Virtual happy hours can bring a team together when they’re scattered around the country or even world. A good host can make this social event fun and effective at team-building by planning a few activities to help everyone talk and get to know each other. Use Office background for teams to make the right impression with your partners and team.
Creating a Theme
A theme can help differentiate your happy hour from work. Come up with a theme that celebrates the reason for the happy hour. Use virtual office backgrounds to keep the theme in mind. There are a lot of different themes, Hollywood glam, a retro-80s night, birthday, Hawaiian, and more. Be creative and have fun with it.
Playing Games
Get people involved by giving them a reason to interact. You don’t have to schedule every moment of your happy hour, but having some planned activities to kick it off can be helpful. Ask your team which games they might enjoy.
- Virtual trivia – choose a theme around your happy hour theme, movies from the 80s, Hollywood animals, where people live, etc.
- Scavenger hunt – either hunt for things online or in each person’s home.
- Name that tune – pull clips of music to see who can guess the song the quickest. You might want to stick to a genre, a decade or theme to keep it a little easier.
- Show and tell – not a game as much as a way to let everyone share a personal item. Ask everyone to come prepared to show their favorite coffee mug or a photo from vacation or some other item that makes remote work easier on them.
- Virtual games – choose an online murder mystery or a virtual escape room to play as part of your happy hour. Do it first and then let everyone decompress after in a virtual chatroom so they can talk about it.
Including Everyone
You know your team the best so think of ways you can make sure everyone will participate. This can mean planning games or activities that introverts or extroverts might enjoy. You might need to consider everyone’s time zone or work hours. Don’t forget that you might have a team of people with different ages, so think about that too when you’re planning your happy hour. Keep the conversation light during the happy hour. It might be a work event, but no one is expecting to have to work. You might need to have a phrase that nicely reminds everyone to keep talk work-free.
Scheduling a Happy Hour
Don’t forget to send out invites to your team early enough so they can plan to attend your virtual happy hour. Make the invitation special by including lots of colors and graphics. Give everyone a clear call to action. If you can cover the drinks and snacks for everyone to have something special, make sure to get those items or a gift card to them in time to make purchases. Find an office background free for meetings or for your next social hour.
