With many people working outside the office — some never to return — Brian de Haaff* and his team have ideas on ensuring remote work remains enjoyable.
Kids laughing; pets lounging; delicious looking home-cooked meals.
The Aha! team is always posting photos and sharing snippets of our daily lives with each other.
This is a crucial way to stay connected while working remotely.
Whether discovering mutual interests or bonding over a perfect moment, we grow closer as a team when we make time for each other.
Small talk is not small — it helps hold the team together and leads to more fun.
Research has shown the benefits that small talk has on team performance, productivity, and wellbeing.
Making light-hearted conversation actually increases feelings of friendliness and gratitude. It builds rapport and even helps spark collaboration.
If your organisation has recently gone entirely or partly remote, you might be missing the organic encounters and impromptu conversations that happened easily in an office.
Or maybe you are relieved that you do not have to make small talk anymore — it can feel a little forced.
Yet small talk is essential to building camaraderie, and there are ways to make it enjoyable.
I know this because Aha! has been entirely distributed from the beginning.
Our leadership and People Success teams are purposeful about creating space for casual conversations to happen.
We have group channels for people who share hobbies, regular game breaks that anyone can join, and a monthly program that randomly pairs folks with cross-functional teammates for an informal chat.
All of these interactions make us a stronger company — allowing us to achieve in a meaningful way while building genuine team spirit.
When we meet in person for our onsites (or more recently, offsites) we are simply picking up right where we left off.
I know our team also likes to connect with one another in more casual and creative ways, outside of the structured activities I mentioned above.
So we asked team members to share what they do to encourage small talk. Here is what some said:
Tom Bailey, Customer Success
Say good morning every day. Because I live in the earliest time zone in the company, I feel like it is my duty to welcome my colleagues as they wake up in their respective time zones.
Melissa Hopkins, Customer Success
Take five-to-10 minutes in each one-on-one meeting to chat about your personal life.
Connecting over families, pets, and current events is not just enjoyable — it actually helps us accomplish more together.
Yuko Takegoshi, Engineering
Reveal your sense of humour. I try to regularly update my status on our instant messaging tool with a bad joke or pun.
A recent example: ‘Do you know why filling your tyres at a gas station costs more now? Inflation’.
Rose Thompson, Marketing
Share the minutiae of your daily life. Sometimes the marketing team posts photos of what we cobbled together for breakfast or lunch.
You never know where those conversations will go.
Andrew Vit, Engineering
Make time for random discussions. Pizza happens to be a frequently-debated topic in our team’s channel — particularly the question of pineapple on pizza.
We also love arguing about the exact definition of a sandwich. For example, is a hot dog a sandwich? We ask the deep questions.
Work should be a joyful experience — it is a pleasure to share day-to-day life with your teammates and make a real impact together.
Whether you are a leader, team manager, or individual contributor, you are responsible for creating a more close-knit team.
Invest a few minutes each day or week into building connections with your colleagues and having fun.
Participate in discussions. Offer ideas for new ways to get to know one another. If you have not heard from someone in a while, reach out to them to see how they are doing.
Do not be afraid to crack a joke — you never know when you will brighten someone’s day.
*Brian de Haaff is the Chief Executive of cloud-based software company Aha! He can be contacted on Twitter @bdehaaff.
This article first appeared on the Aha! company website.
