Five activities your staff really want to play at your virtual office party.
The days are longer, the out-of-offices are coming on, the neighbour’s flashing lights are turning your home office (read kitchen table) into a disco… It’s Christmas ‘office’ party season.
Now, I love scheduled fun. I can always be relied upon to whip out an ice-breaker or energiser in a virtual meeting (looking for inspiration? Sign up to my newsletter at the bottom of my home page and get seven energiser ideas for free!). Throughout the year, I have relished in generating new ideas of how to do engagement remotely and run training and facilitation with new tools.
I adore the ideas that I have seen for Christmas office parties popping up online – virtual escape rooms, murder mysteries, donating the money to a good cause….
But, after spending the year thinking about the employee experience and inclusive work cultures, I thought I’d reflect on what activities staff really want to engage in….
Caption: Image of four dice.
1. You’ve Been Framed: Epic Office Fails Edition
We all love celebrating success. But after a gutrenchingly challenging year, why not celebrate everything that you did really badly – and what you learned. Cc’d instead of Bcc’d? – now you’ll never do it again. Deleted a full spreadsheet before a deadline? Now you’re always creating backups. Well done for getting through the year as an imperfect human being.
2. Who Wants to be a Millionaire: Pay-rise Edition
Money makes most people awkies, right? Especially women – there’s loads of research on how this contributes to the gender pay gap. Instead of having 15 general knowledge questions to help people become millionaires, go over some common concerns about asking for pay rises in your organisations (when is the best timing? How are decisions made?). Being open to these conversations, being honest if budgets are tight and demonstrating other ways that you value your employees helps positive working cultures.
3. Catchphrase: What Does The Jargon Really Mean Edition?
Say what you see…. And often what we see/hear are words and acronyms that we don’t know the meaning of. (Here’s the 33 most hated management jargon phrases) Have an acronym amnesty and go over all the key phrases and acronyms that your team regularly use and explain what they really mean. Work in 2021 will be a lot more productive.
4. Guess Who: Need-to-know Organisation Contacts
One of the key things missing from remote working in 2020 was getting that informal knowledge from your colleagues – who do I get copies of my payslips from? Who do I email about room bookings? It’s amazing the amount of knowledge that lies within long-standing staff – ‘Oh you don’t know Chris?! Chris can work wonders on excel!!’, or, ‘Will has the best recipe for ginger buns! Phone him!’. Spend some time sharing the need-to-know contacts for all the in-work and not so formal help.
5. Connect… Four Times and Remote Access Still isn’t working
Oh, remote access, you weren’t made for a pandemic where ten people were all working from home in one flat block, were you? If your IT infrastructure is struggling and your IT folks are super busy replying to the same requests over and over again, book them in for 30 mins and get all their need to know tips.
A final two notes about your festivities – firstly, remember that not everyone recognises Christmas for various reasons, including religion and belief. Respect this.
Also, please don’t tell anyone that they are being a ‘grinch’ if they are not up to participating. Christmas is super hard for a lot of people. Some people will want a celebration, and for some it will be the last thing that they would like to engage in. Encourage staff to decide what works best for them. Forced fun is not fun at all.
