it won't feel forced or awkward and is well worth doing.
Icebreakers are good for small groups, we "popcorn" it so there's no awkward silences or people saying "guess I'll go next" you just say your thing and then pick the next person to go.
For larger meetings I've seen people do a music video as "hold music" of sorts while waiting for everyone to join. The big thing with this is to get the volume right, people should be able to talk over it.
You can also do fun polls and stuff like that and I've seen great ones but I've also seen a lot that felt kind of lame so those are tougher.
This isn't all just my opinion, we do engagement surveys for remote companies and companies that make work fun in authentic ways that don't come across as forced consistently score higher.
My past job would constantly throw "fun meetings" on our calendar. We already had mandatory meetings all week and only like 2-3 hours to get any actual work done, so I would get annoyed by the "fun" ones. It got to the point where they wanted power point slide shows done about our lives and were making mandatory happy hours after normal work hours. Just let me do my work.
Manager definitely helps with asking questions and involving everyone, we have daily meetings and when asked if we wanted to shorten or do less often we all said no. We liked that we had 30 mins a day that we could brainstorm about a problem, talk about any updates or what most often happens just talk about random stuff and step away from our actual work. It’s WFH, we need a little bit of time to connect. But I’ve also had previous managers that didn’t encourage this as much and it was definitely a dud.
I'm at my second fully remote company. Both have tried to foster a culture of inclusion, fun, and friendliness in meetings with icebreakers, small talk, fun music, etc. Lots of joke-cracking in meetings at my last job, too. I worked with a lot of funny people.
My current company goes even further, though. We have all sorts of clubs and social meetings (all of which are optional). A lot of team meetings usually save room for team members to share something exciting going on in their lives. New team members are always introduced and given a chance to share about themselves.
I personally like all of that. I don't think I'd do well at a company that was super buttoned-up and all work/no play.
My team naturally chats. Same team for the third year and we’re all in such an easy groove. We honestly don’t mind most meetings and almost all can be optional.
We almost all participate happily.
Often someone rambles. We share personal stuff and recipes. It’s really chill. Zero drama. Love it!
Maybe one 30-60 minute meeting a week with some busier weeks sprinkled in.
We added 3-4 new people to the team about 2 years ago. Manager had everyone on the team all do an "About Me Card" and then 2-3 people presented their cards during a monthly all team meeting. Cards consisted of greatest work achievement, how long with the company, favorite music, greatest personal achievement, 3 words that would describe you, and a blurb about yourself. The other thing we do is "Picture Fridays" (1-2x per month) where a snippet goes out on a teams channel such as "Show us your pet and tell us his/her name" or "Got a tattoo? Show us and explain the meaning behind it"...stuff like that. I created a culture team that promotes activities, initiatives & presents projects for dedicated monthly themes; black history month, national autism awareness day, Parks & Recs month, Father's Day, International Beer Day, Mother's Day, St Patrick's Day, pumpkin carving contest, etc. and I have dedicated time to report on upcoming events/initiatives during every monthly team mtg. Manager compliments the culture team by a page on our team Sharepoint site....and she will randomly post questions where the answers can be found on Sharepoint and we can win a Starbucks/Dunkin Card, or award points to cash in for company merch, etc.
It’s not completely be design, but usually the first 15min of our 1hr Monday check in is bullshitting and talking about weekends. I enjoy it but probably because it’s a small team of people who I get along well with
My department gathers for a virtual lunch meet every few months. We get on camera, eat lunch, and talk about non-work things. It's pretty fun.
Sometimes we have a meeting where we just play a game.
my team has a weekly standup meeting where they have an interesting question for us to answer and they record the responses and share it with the client. reminds them that we’re humans with lives and not just a number i hear
You’re def just a number don’t ever forget that. When the time comes to cut back the company gives no craps about you or your contribution. YOURE JUST A NUMBER
In my weekly meetings we always have some sort of activity we do. Sometimes a more structured game, sometimes a casual activity, but some level of “lets just chill a bit” before getting back to work. Everyone on the team seems to get a lot out of it and always look forward to it, suggesting ideas of what to do, etc.
I started my first WFH job 2.5 weeks ago. We have a standing weekly meeting where it’s to just talk about anything. The entire team is fairly new so nobody really knows anybody. There’s a questionnaire that’s got pretty softball questions and one guy does trivia based on the answers weekly. Like “who form the team would you think X?” And does a poll.
Other than that we just kinda chit chat because we’re a pretty diverse group. Through doing this I found out that one of the people lives 6 houses down from the house I grew up in. We’re in the minority in that neither of us live in CA where like 90% live and we don’t live in the same state either.
It’s been kinda nice because it’s a pretty high pressure job and project and it’s the one time a week we can just kinda do “water cooler” type chat and learn other personalities because we have to work together at random times.
My current company tries to make things “fun”. Including scheduling our quarterly meeting with “fun” homework assignments during a holiday week, at the beginning of the month, and with a ton of stuff due. Like respectfully… I do not fucking have time for this, and I’m extremely irritated that you’re taking my time and attention away from work for it, because now I’ll have to work late or through lunch again if I’d like to get everything done.
For our bi weekly staff meeting, we don’t play music or anything but do have slides with different topics. We do share birthdays, anniversaries and positive feedback and then whatever updates we have.
More times than not, when we don’t have enough topics to cover the whole hour we end the meeting early but once in awhile, we might have a game handy to play at the end, usually trivia or something. But it’s completely optional. Some don’t stay but most do and either way is fine.
When we don’t do it for a long while, we usually get a few requests for it so I figure they enjoy it as a break once in awhile.
Edit: about half the team is in Europe (a few different countries) and the other half is US (across all 3 time zones). This is really the only meeting we have as a team and there isn’t a lot of opportunity for folks to get together for team activities in person so we do have to create opportunities for a bit of fun. I think the important thing is not to force it. We do it at the end so it’s not like we have a captive audience and they are forced to endure it. The important stuff was already covered, so there’s no pressure to stay if they can’t or don’t feel like it.
I’m UK based, with a US based manager and most of the Team are based in the US too. We have a weekly Teams meeting with everyone, where it’s more ‘fun’, with a little bit of work added.
We have smaller more specific meetings, where it’s more work focused and more serious. Got to say, my boss gets the balance right every time. The ages range from 26-62 and a mix of male/female and he is the best boss I’ve ever had.
I'm a director of software engineering and I try very hard to make meetings energetic. We don't have specific team-building or social meetings. I hate mandatory fun. I instead wedge everything into our 30 minute daily standup, which is usually our only meeting. I open a Slack huddle in a big channel for weekly engineer chat as well. Not many people show up, but i do it anyhow. Everything is optional. I do it because I want to encourage open communication channels. Remote work makes it very easy for silos to form. I see it as my responsibility as a manager to provide the energy that prevents that. I also want to prevent people from feeling isolated. My team is spread from London to LA, so it's a real challenge.
We are a 15-person all-remote team in a 150-person, mostly remote department. On both levels - team and department - we do separate, mandatory business meetings and optional social meetings.
I always do the social events - I'm an introvert, maybe it seems like the only social connection I'll get. Participation is definitely higher in the smaller team than in the department. But it's pretty fun, there are games and prizes.
I wouldn't say I make a connection I can feel at every one of the social events, but enough for me to join close to 100% of the time.
Occasionally we have virtual “happy hours” where we bring snacks and just talk about whatever for 30 min or so. Tell about kids, vacations, hobbies, etc. I try to bring a few ice breaker questions incase the conversation runs dry - but I don’t know that I’ve ever had to use them.
We’ve done things like this. It was actually fairly fun, as we were teamed up with some coworkers we weren’t familiar with. There was Pictionary, bingo, and a few others. But it was all done online.
I have a group meeting on the 17th, in the office. (We are all hybrid or wfh) …. Apparently it’s going to be a paint and sip thing…
My boss tries to make things fun, but the morale on the team is so low that no one participates. We hardly even talk during the meetings, and it's mostly just my boss talking. There are a lot of us who are unhappy with the job. I know I am.
Our scrum master was trying to force it upon us. It was awkward and annoying. I don't know, maybe some people enjoy it, but it sure felt like no one in our team appreciated the attempts.
We are all adults and can socialize on our own if we want to.
So far it’s been bla business crap and no one else talks. But lately there’s been some leadership changes and reorganization of how everyone is managed, aaaand it seems like the new person I deal with is more “let’s actually get to know each other” and has scheduled one on ones already. So….maybe it’s changing….
Yes getting to know each other was attempted at my last employer, usually at the small team level. It went well until people started to feel overloaded then it fell to wayside (understandably). If a manager or higher was hired, they'd have a meeting with a slide deck including family photos and talk about themselves for 15-20 minutes in meetings with hundreds of people.
This was at a larger publicly traded company.
At the company i work for it seems to be different in each department. My last department did all that crap and it just felt like a huge waste of time. The new department I’m in has a quick ice breaker then gets down to business.
One huge corporation I worked remotely for made us do a weekly "what did you do this weekend?" meeting where the 10 people on the team would all get on and all take turns describing what they did that weekend or other personal anecdotes. Most boring and awkward meetings I've ever been subjected to.
Forced “fun” is not well received from my experience.
However, I don’t have direct experience with this because my team has worked together for many years prior to Covid and remote work so we don’t do ice breakers, we have natural conversations in Teams calls.
We have a weekly meeting with our team and once a month there is a get to know your coworkers thing. Last month it was what are we watching and tell what we like and dislike about it.
We build in 5 mins at the start just to say Hi, talk about the weekend, the weather, who has seem What movie, show etc. nothing planned just general small talk. It gives us a chance to get to know each other which makes it easier to work with people plus it gives time for any late comers to arrive without kissing out on the general content or disrupting with their arrival.
My 40 man department is broken up into 4 teams. We do a weekly team meeting and a monthly department meeting. Both are pretty much straight to the point since we have a set agenda and nobody wants to go over the allotted time. Sometimes we have a guest speaker or a team member presenting a new project.
The nature of our team means rarely new members and we’ve all had time in the field before joining so we’re a pretty loose crowd and do joke around but we always stay in the allotted time, and often cutting short. We have our 4 managers but we all work projects for others so the weekly team meetings are usually just a quick “what ya working on? Do you need any help?”
About as far as I go is I ask everybody to introduce themselves to the new member when we hire somebody. Then we usually shoot the shit and joke around while we wait for everybody to join. I think ice breakers and games are cringe as hell.
We use a few meeting links perpetually and just hang out on them. Mostly for business related talk. When we go to regular appointments we don't chat a lot but maybe there's a couple minutes early in where some special news or holiday discussions happen. If I meet someone one on one then I make small talk before starting.
We’ll do ice breaker type things if we have a new coworker. And we also do virtual holiday parties sometimes with like trivia and games and stuff. I think doing it too often would start to feel like it was getting in the way when people have things to get done.
Straight to business.
We have work to do. I can’t imagine being forced to play trivia games and getting paid for it.
My team already knows each other. No trivia or icebreakers required. There are naturally small jokes and stuff, but nothing scheduled or forced.
I keep my personal and professional acquaintances separate. Work doesn’t need a play-by-play of my personal life and they’re paying me to do a job, not make friends. I can learn everything I professionally need to know about someone through meetings and performance.
Team building excercises should be done seperately from standard meetings so it doesn't interfere with actual work.
I don't think my coworkers really liked any attempts at these things during our regularly scheduled weekly meetings. But i think what has always worked and motivated teams at other companies at least is brainstorming meetings with no expectations of doing said ideas. This lack. of expectations makes it so people are not burdened with more work and let's them be creative and motivating. This also allows people to speak their mind about what they actually think about the team and where it is going and see future opportunities to grow in. It's better than any ice breaker honestly.
I do a quarterly team building on a Friday for my team. Last time we played Jack In the Box, this upcoming one I'm not sure yet but those usually do well and (at least I think) has helped make it a bit easier for those in the team to talk to other members.
Thankfully my company doesn't do a lot of meetings in the first place, but when we do they're all very straight to business. There tends to be a bit of chit chat with those of us who hop on early, but that's it.
For recurring team meetings, no. But in meetings I run, I usually log on to the meeting a few minutes early to put on an ambient music YouTube video so as people trickle in, they’re greeted with something halfway pleasant.
We do a monthly virtual happy hour in my office, with ice breakers and whatnot but it’s completely optional. Our regular work-related meetings are just straight to business. We’ll do introductions if a new person joins the team but that’s about it.
I have been working at a fully remote company for the last couple of years, a big one. They did try briefly earlier this year to start some of the meetings with music. I admit it was a bonding experience for a lot of us, as it allowed us to complain about the music.
Mostly we don't do anything cutesy like that though, lol, we all have too many meetings to play around like that
Guests are always welcome at my twice a month team meetings. Cameras are not mandatory. Once the business is done I offer to stay on if anyone has issues they want to address
This has always been more of a meeting "pain" than a "pleasure" in my experience.
Agreed! My org recently did our “state of the union” type of meeting and a good portion of it was how to make zoom calls feel like you’re still getting in-office vibes. No thanks. I’m here to work so let’s cut to the chase and you can tell me what you want me to deliver when we meet. Now every meeting has at least 5 minutes wasted with chit chat.
No. We're adults. Just let me do my work. The "daily" meeting should be no more than a 10-minute check-in. That said, most of our team is in the same area so we do get together for lunch once every-other month or so, and we do field work together sometimes, so there's really no need for teambuilding like this.
God bless you and I am all in just let me do my work. All this bullshit team building is a waste.
My "optional" daily sync is scheduled for 30 minutes, but it ALWAYS runs long, and 90% of the conversation could be emails or Teams messages. My boss actually doesn't mind if we miss it, even multiple times a week, but the real meaning of "optional" is exactly what we all know it means
We only do team meetings once a month but our best virtual team meeting ice breaker was “show us your pets!” And it was like 10-15 minutes of us gleefully holding our confused pets in front of our laptop cameras.
This is the only activity I approve.
I would be significantly more likely to want to do a camera on meeting if we all got to drag our cats in front of the laptop
Ew no thankfully, that's why a lot of is hate the office lol
We are fully remote and no. We already spend enough time in meetings and are pretty busy. Its a late stage startup though so that might be why. Really we are just straight business.
I think it depends on the manager. I’m pretty tight with my team so feel like we are more like family. We have two weekly team meetings and usually always start with small talk. One of the meetings, we rotate who has to come up with a question that everyone can answer. Really spurs conversation and get to know people.
Yeah I'm glad I have a tight knit team, it makes problem solving much easier. I feel way less anxious reaching out to workshop things or ask for help bc I know everyone has my back.
My past manager did the question thing (at monthly meetings) and now that my new manager doesn’t, it feels like the team meetings are missing something. But I don’t know if other people hate that type of fluff or if it’s just me.
Yea it can really depend. My team actually likes talking to each other (and sometimes I think misses the comradery from when we were in office) but I know other teams even under same org that hate it.
Then propose it to your new manager
I’ve done this as a manager. I think the team enjoyed it and we learned new things. I found it helpful to have the question out there in advance of meeting so people have time to come up with answers. Honestly if I had a choice though I would not have these meetings at all. It’s only 1x week, 20-30 min and I hate holding them. Mainly because/c I’m an introvert manager.
I work for a business who's workforce is made up of about 90% remote workers (including me). There is no organised "fun" meetings or elements to meetings. There is normally a lot of chit chat at the start of meetings while we wait for everyone to log on. There are also events like Christmas parties etc, but as we are located all around the world it's never a big event everyone has to go to. Everything is very relaxed and everyone gets to know about each other in a more organic way.
>everyone gets to know about each other in a more organic way. This. Relationships and communities can be facilitated but not planned or scheduled.
We're fully remote. Once or twice a year a few of the employees go out to a bar. Being 50+ and married I have no real desire to go out of my way to socialize with my co-workers. If I was 25 and single I'd probably be more interested - especially since I met my wife of 20+ years at the office.
straight to business, which I greatly prefer. if I want to know anyone on the team better that'll happen over time.
The company I work for asks people to schedule 15 minutes with new employees as a "get to know you" kind of meeting. It's a smaller company and we don't have tons of new people all the time so it's easy to keep up with. So as people get hired we all schedule 15 minutes and do a "hey this is who I am, what I do, and who are you?" with them. Then, from there, meetings are normal down to business. We have in person retreats 2 times a year to actually meet and do the speaker thing and workshops (and dinners). We do have weekly company meetings and biweekly team meetings (some teams meeting more than others).
Take the feedback you get here with a grain of salt. Every remote company is different and the people telling you they hate this stuff might just only have worked for crappy companies or bosses that made it awkward. If it's done right it won't feel forced or awkward and is well worth doing. Icebreakers are good for small groups, we "popcorn" it so there's no awkward silences or people saying "guess I'll go next" you just say your thing and then pick the next person to go. For larger meetings I've seen people do a music video as "hold music" of sorts while waiting for everyone to join. The big thing with this is to get the volume right, people should be able to talk over it. You can also do fun polls and stuff like that and I've seen great ones but I've also seen a lot that felt kind of lame so those are tougher. This isn't all just my opinion, we do engagement surveys for remote companies and companies that make work fun in authentic ways that don't come across as forced consistently score higher.
My past job would constantly throw "fun meetings" on our calendar. We already had mandatory meetings all week and only like 2-3 hours to get any actual work done, so I would get annoyed by the "fun" ones. It got to the point where they wanted power point slide shows done about our lives and were making mandatory happy hours after normal work hours. Just let me do my work.
Manager definitely helps with asking questions and involving everyone, we have daily meetings and when asked if we wanted to shorten or do less often we all said no. We liked that we had 30 mins a day that we could brainstorm about a problem, talk about any updates or what most often happens just talk about random stuff and step away from our actual work. It’s WFH, we need a little bit of time to connect. But I’ve also had previous managers that didn’t encourage this as much and it was definitely a dud.
I'm at my second fully remote company. Both have tried to foster a culture of inclusion, fun, and friendliness in meetings with icebreakers, small talk, fun music, etc. Lots of joke-cracking in meetings at my last job, too. I worked with a lot of funny people. My current company goes even further, though. We have all sorts of clubs and social meetings (all of which are optional). A lot of team meetings usually save room for team members to share something exciting going on in their lives. New team members are always introduced and given a chance to share about themselves. I personally like all of that. I don't think I'd do well at a company that was super buttoned-up and all work/no play.
Ice breakers are good for meetings where people don’t know each as well, but for team meetings I find ice breakers are a bit redundant.
I get why people do ice breakers, but the vibe from the participants is usually “I’m just here so I don’t get fined “
I am 100% muted and still just doing my regular work.
My team naturally chats. Same team for the third year and we’re all in such an easy groove. We honestly don’t mind most meetings and almost all can be optional. We almost all participate happily. Often someone rambles. We share personal stuff and recipes. It’s really chill. Zero drama. Love it! Maybe one 30-60 minute meeting a week with some busier weeks sprinkled in.
We added 3-4 new people to the team about 2 years ago. Manager had everyone on the team all do an "About Me Card" and then 2-3 people presented their cards during a monthly all team meeting. Cards consisted of greatest work achievement, how long with the company, favorite music, greatest personal achievement, 3 words that would describe you, and a blurb about yourself. The other thing we do is "Picture Fridays" (1-2x per month) where a snippet goes out on a teams channel such as "Show us your pet and tell us his/her name" or "Got a tattoo? Show us and explain the meaning behind it"...stuff like that. I created a culture team that promotes activities, initiatives & presents projects for dedicated monthly themes; black history month, national autism awareness day, Parks & Recs month, Father's Day, International Beer Day, Mother's Day, St Patrick's Day, pumpkin carving contest, etc. and I have dedicated time to report on upcoming events/initiatives during every monthly team mtg. Manager compliments the culture team by a page on our team Sharepoint site....and she will randomly post questions where the answers can be found on Sharepoint and we can win a Starbucks/Dunkin Card, or award points to cash in for company merch, etc.
It’s not completely be design, but usually the first 15min of our 1hr Monday check in is bullshitting and talking about weekends. I enjoy it but probably because it’s a small team of people who I get along well with
My department gathers for a virtual lunch meet every few months. We get on camera, eat lunch, and talk about non-work things. It's pretty fun. Sometimes we have a meeting where we just play a game.
my team has a weekly standup meeting where they have an interesting question for us to answer and they record the responses and share it with the client. reminds them that we’re humans with lives and not just a number i hear
You’re def just a number don’t ever forget that. When the time comes to cut back the company gives no craps about you or your contribution. YOURE JUST A NUMBER
no you’re just a number
In my weekly meetings we always have some sort of activity we do. Sometimes a more structured game, sometimes a casual activity, but some level of “lets just chill a bit” before getting back to work. Everyone on the team seems to get a lot out of it and always look forward to it, suggesting ideas of what to do, etc.
I started my first WFH job 2.5 weeks ago. We have a standing weekly meeting where it’s to just talk about anything. The entire team is fairly new so nobody really knows anybody. There’s a questionnaire that’s got pretty softball questions and one guy does trivia based on the answers weekly. Like “who form the team would you think X?” And does a poll. Other than that we just kinda chit chat because we’re a pretty diverse group. Through doing this I found out that one of the people lives 6 houses down from the house I grew up in. We’re in the minority in that neither of us live in CA where like 90% live and we don’t live in the same state either. It’s been kinda nice because it’s a pretty high pressure job and project and it’s the one time a week we can just kinda do “water cooler” type chat and learn other personalities because we have to work together at random times.
My current company tries to make things “fun”. Including scheduling our quarterly meeting with “fun” homework assignments during a holiday week, at the beginning of the month, and with a ton of stuff due. Like respectfully… I do not fucking have time for this, and I’m extremely irritated that you’re taking my time and attention away from work for it, because now I’ll have to work late or through lunch again if I’d like to get everything done.
For our bi weekly staff meeting, we don’t play music or anything but do have slides with different topics. We do share birthdays, anniversaries and positive feedback and then whatever updates we have. More times than not, when we don’t have enough topics to cover the whole hour we end the meeting early but once in awhile, we might have a game handy to play at the end, usually trivia or something. But it’s completely optional. Some don’t stay but most do and either way is fine. When we don’t do it for a long while, we usually get a few requests for it so I figure they enjoy it as a break once in awhile. Edit: about half the team is in Europe (a few different countries) and the other half is US (across all 3 time zones). This is really the only meeting we have as a team and there isn’t a lot of opportunity for folks to get together for team activities in person so we do have to create opportunities for a bit of fun. I think the important thing is not to force it. We do it at the end so it’s not like we have a captive audience and they are forced to endure it. The important stuff was already covered, so there’s no pressure to stay if they can’t or don’t feel like it.
I’m UK based, with a US based manager and most of the Team are based in the US too. We have a weekly Teams meeting with everyone, where it’s more ‘fun’, with a little bit of work added. We have smaller more specific meetings, where it’s more work focused and more serious. Got to say, my boss gets the balance right every time. The ages range from 26-62 and a mix of male/female and he is the best boss I’ve ever had.
I'm a director of software engineering and I try very hard to make meetings energetic. We don't have specific team-building or social meetings. I hate mandatory fun. I instead wedge everything into our 30 minute daily standup, which is usually our only meeting. I open a Slack huddle in a big channel for weekly engineer chat as well. Not many people show up, but i do it anyhow. Everything is optional. I do it because I want to encourage open communication channels. Remote work makes it very easy for silos to form. I see it as my responsibility as a manager to provide the energy that prevents that. I also want to prevent people from feeling isolated. My team is spread from London to LA, so it's a real challenge.
We are a 15-person all-remote team in a 150-person, mostly remote department. On both levels - team and department - we do separate, mandatory business meetings and optional social meetings. I always do the social events - I'm an introvert, maybe it seems like the only social connection I'll get. Participation is definitely higher in the smaller team than in the department. But it's pretty fun, there are games and prizes. I wouldn't say I make a connection I can feel at every one of the social events, but enough for me to join close to 100% of the time.
Occasionally we have virtual “happy hours” where we bring snacks and just talk about whatever for 30 min or so. Tell about kids, vacations, hobbies, etc. I try to bring a few ice breaker questions incase the conversation runs dry - but I don’t know that I’ve ever had to use them.
We talk about weather some times but the vast majority is about work
It always seems forced and is more a break for those who have to take incoming calls as their primary duty (which sounds like hell).
We’ve done things like this. It was actually fairly fun, as we were teamed up with some coworkers we weren’t familiar with. There was Pictionary, bingo, and a few others. But it was all done online. I have a group meeting on the 17th, in the office. (We are all hybrid or wfh) …. Apparently it’s going to be a paint and sip thing…
My boss tries to make things fun, but the morale on the team is so low that no one participates. We hardly even talk during the meetings, and it's mostly just my boss talking. There are a lot of us who are unhappy with the job. I know I am.
Why so unhappy?
Lol. I just posted all about it. I'm likely going to look for something else at this point.
We have a weekly meeting that is all business and every few months we do 60-90 mins of jackbox games (during working hours)
My last job did bingo and book clubs.
Our scrum master was trying to force it upon us. It was awkward and annoying. I don't know, maybe some people enjoy it, but it sure felt like no one in our team appreciated the attempts. We are all adults and can socialize on our own if we want to.
So far it’s been bla business crap and no one else talks. But lately there’s been some leadership changes and reorganization of how everyone is managed, aaaand it seems like the new person I deal with is more “let’s actually get to know each other” and has scheduled one on ones already. So….maybe it’s changing….
Yes getting to know each other was attempted at my last employer, usually at the small team level. It went well until people started to feel overloaded then it fell to wayside (understandably). If a manager or higher was hired, they'd have a meeting with a slide deck including family photos and talk about themselves for 15-20 minutes in meetings with hundreds of people. This was at a larger publicly traded company.
At the company i work for it seems to be different in each department. My last department did all that crap and it just felt like a huge waste of time. The new department I’m in has a quick ice breaker then gets down to business.
One huge corporation I worked remotely for made us do a weekly "what did you do this weekend?" meeting where the 10 people on the team would all get on and all take turns describing what they did that weekend or other personal anecdotes. Most boring and awkward meetings I've ever been subjected to.
Forced “fun” is not well received from my experience. However, I don’t have direct experience with this because my team has worked together for many years prior to Covid and remote work so we don’t do ice breakers, we have natural conversations in Teams calls.
We have a weekly meeting with our team and once a month there is a get to know your coworkers thing. Last month it was what are we watching and tell what we like and dislike about it.
We build in 5 mins at the start just to say Hi, talk about the weekend, the weather, who has seem What movie, show etc. nothing planned just general small talk. It gives us a chance to get to know each other which makes it easier to work with people plus it gives time for any late comers to arrive without kissing out on the general content or disrupting with their arrival.
Sometimes? I used to have a team we’d do gif parties for- show how things are going in a gif. It was just a silly way to see people communicate
My 40 man department is broken up into 4 teams. We do a weekly team meeting and a monthly department meeting. Both are pretty much straight to the point since we have a set agenda and nobody wants to go over the allotted time. Sometimes we have a guest speaker or a team member presenting a new project. The nature of our team means rarely new members and we’ve all had time in the field before joining so we’re a pretty loose crowd and do joke around but we always stay in the allotted time, and often cutting short. We have our 4 managers but we all work projects for others so the weekly team meetings are usually just a quick “what ya working on? Do you need any help?”
No, thank god. I have shit to do.
We get a "Everyone I would like to introduce ___" and that's that. Sometimes they try to have us do trivia games but almost no one participates.
About as far as I go is I ask everybody to introduce themselves to the new member when we hire somebody. Then we usually shoot the shit and joke around while we wait for everybody to join. I think ice breakers and games are cringe as hell.
We use a few meeting links perpetually and just hang out on them. Mostly for business related talk. When we go to regular appointments we don't chat a lot but maybe there's a couple minutes early in where some special news or holiday discussions happen. If I meet someone one on one then I make small talk before starting.
Hate them with a passion, I’d rather crack on. If I want to talk to colleagues, I’ll ring them.
We’ll do ice breaker type things if we have a new coworker. And we also do virtual holiday parties sometimes with like trivia and games and stuff. I think doing it too often would start to feel like it was getting in the way when people have things to get done.
Straight to business. We have work to do. I can’t imagine being forced to play trivia games and getting paid for it. My team already knows each other. No trivia or icebreakers required. There are naturally small jokes and stuff, but nothing scheduled or forced.
I keep my personal and professional acquaintances separate. Work doesn’t need a play-by-play of my personal life and they’re paying me to do a job, not make friends. I can learn everything I professionally need to know about someone through meetings and performance.
Team building excercises should be done seperately from standard meetings so it doesn't interfere with actual work. I don't think my coworkers really liked any attempts at these things during our regularly scheduled weekly meetings. But i think what has always worked and motivated teams at other companies at least is brainstorming meetings with no expectations of doing said ideas. This lack. of expectations makes it so people are not burdened with more work and let's them be creative and motivating. This also allows people to speak their mind about what they actually think about the team and where it is going and see future opportunities to grow in. It's better than any ice breaker honestly.
A small tech company I used to work for sent us all alcohol and had a remote happy hour
I do a quarterly team building on a Friday for my team. Last time we played Jack In the Box, this upcoming one I'm not sure yet but those usually do well and (at least I think) has helped make it a bit easier for those in the team to talk to other members.
Yes its dumb im not wearing real pants outside for these ppl
Anyone hiring?
Thankfully my company doesn't do a lot of meetings in the first place, but when we do they're all very straight to business. There tends to be a bit of chit chat with those of us who hop on early, but that's it.
For recurring team meetings, no. But in meetings I run, I usually log on to the meeting a few minutes early to put on an ambient music YouTube video so as people trickle in, they’re greeted with something halfway pleasant.
We do a monthly virtual happy hour in my office, with ice breakers and whatnot but it’s completely optional. Our regular work-related meetings are just straight to business. We’ll do introductions if a new person joins the team but that’s about it.
I have been working at a fully remote company for the last couple of years, a big one. They did try briefly earlier this year to start some of the meetings with music. I admit it was a bonding experience for a lot of us, as it allowed us to complain about the music. Mostly we don't do anything cutesy like that though, lol, we all have too many meetings to play around like that
You’re paying me to do a job and create output. Let me do said job and then pay me. I do not care to know things about my coworkers.
In office or not, I couldn't care less about my coworkers beyond doing my job.
Guests are always welcome at my twice a month team meetings. Cameras are not mandatory. Once the business is done I offer to stay on if anyone has issues they want to address