From Zoom to a Room: Bringing a Remote Workforce Together with a Wine Tasting Event
From Remote Work to Real Connection
Many companies, large and small, try to keep their teams energized and focused by offering outside-of-the-office events.
Sometimes these are team-building exercises—think paintball!—and sometimes they are just casual sip-and-chat happy hour excursions.
Rethinking Team Building for Remote Teams
The corporate tasting event I did recently was interesting because it was the first one where most of the attendees had not actually had much, if any, prior face-to-face interaction. The thinking that this tech company had when booking a Wine 101-style tasting was for it to be team building AND ice breaking.
Virtually all of the company’s employees are, well, virtually all virtual. Their interactions, while frequent, take place over screens.
This company’s plan was brilliant. The organizers of the event wanted to promote not only camaraderie, something every company wants from top management on down to the newest hires, but also a true sense of belonging to a team.
I’ve conducted many tasting events over the years and while they are all fun on some level, this one was so unique. Just seeing how happy people were to be face to face in person with those they had been Zooming with was palpable.
What Happens When Teams Meet in Person
The result was that instead of the usual initial hesitancy to offer opinions about smells and tastes as I began to move through the lineup of wines, they jumped in full speed ahead.
I think the reason they were not guarded at first which is often the way corporate tastings begin—after all, who wants to look either ignorant or like a know it all in front of co-workers?—is because they were just so juiced about being in the same room with each other for a change.
A New Reality for Corporate Teams
We all know how COVID impacted corporate office life, and it does seem that, for the most part, the corporate world will never go completely back to Monday-Friday office attendance. Companies that have fully or partially remote workforces might do well to follow the example of this tech company. While I can’t vouch for any positive impact my event had on the company’s bottom line, I can be certain that everyone had a great time together that evening, which is precisely what the company hoped to accomplish.