10 ways to entertain employees remotely

Our remote team is about 300 people from three cities: Izhevsk, Kirov and Kazan. We want to achieve such an effect so that each employee understands that he is not alone and that we can talk not only about work, meet new people, joke and learn something together.

To enable all telecommuters to connect with each other, we host events at Zoom and other online broadcast platforms. Every week we schedule these meetings and add something special. There are regular classes - Spanish lessons and training, as well as sudden events that begin with the phrase "Let's ..."

Here are our top 10 online entertainment.

1. Meetings for beginners

Before the pandemic, we gathered once a month in an office cafe, drank coffee, made toast, and met new employees. During the forced transition to remote work, a new format appeared: we arrange an online meeting in Zoom, where a new employee tells interesting facts about himself, answering pre-prepared questions.

Here's a rough list of questions:

• What did you want to become as a child?
• What TV show has impressed you lately?
• What do you like to eat for breakfast?
• If you could live anywhere, which one would you choose?
• What would you like to change in yourself if you could?
• What makes you laugh the most?
• What is your favorite book?

2. Cooking classes

Now you can also travel to different countries - at least gastronomically. The HR department decides where to go for one evening - for example, to sunny Italy. We create an event in the system in advance and drop off the list of necessary ingredients so that those who wish to participate have time to buy products. And on the appointed day we cook pasta carbonara and drinking Italian wine, clinking glasses with laptop cameras. Any employee who has learned how to cook something interesting and is ready to share this skill with colleagues can lead a culinary master-class.

3. Drawing master-class

How to relieve stress after strenuous work? Call the staff from the design department and jointly draw something unusual under their guidance. For example, once we drew with pencils and pastels our corporate symbol - a raccoon.

4. Online workouts and yoga classes

When you work remotely, physical activity is never superfluous. To help employees keep fit, the HR department regularly conducts morning exercises and yoga classes for everyone. Sometimes one of the colleagues takes the initiative and shows a desire to be a coach.

5. Online games and quizzes

This is entertainment for small companies - 9-10 people. We have already conducted “Our game” and various quizzes. The guys are connected to Zoom, the presenter gives a presentation with questions. Participants guess and write answers to the moderator. Then he summarizes all the results in a table and determines who the winner is.

6. Beer ‑ meeting

Working remotely can get very bored without real communication and violent discussions. Therefore, we find several "chatterboxes", they choose 3-4 informal topics, and then we all call up together in Zoom, pour ourselves some foam, listen carefully and discuss. The last time there were topics of vegetarianism and ecology, cycling travel and music festivals.

Topics are often found on their own - employees are usually happy to share their interests and hobbies.

7. Dinner chatters

This is a small call to Zoom at lunchtime to revive the atmosphere of our corporate cafe, where we eat together, share recipes, discuss what films we watched over the weekend. Such dinner "chatters" are arranged according to the principle "Oh, there are no events on this day, and we are terribly bored."

8. Foreign language courses

Our head of translation provides a basic Spanish course for our employees. We put together a group (on average 10 people to make everyone feel comfortable) and do it via video communication. If there is no person in the company who is ready to teach foreign language, you can invite a teacher from the outside - we also practice this.

9. Acoustic concert

We have our own ELMA MATER group, which includes guys from the HR department, translation, development, analytics and support. Before the pandemic, we often held concerts at events - and now also at Zoom. Meeting, albeit online, and singing together is a great end to a Friday workday. We gathered the group for the broadcast in an empty office, wearing masks and at a safe distance from each other. :)

10. Alcohol master-class

Friday is not the time to be sad about joint outings to the bar. We asked one of the bartenders to join us at Zoom and tell us how to make bombshell cocktails at home. It turned out great!

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Such online activities will help remote colleagues get closer, even if you have a very large company.