How long are you going to have a virtual coffee break for? 15-30 minutes, just like in an office.How about getting to know someone you may have never spoken with before? At GitLab, they’ve employed the #donut_be_strangers channel on Slack to randomly select team members for a virtual coffee break by the bot Donut.Kona ’s Slack integration allows you to see who may be having an “off” day. Maybe you want to connect with a team member who’s going through a hard time.

Are you looking to grab a virtual coffee to catch up with your friend or maybe someone that you’ve not worked with on a project for a while? How about someone in a different time zone or location?.The Pickster app allows you to do this easily. Do you want to encourage virtual coffee breaks that further cross-team collaboration? In this case, you can simply group team members together randomly.Who are you inviting? This depends on what the virtual coffee break is all about.You always have the option to shake it up and try more than one combination. However, if you have smaller teams, you may want to encourage one-to-one meetings with a clear purpose from the onset (e.g., explaining what a person does). We believe that the ideal size of a coffee break is between three to four people. One-to-one chats between two coworkers that don’t know each other too well may feel uncomfortable having these sessions.Too big of a group could lead to one or two dominating the conversation, leaving those not participating reluctant to revisit the concept.You want to encourage your team to dedicate time from their calendar to furthering their connection with their coworkers: #1: Size matters: include three to four people in your virtual coffee break Getting the right ingredients for your virtual coffee break will replicate the ease of in-person interaction in the virtual space. What are the five steps to making your virtual coffee break successful?

The aim is to have an easy and enjoyable flow of conversation and to form connections with the people you work with. What makes a successful virtual coffee break?Ī successful virtual coffee break simply gives you a breather to step away from work and have casual interactions with your colleagues.

It’s a chance to clear your head and connect with your coworkers on a more “human” level. Stepping away from your workload for a purposeful coffee break is essential for well-being. Over the past year, burnout has been on the rise. Why are virtual coffee breaks so important?Ī virtual coffee break has “no expectations” but helps foster connections between coworkers through casual interactions. Here, we’ll give you five simple steps to creating successful virtual coffee breaks, including plenty of ideas for conversation starters, apps and platforms to make things smoother. Casually swinging by a coworker’s “desk” for a virtual coffee break is entirely possible in the online space, but many of us are still missing out on these valuable opportunities to converse and connect with our coworkers.

Virtual coffee break topic ideas