Working remotely or hybrid is slowly becoming the new normal, and many employees miss the office coffee breaks, water cooler conversations, and fun activities. For this reason, team leaders have to get creative and come up with fun ideas like virtual coffee breaks.
A virtual coffee break refers to a low-fidelity activity, like chatting and brainstorming, usually taking 15-30 minutes. For instance, you could include a virtual coffee break to help break the flow of a virtual conference or meeting and help create engagement or restore energy.
In this post, we’re sharing 6 fun virtual coffee break ideas you can try with your remote team.
1. Guided Meditation
While working from home has many benefits, it also has challenges like isolation and loneliness. For this reason, it might be beneficial to encourage your remote employees to take up meditation.
Embracing a period of silence and stillness together during your next virtual coffee break will help you feel connected to each other and contribute to improving your focus. You can use a YouTube video or a brief guided meditation led by a team member.
2. Quick Workout
When you spend a large portion of your day in front of a computer, even 30 seconds of mildly intense activity can raise your heart rate and help you feel better. So, instead of utilizing your virtual coffee break to have a chit-chat, consider a quick workout.
Instruct your people to perform a quick round of pushups, aerobics, jumping jacks, burpees, or anything similar. These activities are also a great approach to integrating team-building exercises into your company’s culture.
3. Tea vs. Coffee
Pancakes vs. Waffles is a simple game that involves asking your staff either/or questions. Do they favor coffee or tea, for instance? Which would they choose, a boat or a train? It’s a fantastic opportunity to discuss various matters pertaining to your group’s private lives.
To run a tried-and-true tea vs. coffee game during your virtual coffee break, you can either personally compile a list of suitable prompt questions or use a ready-to-use slide deck.
4. Trivia Games
Encourage your staff to participate in preparation for the trivia game sessions. One option is to host a travel trivia event where you can learn about your remote employees’ travel interests and experiences.
Another choice is to spice up your virtual coffee break with insider trivia. Collect information on the office culture for this task and use it to improve your trivia questions. For instance, you can ask how many meetings the team had last month or year or how many employees the sales department has.
5. Book Club
The bookworms on your team and those who wish to start reading will find this to be the perfect virtual coffee break. For book lovers, a lively book discussion that includes reading and explanation sessions can be a fun and educational exercise.
Additionally, during the virtual coffee break question-and-answer sessions, it can be quite amusing to start the book club by discussing book characters from the individual perspective.
6. Pet Parade
Nothing makes people happier than showcasing their beloved pets. So, if you are working from home, organize a virtual pet parade during your coffee break to capitalize on your team’s love of pets.
Give your team members advance notice that they should bring their four-legged companions on camera for the following virtual coffee meeting. Alternatively, you can ask each staff member to prepare their favorite pet photo in advance, then create a slide presentation that you’ll show during the virtual coffee break.
Final Thoughts
If you work with distributed teams or if your organization has adopted a remote-based work environment, you probably spend a lot of time with your colleagues in the virtual world.
If this is the case, you’ll need to make a few deliberate and persistent efforts to interact with your team. No matter where you are, using virtual coffee breaks and occasionally improving them with these six suggestions will help you keep up your relationships with your team. They represent a fresh approach to enhancing teamwork, employee engagement, and, most importantly, business productivity.
