How do you celebrate wins with virtual teams/members?

Question

We have many remote teams & everyone works great in collaboration. One thing missing from our company culture is that we have not figured out how to celebrate small/big wins with remote folks. Does anyone have any ideas ? Something like having a video call with everyone and playing a game or enjoying tea/coffee/beer and talk non work related topics ?

znq · Accepted Answer

At Mobile Jazz and Bugfender (two remote companies that I started) we have:
* Weekly meetings (every Wednesday for 1h) where everyone can just share what they're doing in life. Can also be about work, but it's mostly about general life stuff. That is where we connect.
* 1-2 per month we have an educational talk similar like TED talks where we talk about topics like GTD, personal finance, investing, health, hobbies, training, etc.
* 1 time per year we have a mandatory "University" event where we spend a week in a remote location teaching each other mostly technical skills (but can also be management and design skills). All paid.
* 1 time per year we rent a huge house over an extended weekend and fly everyone in. Including partners and children. All paid.
* Multiple times per year we offer skiing, surfing, and hiking trips. We pay for the accommodation. Team members have to pay for their own food and travel expenses.
More details in our company handbook: https://mobilejazz.com/company-handbook-pdf/ (free to download, no email required, just click the download link)

magduf · Answer

Fly everyone to a nice vacation spot for a week, all expenses paid (and not counting against PTO).It's probably much cheaper than the yearly cost of having a corporate office.

twunde · Answer

Something you can do is send them beer/wine prior to the celebration so they can join in remotely. Other options is sending them cookies/candy or potentially gift cards to something nice in their area.

PouyaL · Answer

Why don't you give them a week off to have a trip around on their own with family (company paid with a certain budget) and share their pictures live to make a wall of family virtually on a landing page. Leaving comments would be beneficiary too

kohanz · Answer

While I didn't initially build it for this purpose, remote teams have started using VidHug (https://vidhug.com) for not just celebrating, but also welcoming new team members and wishing old ones farewell. I'm working on some b2b specific features and hope to have an offering out soon. Would love any feedback from remote teams and happy to give interested parties a trial run.

xfitm3 · Answer

Expense a 6 pack