How to boost social life in your remote office

Lockdown is proving difficult for a lot of people in terms of maintaining good mental health and wellness. This is why it’s crucial to encourage and promote human contact in your virtual office, not necessarily related to work. Good digital tools are obviously essential but it’s the culture that dictates when and how they are used. Are your people free (and encouraged) to talk on a regular basis simply about where they are at, either in 121 meetings or group chats? Is it normal practice for colleagues to call one another just to check in and talk about what’s on their chest? What’s proven helpful to us at GrantTree was scheduling times for “office natter” every morning and afternoon on Zoom and also creating a “coping circle” where those finding social distancing particularly difficult to cope with can be heard. There are 1001 creative solutions for boosting social life while working remotely though. To encourage non work related conversations our office manager had an idea of collecting photos of members of the team from early childhood and posting one a day on Slack for people to vote on who is in the picture. It really livened up the office banter as most of the baby/young child photos proved very difficult to identify. What crazy or fun activity will you think of to boost social life in your office in times of lockdown?

For more ideas how to help your remote team with mental health and wellness go here.