How we make virtual happy hour fun and engaging

Published in

Borneo

6 min readApr 22, 2022

Happy hours can be quite literally described as the window to your company -your company’s culture, mood and pulse. It forms that connection, that reality check if you may, that one feels when one has been confined in a room and suddenly finds that window to the outside world. It helps you bond with your co-workers, put a name to a face and understand and connect with your co-workers beyond their corporate email id or slack handle.

Happy hours could well be the first time some of us have seen our team mates or even spoken to them.

The pandemic has forced us all to re-think a lot of what was a given.

The wheels for remote work had already set in motion long before the pandemic hit us. The allure of being a world traveller, working from anywhere, not bound by location and employment, all you needed was your laptop and internet and the world was your oyster. Remote work was especially a blessing for women and men too who wanted to pursue their dream while also having the flexibility to take care of their kids’ urgent needs.

So being a remote employee you probably never met or saw your fellow co-worker, so why the emphasis now?

The key difference in remote working in a pre-post covid era is, people who choose remote working primarily did so not only for the flexibility it offered but more so the opportunity that it offered one to meet new people, form new bonds, immerse oneself in different cultures — remote working was literally everyone’s dream, the digital nomad.

But covid took the charm out of this dream.

It’s like you finally found your genie but the genie ends up trapping you in its bottle instead.Or you finally get to visit Paris, and all you can do is stay at your hotel room.You can’t get to the very top of Eiffel tower and enjoy the breathtaking views or visit the louvre and stare into the beautiful eyes and contemplate the smile of Mona Lisa or just cruise along river seine and take in the beauty and romance of Paris or it’s like, i think you get the drift by now :)

So then in the new world of remote working, who takes this place? Who is your travel companion ? Your guide to the local culture, your Mona Lisa or Eiffel tower so to say — surprise surprise it’s your co-worker, and who is your window — HAPPY HOURS:)

Asynchronous communication is the backbone of remote teams, especially one that is global. But once in a way you want to see and feel the connection and that’s where Happy Hour comes in. Well one may say we do a lot of zoom meetings but happy hours are more like your after work drinks, or your coffee break conversations.

Now that we are convinced with the “Why”, let’s move on to the “How to make happy hour fun and engaging” ?

This is how we did at our company Borneo.

Define your success criteria — For us it was fairly straight forward, success = fun for everyone and participation by everyone.
What time should be “Happy Hour “ time — This became an important factor for borneo, as not only did our team size grow but also our locations. We are a distributed, diverse, global team with folks in India, Singapore, USA and Canada. So finding a time where everyone is in a mood to relax and chill is a bit of a challenge. Instead of just going with the majority, we decided we’ll rotate the timing such that each time it is more favourable to a different location.
Be inclusive not invasive — When it comes to icebreakers for a diverse company like ours one has to keep in mind different cultural backgrounds, personal preferences and make sure the questions are considerate and sensitive. Don’t put people in a spot by asking personal questions in front of colleagues. If you are the organiser, prepare beforehand by circulating the questions and collating the answers, so you already know if they are comfortable sharing the information or not.
Respect and acknowledge the introverts — Not everyone is going to want the spotlight. What energises one could be draining for another. While you want everyone to participate try to recognise and show value in quiet participation and contribution by planning your games accordingly
Everyone’s welcome to Happy Hour — We often have kids saying hello, well we even had a colleague’s pet parrot say hello to us :)
Showcase talent — Get the team to showcase different talents. Thankfully we had a good singer and guitarist :)
Celebrate occasions — Happy hour is a good forum to celebrate birthday’s, important announcements, welcome new team members and farewells.
Breaking bread- They say that people who break bread together stay together :) With the pandemic this has been a huge challenge. We’ve done the second best option, share food during happy hour. Everyone is given a budget to order food and drinks during happy hour. This makes the mood festive and celebratory.
Games, No happy hour is complete without games ! — Some games that worked well for us -

Team bingo — This helped everyone get to know each other a little better. We based the game where the answers were the names of our colleagues. This was good fun as people had to be listening throughout while playing another game at the same time where hints were dropped and callout bingo as well.
Questions based on weekly updates — Have some fun questions around daily or weekly updates. The bonus is this also makes sure everyone on the team actually reads updates :)
Dumb charades — This is great, as it brings out everyone’s creative best and makes for great laughs.(Make sure the name of movies / series you choose is not regional, if you have a global team)
Scavenger hunt — This was a huge success with our team. It’s a great way to get everyone moving after sitting at the desk all day. The highlight for us was to see some of our team members’ families in action, especially some little hands helping out :)

Wrapping up as I said our success criteria at borneo was simple, fun for everyone.

How did we measure it ? Feedback and Happy faces:)