F2F social events

Async-first remote work needs intentionality. In fact, asynchronous work rests on a bedrock of trust and camaraderie. The stronger the trust and camaraderie on your team, the easier it is to assume positive intent in written communication. The easier it is to default to action without fear. You can’t leave this to chance. Teams need mechanisms to build that camaraderie and I’ll be the first to say that a lot of this should happen face-to-face.

Here are some ideas of activities you can organise when F2F.

• Workshops and coworking with the primary idea of spending time with each other. If you do this, be sure to set aside enough time for long breaks, extended lunches and coffees and for meaningful conversations.

• Lunches and dinners. Sitting together and enjoying a meal together is one of the most primal experiences of the human condition. There’s great value in doing these regularly.

• A team activity. This can either be in person, like a bowling night or even virtual, like an Airbnb experience.

• An overnight trip. Sometimes we’d save up money for three months and do a fun trip with the cash we accumulated.

And as a bonus, while this is not about face-to-face events, consider getting some team swag. When many people couldn’t come for a team event, we’d just buy some goodies for everyone, to build that feeling of togetherness, even when we were apart.

My employer, Thoughtworks, organises company-wide events called away days, which I must admit are harder to organise as the company gets bigger. The logistics get too complicated and people can get lost in a sea of unfamiliar faces. Depending on the size of your company, you may need to split up these retreats by team or department. Regardless of how you execute them, make sure you do them. The value far outweighs the cost as some research already shows.