With eight different offices spread across the Nordics and the UK, we are generally well acquainted with relying on digital solutions to communicate, work and stay connected. However, over the last few weeks, we have been forced to adopt even more creative digital approaches in order to accommodate the working from home initiative during the global public health emergency.
There are a lot of useful articles being shared on how to work from home, tools to use, ways to think and with this, we want to contribute to that knowledge hub. We’re not talking rocket science here, but, hopefully, it can contribute and help others keep the energy up.
Slack-celebrate
What we would usually celebrate at the office, we have moved to celebrating on Slack. While it’s hard to have a fika (eat cake and drink coffee) in Hangouts – what we can do is highlight when someone has a birthday or work anniversary where everyone can show their support and care through emojis and congratulations. One of our offices has even taken this a step further; when someone has a birthday, and we are no longer able to have everyone sign a card at the office, they create a Google slide where everyone can add their celebration wishes and send to the birthday person.
TV-series bonanza
During this period, the streaming services are helping a lot of people pass the time; consequently,“what series to watch (or not watch)” is a hot topic. We asked two internal tv-series experts (shout out to Weronica & Oscar for hosting this!) to host a daily 30-minute hangout where anyone can join in and discuss their favourite series and share recommendations.
Kahoot-quizzes
We usually do Kahoot-quizzes once a month, but now the platform has enabled us to host more fun quizzes, and more often. Each Friday, we aim to have as many as want to join in for a themed quiz and compete against their co-workers. Do we still have prizes for the winners? Yes! By the help of home delivery services, people have received fruit baskets, and we have also had streaming services subscriptions as prizes (much appreciated).
Care packages
To keep the energy up and show all our great co-workers some appreciation we have (a bit different in different locations) sent out care packages containing everything from coffee and chocolate to resistance bands for home training.
Virtual easter egg hunt
Easter is coming up, and if we were at the office we would have arranged our annual Easter egg hunt. What to do? Do it online! This week we will hide pictures of eggs on our intranet and our website – the first colleague to find one, take a screenshot and post it in Slack will get a prize! This tradition is a great opportunity to follow the “do not cancel” rule. Instead of cancelling, we consider other ways to do things in a way that accommodates our current work arrangements.
Home office competition
With everyone having the opportunity to create their own office at home, we got curious about our colleagues’ home office setup. To make this fun, we initiated a “best working from home office” competition where many shared pictures from their home offices; and voted (per office) on the best one. Curious how the best ones look? Check out our Instagram!
Games
The internet is an amazing place and full of fun games that can be played remotely but still together. We have found two that we like – skribbl.io and agar.io. Both are super easy to grasp, allows for multiple players and can be done from home. We make sure to challenge each other at some moments during the day, as a way of taking a break from work and connecting with each other.
Stretching sessions
Like many other companies, we see the value of making sure we are taking care of ourselves while working from home (sometimes in a not too ergonomically correct way). We have both an amazing internal resource, Linnea in Linköping, that hosts a ten minutes daily stretch by hangout as well as a physiotherapist in Copenhagen that usually comes into the office but now offers his services digitally.
Daily Tea Time
Taking a break and having a cup of tea is a part of many of our co-worker’s daily routines. To keep them going we have set up a daily 30 minutes Tea time-hangout (Shout out to Natasha & Celina in London for hosting this!) where anyone can join with their cup and just have a chat with co-workers from all our offices.
Puh, we think that is all, but it probably isn’t – our offices have been super creative in coming up with local initiatives as well. But hopefully, this can give someone out there some inspiration on things to do to stay connected when working from home. See you online!
