KEEPING CULTURE SPICY
(IN-PERSON AND REMOTELY)
Company culture is a big part of our day-to-day here at Chatterkick, and we know we're not the only business that feels strongly about it. In "the before" (pre-COVID), our workdays in our downtown Sioux City office were filled with nerf gun wars, Friday afternoon happy hours, collaboration meetings and basking in the sun with the office garage door open. In the past year, we've learned some fun (and pretty unique) ways to continue to connect with our team on a virtual level. Here are some of our favorite ways to keep that team connection both in person and in the virtual world.
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City Treasure Hunt (More Like the Amazing Race) - The most active game we've played with our Chatterfam! We split our office into two teams, each team was given a set of clues that started them on their journey all over downtown Sioux City. We picked out different points of interest and described each one in riddle form. Once the team figured out where to go, there was a task there waiting for them to complete (some were physical, some challenges and any other crazy ideas we could think of).
After they finished the clue/task they were given another point of interest and then another task to complete, so on & so on. They were allowed “lifelines” if they got stuck on a clue: “Phone a friend”, “Fast track to the next location” and a few others. The last clue directed them back to the office where we had set up a nerf gun-style obstacle course (we love our nerf guns) that teams had to complete. Whichever team completed all of the tasks first won the game!This game took us about two to three hours to complete but could vary depending on how many clues the teams are given to figure out. It was both a ton of fun and a physical challenge - we got to get out of the office and explore downtown but we also got competitive, so running from one place to the next was a must! -
Minute to Win It Games - We hosted this challenge for a holiday party! We started by setting up partners to complete about 8-10 different “minute to win it” style challenges. We kept track of teams and scores as we moved through each station. The team that won the most challenges got both bragging rights and a Chatterkick surprise. This was a simple one to pull together, we just needed to pick some games (a quick Google search works great for this) and grab some supplies!
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Escape Room - This is super easy to set up for in-person teams and remote. We went
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online and found a company, Lock Paper Scissors, that provided us with everything we needed to plan an escape room at little to no cost. It was a zip file that had the storyline (which we got to pick) and a bunch of printable items to get ready before we started to play. We picked two people to be the hosts and attempted the escape room before to help out any teams that got stuck on clues. We split the Sioux City crew into 2 teams and had the Baton Rouge crew as the 3rd team. The hosts acted as “lifelines” if any of the teams had questions or got stuck. The team that got through first won the title of the Ultimate Escaper! -
Murder Mystery - We found this again online from Masters of Mystery that provided everything we needed for gameplay! This was perfect for an entirely remote team so we were able to play it with everyone in the middle of the pandemic. This time we switched it up a little and got together using Gathertown instead of our normal video conferencing software. We set up a house with different rooms that people could move through. We met in one room of the house to go over game rules and gameplay together and were given our objectives by the host. Then, we broke off and started mingling with each other to ask questions to try to guess who was the murderer. Similar to the game Clue, each player asked their own questions but also strategically paid attention to what others were asking and answering. There were a few points in the game where we came back as a whole group to discuss and vote on who we thought the murderer was. The game ended with each player guessing who they thought the murderer was and why they committed the crime. No one guessed who the culprit was so in the end it was the murderer who won!
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TRIVIA - The Chatterkick team's all-time favorite. When we're able to connect in person, we love visiting Hawks Coffee Shop, a local small business for their trivia nights. But, we also play virtually! Every once in a while we will take the last hour or two of the day to team up for a good trivia challenge. Quizrunners is great for trivia questions. One person hosts while everyone else teams up into groups of three or four. Our video conference software allows us to have breakout rooms which work well for remote trivia since we need to converse with our teammates without the rest of the group hearing. The host reads off the questions and the teams hop into their breakout rooms to come up with their final answers before coming back to the main call. This goes on for as many rounds as we can fit in before we call it a day.
So there you have it! A variety of ways to keep your company culture spicy whether you're back at the office or working from home. There are tons of other ways to keep your team connected in today's world and if you have some killer ones you think we need to try, please please please send them our way.
.png?width=2240&name=April%20Blog%20Images%20Chatterkick%20(1).png "Keeping Culture Spicy")
