Aside from the more organized teambuilding events, here’s some other ideas and general tips.

Start your meetings with some chatter

When my department meets weekly, we always start with a little chat about what we were up to over the weekend. It’s a great way to connect and learn some fun facts. I’ve learned a lot about how to handle sick kids, spear fishing, and Taylor Swift. One person on my team even assigned me an action item to try pumpkin pie! It’s not something I’d eat again, but I never would have known otherwise.

Virtual Coffee

At our company, we use an app that connects employees in groups of 2 or 3 biweekly for a half hour chat. I’m a big fan of this system, and even as a manager, I’ll never cancel one of these chats. For me, it’s great to get to know people I don’t work closely with and to strengthen connections with my team outside of the structure of weekly 1:1s.

For new employees, the virtual coffee meets are a great onboarding tool. They can get to know other people at the company and make connections across teams.

Junior level employees get the most benefit from these meetings, as they can form connections across departments and even across management layers. It’s a great opportunity for those looking for mentorship.

Of course, none of these are mandatory objectives of virtual coffee. You can just say hi and talk about your favourite shows or hobbies. Getting face to face time with your coworkers is always a good thing.

Cameras On, if you want

Speaking of face to face time, whenever we have meetings that cross multiple teams or go company wide, I always nudge my team to turn their cameras on. To be clear, this is optional. Everyone has days where they don’t want the pressure of being seen.

Channels for chats

Aside from live conversations, we also have Slack channels for hobbies, music, and other things. It’s a good way to learn some interesting things about the people on your team without muddling the work-specific conversations