When Spencer Fertig and I started Bar None Games, we never thought that a few months after we launched, we’d be hosting hundreds of virtual holiday parties in December. As the pandemic in the U.S. worsened, many companies found themselves seeking a solution to celebrate the year end with their employees in a relaxed, fun, and 100% virtual manner. That’s where we came in. We hosted almost 200 virtual holiday parties for companies of all sizes — Fortune 500s, unicorns, newly launched start ups, and every flavor of company in between. We also hosted parties for teams across the globe, with Bar None Games players spanning India, Mexico, Poland, the United Kingdom, and more.

Here’s what we’ve learned about the work from home experience around the world after engaging with tens of thousands of employees via virtual trivia.

1. Remote work flexibility is here to stay

Many technology companies have already announced plans to allow for work from home indefinitely, including companies such as Zillow, Twitter, Square, Coinbase, and more. However, I learned that many other companies are having conversations at the highest management levels for what the transition back to “normal” looks like and it’s unlikely that work locations will look like what they were pre-pandemic. Even at very conservative companies, many are considering a hybrid remote work flexibility.

2. Employees are split on whether they like WFH or not

For some employees, the flexibility that work from home provides has been a silver lining in what has otherwise been an extremely difficult year. However, for most employees, work from home has been incredibly lonely and very hard for individuals to feel connected to their co-workers. This rang true both for new employees as well as for employees that have been with their teams for years. Without the casual interactions, work relationships start feeling transactional, even for relationships that were strong pre-pandemic.

3. This experience has taught managers that they are able to produce the same quality of work, if not better…

Many managers are finding that work from home is not an issue when it comes to work output. In fact, research shows that productivity rates are higher while working from home than when working in an office setting. This has proven to many employers that permanent work location flexibility is feasible even after the pandemic. 

4. …but managing employee morale has been harder than ever before

The number one comment we heard from managers everywhere is that employee morale is harder than ever before to manage. The social isolation that work-from-home creates means that it’s near impossible to create opportunities for informal conversations. A lot more energy needs to be invested to recreate the fun at the workplace. 

“[Bar None Games] was a great break from what has become our normal WFH routines that we’ve been doing for the past nine months. Not being able to get together as a group is really hard, but this event brightened our day and everyone really enjoyed our time together.”

- Kelly C., Bar None Games client

5. Fun events need to be scheduled with regular cadence, not just once in a while

When we welcome employees onto our video calls to begin our virtual trivia games, it’s not uncommon to hear people say “Wow, I haven’t seen you in so long!” “Look at the length of that hair — I can’t believe it!” “Hi, I joined a few months ago — nice to meet you all!” and it becomes clear to us that it has been a long time since these employees have gotten together in a big group setting for a casual hang out. We always hear amazing feedback after our events and we find that the best way to keep the positive momentum going is to schedule fun events at a regular cadence. We have many companies who play trivia with us on a regular bi-weekly basis and it acts well as a recurring event for employees to get together and regularly catch up in an informal setting.

6. Companies get creative to recreate the fun of being in person

This holiday season, we were constantly impressed with how creative companies are getting in making their parties resemble the types of events they’ve had in the past. A few examples of what we’ve seen companies do:

• Cocktails sent to employees’ homes so they can have a toast “together” before the game

• Gift cards for delivery meals so they can have dinner “together” over a trivia game

• Ugly sweater contests / costume contests that are conducted over Zoom calls

• Raffles for prizes

• Gift cards for trivia winners

7. Our entire workforce has adapted to a whole new set of tools created for the virtual world

The prevalence and growth of Zoom during the pandemic means that almost everyone has the Zoom application downloaded and has a basic understanding of how to use it. This shared set of knowledge makes connecting individuals together virtually more seamless than ever before. Even more so, we saw many people creatively use Zoom’s virtual backgrounds and face filters as ways to express themselves in the virtual world.

8. It’s been a hard year and we need to be forgiving and take care of ourselves

We heard many holiday speeches that centered around how the pandemic has upended both professional and personal plans. Even for teams that experienced growth during the pandemic, it has been a challenge to learn to operate in a new normal. Teams have been resilient, but it has not been easy. As we end the year, it’s important to remind team members to take time to take care of themselves and enjoy a period of rest after a chaotic year.

“Thank you for bringing joy, laughter, and just the right amount of friendly competition to my week. As a full-time graduate student, I have not had many opportunities for relaxation this semester. Trivia was the perfect study break and easily the most exciting 75 minutes that I’ve ever spent on Zoom! The questions were perfect, and the host was so much fun. I really cannot thank Bar None Games enough for putting on this awesome experience!”

- Alexis N., Bar None Games client

9. Employees need a structured but casual space to connect

If I got a dollar for every person who told me that they were sick of another Zoom happy hour, well, then I probably wouldn’t need to be hosting trivia anymore. (Jokes, wouldn’t trade this for the world — I’ve never had so much fun at a job!) Many companies have attempted to host casual virtual events in various different formats, but after the ninth unstructured casual event, many employees lose steam. One of the reasons why our virtual trivia events are such a big hit is because it gives employees a fun goal to be unified around, while also keeping the conversation flowing. We utilize Zoom’s breakout rooms, so even for large teams, there are smaller groups formed to allow for natural and easy conversation.

10. It’s more important now than ever before for senior team members to fully embrace creating a casual space for employees to decompress in

In today’s world, virtual events easily fall wayside given everything else that is happening. In order for a team to get the full impact of having a virtual get together, senior team members need to be engaged and authentically bought-in. We’ve seen senior engagement in many different formats — anywhere from the President of a Fortune 100 company agreeing to be randomly assigned to a trivia team, to the Partner at a firm spending hours of his own time writing personalized trivia, to the CEO of a beloved brand giving an introduction kick off speech before joining junior members to play trivia. When junior members see their senior team embracing having fun even when times are busy and stressful, this resonates and carries the culture top-down.

Flexible work is here to stay, but there is a gap in how to support and maintain employee morale — our trivia games fill that gap. 

After hosting hundreds of trivia games, the feedback has been consistent — so many companies tell us that this is exactly what their remote teams are missing. Our trivia games offer an easy and fun way for employees to engage with each other in a casual environment. It works for new employees: trivia makes it easy to find topics of conversation to chat about even when you don’t who don’t know much about the other team members. It works for employees who have been around for decades: many tell us that they’ve never had so much fun with their co-workers before. 

If you want to book a game with us to see what all the hype is about, you can do so here. 

About 

Bar None Games offers live virtual trivia and other games that keep people connected when they are remote. Hundreds of Fortune 500 companies, start ups, universities, and individuals have hired Bar None Games to host team building events and virtual parties. Bar None Games has been named by many as the #1 virtual team building activity.