The 4 Best Virtual Coffee Break Ideas to Improve Workplace Engagement
Engagement and productivity are two sides of the same coin, as they work together to help you achieve your goals. Even though we lay more emphasis on productivity, workplace engagement has an equally important role as it ensures that your people are happy and motivated to do their best.
So, how can you increase workplace engagement? Virtual coffee breaks are an effective way to achieve this. This article will explore creative ideas for engaging your people.
What is Virtual Coffee Break?
A virtual coffee break is an online activity that allows employees to engage with each other on topics that are not work related. This deliberate allocation of time empowers coworkers to connect on a more personal level, which boosts morale and helps develop a sense of community within your organization.
Do you remember those random chit-chats with your co-workers around the water cooler or coffee machine everyday? Weren’t they a great way to re-energize your day and boost engagement? Well, a virtual coffee break is basically the same thing, but it takes place online, with a focus on camaraderie and not necessarily caffeine.
With that in mind, you shouldn’t lose sight of the importance of those water cooler conversations or coffee break activities just because your office is virtual. With a little creativity, virtually anything can be turned into an engaging activity, and that’s why it’s worth the effort.
It helps build a sense of community. Virtual coffee breaks provide an excellent platform for team bonding.
Virtual coffee breaks can set the right tone for your daily videoconferencing meetings.
Virtual coffee breaks can improve communication between coworkers.
These breaks create opportunities for knowledge-sharing that help foster collaboration and productivity.
Virtual coffee breaks can help reduce feelings of isolation.
Virtual coffee breaks create many opportunities for cross-departmental networking.
Having virtual coffee breaks can help new employees feel more engaged and welcome in your organization.
If you’re sold on the importance of virtual coffee breaks in your remote workplace but don’t know how to start, here are some creative ideas to help you jump-start your program.
1. Play Wordle
Have you jumped on the Wordle bandwagon yet? If not, don’t worry; This might be the perfect activity for your next virtual coffee break.
Wordle is a fun, and sometimes frustrating, web-based word puzzle game that’s making the rounds on the Internet. Each day, the game presents a mystery five-letter word that you need to guess in six tries.
It’s the perfect game to bring some fun to those who need to scratch that competitive itch during their break. All you have to do is visit their website to start playing. Once you’ve exhausted all your efforts, the site makes it easy to share your results on social media or even your Slack water cooler channel to get your colleagues involved.
If you’re feeling especially competitive, you can add incentives to increase engagement, such as bragging rights or Amazon gift cards. Here are some tips and tricks to help you improve your score on Wordle so you have a better chance of winning.
2. Play Virtual Pub Quiz
Besides being more fun, playing virtual pub quiz is also a great way to build knowledge and camaraderie in your team.
Virtual pub quizzes are fun and challenging, sometimes ensuring staff engage in the activity. If you want to make things even more interesting for your virtual coffee break, try adding some incentives.
So, what do you need to get started? You need a quizmaster who will prepare the questions in advance and moderate the game. You can organize the questions into certain sections, such as geography, history, pop culture, sports, for a well-rounded game. However, if you have a hard time coming up with questions, you can find some inspiration here.
Since this is happening virtually, you will have to settle for video conferencing platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams instead of pubs/bars. You can also use a dedicated platform like Remote Pub Quiz App to automate the process. The app has an in-built scoreboard to monitor progress and a list of quizzes to choose from.