From Silos to Socials: How to Build a Genuine Community at Work
I enjoy company morale events. I have been incredibly blessed in my career to work with teammates who respect and appreciate each other. We may not be friends outside of work, but during work, we have easy conversations, laugh at silly jokes, and are genuinely interested in each other.
I follow three rules for company morale events:
Must be scheduled during the workday. No after work dinner or happy hour.
If there will be an activity - particularly sports activity - there can’t be anyone on the team who is incredibly good at it, so everyone has an equal chance of being very bad at it. This is why I have enjoyed taking teams to the local curling club for lessons. The probability is high that no one on the team has curled before.
Keep it simple. We’ve taken our team to a local park with catered bbq and field games.
The best events give us an opportunity to get to know each other in a more personal way.
Charity Auction
For one week every year, Simply Measured employees split up into 4 teams with each team raising funds for a charitable organization. The main event of the week was a silent auction of skills and experiences - the former chef teaching pasta making, the graphic designer offering a Halloween make-up session, the IT support technician drawing caricatures, and so much more. I offered two packages to review historical spending and develop a financial plan.
There was so much to love about this event. Our teams were mixed so we had the opportunity to work with colleagues with whom we may not interact during our day to day work. The auction offerings gave us insight into skills and hobbies of our colleagues that would normally be hidden.
The office was chaotic in the best way!
Brown Bag Sessions
Avvo had 400 employees when I joined. To learn about the company and make new friends, I set a goal to meet three colleagues a week. I wanted to understand their role in the company, and how we may impact each other’s work.
I met Taj, who was a Technical Product Manager. We learned that we were both having 1:1 meetings with our colleagues to learn more about their role, function and impact on the company. We thought that if we were both interested in this, others in the company may also be interested.
So we started an informal brown bag lunch series. We booked the main conference room and invited one colleague per session to tell us about their role and what they are currently working on. We invited the entire company to bring their lunch and join us for these informal sessions. To our delight and surprise, the first session was standing room only. We scheduled one session every week and each session was a full conference room.
It was such an easy way for us to learn more about each other and in the process, perform our jobs better.
Potluck
I joined the consulting project at a financial services client of Ernst & Young when we had more than sixty team members from different offices across the country. We were split up into teams focused on banking, asset management, compliance, and other specialty areas required to manage risk at the client. I was surprised that team members rarely interacted with others not on their team. They could be sitting in desks next to each other and not engage in conversation.
To break these siloes, I organized an international potluck encouraging everyone to bring dishes based on family favorites. We had many team members flying into San Francisco weekly, so we had the New Yorker bring cheesecake and the Chicagoan bring pizza. We had a group of South Asians band together to purchase dishes at a local restaurant. We had the Hawaiian calling his mother to walk him through a family recipe.
Lunch was loud and lively with many questions about the delicious dishes and excitedly telling each other why the dish is special to them. We left lunch with very full bellies and new connections.
Executive Breakfast
I joined Simply Measured to support the CEO and executive team in finding an exit for the company, while running the day to day finance and accounting functions. It was an incredibly busy and stressful situation with the CEO and I often working late in the office and during the day, holding meetings in closed door sessions.
I realized that the executive team had been hidden away in conference rooms for weeks. We needed to reconnect with our team members and add a bit of fun to our days - as much for us as for the rest of the company. We only had a minimal budget for morale events.
We decided that the executive team would cook breakfast for the company. We purchased eggs, bacon, sausage, yogurt, fruit, and bread from Costco. That morning, we set up electric skillets and toasters in the lunchroom. We blew out the fuse at least once. The entire floor smelled of bacon. It was messy and chaotic and became a company favorite morale event.
Subsequent breakfasts became more elaborate with spam musubi making lessons and waffle stations.
Lunch Delivery
At the end of the coronavirus pandemic, the Educative executive team decided that we would bring the company back to the office on a hybrid schedule - work in the office on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. We aimed to improve collaboration and build connections across our team of 50+ US employees.
To add a bit of incentive to working in the office, the company heavily subsidized lunch from a contracted lunch delivery service. Every morning before the 10am deadline, we reminded each other to submit our lunch order. Inevitably, someone was very hungry and tracked the status of the lunch order and posted the delivery time on the Slack channel. When lunch arrived, there was an excited Slack message that simply said “LUNCH!”
We all grabbed our lunch and enviously peered at other lunches. We sat together to eat and chatted about life - sometimes work. Most importantly, for at least fifteen minutes, we sat next to colleagues from other teams and built connections. Our only rule for lunch was that you cannot eat alone. Sometimes, a few of us would go outside to the courtyard to enjoy fresh air with our lunch.
We build a deeper connection by eating a meal together or asking a teammate about their auction item or eating a second helping of your teammate’s favorite family dish. It makes it easier to approach your teammate if you have a question or need help. It makes us more forgiving if a teammate sends a curt response. It makes work more enjoyable.