Allison Goldberg and Jen Jamula* say it’s time to get more creative when it comes to office culture and offer up three unorthodox tips people may not have thought of yet.
By the time you read this post, we’ll have been in quarantine for four plus months.
It’s safe to say that Zoom went from being our lord and saviour to the bane of our existence pretty quickly.
It would be nice to have a conversation where you can’t see yourself for a change, right? (You could turn off self view, but then how will you know if you look okay?! It’s a vicious cycle.)
We’ve also seen the same tips rounded up over and over again.
Remote happy hours. Trivia nights. Most of us even know that you can bring a goat to your meeting. (Sidebar: Did you know that for a brief period you could FaceTime an eel?)
The point is, it’s time to get a little more creative when it comes to office culture.
Here are three unorthodox tips that you probably haven’t considered yet.
The social media fitness challenge
How many times were you sucked down the vortex of social media… today?
Lost count? Sounds about right.
Fix your ailing productivity with a team challenge.
In the morning, have everyone set their social media goals for the day, e.g. “I don’t want to spend more than 20 minutes on TikTok today; I’m too old for it anyway.” Great idea, Susan.
Teams can (and should!) make their pledges publicly.
At the end of the day, everyone can check their Screen Time in their phone’s dashboard.
For every minute that a colleague spent past their limit, they have to do a push-up.
Ten extra minutes on Insta? 10 push-ups.
It’s pretty much a guarantee that your screen time will shock you – into awareness and a spectacular quarantine body, while building camaraderie. (So many birds, one terrible idiom.)
(Social media managers, you may need to reimagine that one. Sorry.)
Make up fake co-workers and blame everything on them
Let’s face it – a lot of office bonding is, for better or worse, inconsequential gossip that happens when you’re bumping into someone by the snacks or coffee machine.
The levity and spontaneity of the workplace is gone, and that’s taking an emotional toll in ways that are difficult to articulate.
So: Create fake coworkers and blame everything on them.
If you think this is a joke, it’s definitely not.
Start a slack channel. Give these annoying coworkers bland, non gendered names.
Then immediately start complaining about how they stole your lunch and never properly sign out conference rooms.
Do not – and this cannot be stressed enough – insert subtle, passive aggressive clues that could link any of these imaginary coworkers to real ones.
Just have fun with the invention of it all.
You’ll find that you’re actually flexing your creative muscles in new ways, and will end up creating absurd inside jokes with your team members.
And the complaints may even help you let out a little of your real frustration with the state of 2020.
Bring your child/pet to work day
Wait, isn’t that every day now that you work from home? Yes.
But this suggestion has two crucial differences.
Let’s start with the pets.
Anyone who owns a mammal (e.g. dog, cat, rabbit, maybe even a ferret) without a doubt owns at least one costume for said mammal.
Think about it. Do you know any pet owners that don’t own at least one, if not a dozen, outfits for their pets?
Dress up your pets and bring them to a (pre-determined, internal) meeting. Everyone loves animals wearing people-clothes. It’s a fact.
Next – the children.
There’s a NASA study that two per cent of adults are “creative” while 98 per cent of children are.
We unlearn creativity. If there’s a project or campaign that you can simplify enough or find an appropriate analogy for, bring those kids to brainstorms.
We’re not talking about breaking any child labour laws, okay?
But your kid probably has a wacky idea for a product launch – and even if it’s totally unfeasible, it may lead to an idea that works.
Well, we only have time for three tips today, because let’s face it, you’re probably reading this article while procrastinating for something else.
But before you get back to work, implement a wacky idea if you have the power to do so, or reach out to your team members about implementing something out of the box today.
*Allison Goldberg and Jen Jamula are contributors at Forbes Magazine.
This article first appeared at forbes.com
