Okay, you’ve grasped the nettle and accepted the poisoned chalice. You’ve agreed to organise and host a get-together for your work colleagues. Now you’re freaking out and hoping you don’t make a fool of yourself. Here are the essentials as to how you do it well:
- Keep It Simple.
Instructions get messy real quick on Zoom, and having people fiddle with buttons and outside apps starts blocking the fun. Be able to explain each part of your event very simply. If you can’t, it probably isn’t fun online. - Have Fun As The Host, and Always Be Authentic.
If the host isn’t having fun, neither is anyone else. By all means have a plan for your event, but when it comes to the event itself always favour fun over form. And always be your authentic self. This means if you make a mistake, own it. It’s no big deal, and it will keep you feeling relaxed. - Quizzes Work Great.
If you’re not sure what to do, quizzes work surprisingly well. Yes, we know – they seem rather basic, but for online they’re superb: People love being competitive and people like learning and also showing off their knowledge.
Zoom has a polls function which we ALWAYS use, and what really works for us is asking one or two people after each question to justify their answer. This is where the real fun. We don’t bother with outside apps or websites and recommend that you ignore them too. - Experiment With Zoom / Teams Settings.
This is the least fun part. Both platforms have a lot of settings, and you’ll need to go through them to make sure some gremlin you didn’t know existed messes up your session (for instance, on Zoom people will sometimes leave by accident, and you need the right setting so that they can get back in). - Have Fun With Features.
On Zoom you can change your name and background, and there’s some fun to be had there as long as you don’t get bogged down with it. Having people change their names at the start is a very simple way of signalling “play time” and generates easy laughs.
A physical activity can be nice to include in a remote event. - Consider A Physical Activity.
Don’t shoehorn it in, but if you can seamlessly include a physical activity this is a nice way to get people grounded and not feeling 100% remote. For example, we have an art game where people have to recreate a famous painting with a paper and pen. A food tasting is also a good idea. - Keep It Quick.
The bard said it best, brevity is the soul of wit. This is especially true of remote experiences. You can go quite easily from having fun on Zoom to everyone just feeling a bit jaded. Better to leave ‘em wanting more than wishing they had less.
A version of this article first appeared on https://internationallocals.nl/blog/team-building-during-corona/.