While specific habits may vary from one country, or culture, to another, it’s quite common to wrap the work week up by spending some time socializing with coworkers and colleagues. Some companies will even provide facilities and refreshments to encourage employees to get to know each other better outside of work projects.
This sort of unstructured socialization can be more complex in remote environments, though, as people may not be motivated to spend extra time in front of their laptops once work for the week is done, and time zone differences might make things even more difficult.
A few solutions I have found to work pretty well are to:
- Schedule a weekend meetup during working hours, so nobody feels the weight of having to stay in front of their screens longer than needed
- Open the meetup to different teams, to add variety and new topics to the conversation (this also helps ensure nobody feels pressured to join)
- Schedule an activity, such as an online game, or quiz, to give the meetup some structure and purpose
- Have different members host the meetup on rotation, so everyone gets to suggest activities they find fun
Have you faced any struggles facilitating remote socialization? Do you think it's an important part of building a successful remote team? Do you have any tips that can help make it more fun?
