I have the happiest memories of eating lunch as a staff at my first post-collegiate job. It was a small office–we were project managers for academic textbooks–and every day we’d take a 30-minute break to eat, chat, and laugh.
For the first 8 years of running Stonemaier Games, it was just me, though my co-founder and I would get together for lunch around once a month to talk shop. By the time we added our other two full-time employees, Joe and Alex, it was 2020, the first year of COVID–lunches weren’t an option.
Earlier this year, Joe proposed that we occasionally get together as a staff for virtual lunches. We tried one, then another a few months later, than another. For a group of people who work almost entirely remotely–and for a company that doesn’t believe in meetings–I’ve found these 45-minute lunches offer the camaraderie and connection I hadn’t realized we were missing.
The most recent one was last Friday, and it included the 3 full-time staff members (me, Joe, and Alex), along with co-founder Alan, graphic designer Christine, web developer Dave, retail relationship manager Susannah, and Automa specialist Morten–these are the people that spend 20+ hours working on Stonemaier Games stuff every week.
There are a few others I’d like to add, though I think we might be close to the tipping point of too many people for a cohesive conversation–after all, there are over 100 people who have an ongoing impact on Stonemaier Games, and that would be a big lunch! Even just the 8 of us are spread out across 5 time zones, which actually makes lunch (11:00-ish Central) one of the few times we can all meet.
I’ve heard of other organizations hosting virtual happy hours, gaming breaks, and hangouts, so I know we’re well behind the curve here, not ahead of it. I do want to emphasize that I think the reason these lunches have gone over so well is that they’re very specifically not about work. We’re just chatting and hanging out for 45 minutes. In fact, in the few instances where someone has brought up work, there’s an instantaneous atmospheric shift.
Also, even though it’s technically a staff “lunch,” I’ve noticed that no one actually eats while we’re talking. Alex noted that it’s cumbersome to eat and chat at the same time, which I can relate to. That said, for these virtual meetups I always offer to everyone that they can order lunch on the company.
Last, because we’re only doing these lunches every few months, the conversations that emerge ore usually on the “getting to know you” level. What are you up to this weekend? What are you playing? Pets, kids, food, vacations, trips, cultural differences, etc. Without daily lunches I don’t think we’ll ever get into the rhythm of running jokes and deep connections, but I think that’s part of the nature of working remotely.
I’d love to hear your experience with virtual staff lunches or remote gatherings (or even in person if that works for your occupation)!
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14 Comments on “Do You Eat Lunch as a Staff?”
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[…] Staff Lunches: At my coworker Joe’s suggestion, we started gathering as a team for staff lunches every couple of months. The core Stonemaier team is scattered all over–Reno, St. Louis, […]
We use Band for getting together and posting things, and will pay for our team to use it for a period of time at work, it is still a work in progress, but it has gotten some use, and I post videos that talk about how I am inspired to get up and work on our Vision that everyone is valuable and belongs. Our mission is to create that space, but we have our work cut out for ourselves.
We have had quarterly outside non work parties as a thank you to the staff, and we also pay for lunches occasionally where we chat or play games together.
I would suggest giving meetings a try though, but dont take my word for it, Patrick Lencioni may have a book about it somewhere, here are his four types of meetings: https://youtu.be/4juHGorh5oU
Nicholas: I actually read Lencioni’s book about meetings before starting my second major job after college, which involved managing a staff and a facility. His concept of the daily check-in huddle was, in all honesty, some of the worst advice I’ve ever gotten about running a business. It completely disrupted the flow of the day. I think that particular book is a good reminder that just because someone wrote a book doesn’t mean it’s actually good advice (and that goes for my book too!). :) I’ve had far more success with the Stonemaier method: https://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-244-why-i-avoid-meetings/
The meetings you outlined in your exceptions seem to follow some of the guidlines that Patrick Lencioni outline, specifically the weekly strategic meeting and the big picture meeting for your international people.
I only see it because Ive been following since the Viticulture kickstarter, so obviously SM is doing great selecting when it is appropriate to meet in person, but if it is easier to say SM’s policy is “No Meetings” – you do you.
Lencioni isnt the only one to try to help others have better – more effective – in person interactions. There is also this company that makes games where their hope is that the game brings joy to those who play it. Ive personally found Jocko Willink’s advice on meetings to be inspirational as well 😁.
Shared online spaces are great, but actually sharing food is a huge boost to morale everywhere I’ve worked. I’ve just come back from our weekly shared morning tea (in reality a huge buffet) at my school. Once a week the school kitchen, which usually only caters for the boarding students, puts on a free meal for all staff and students. Everyone looks forward to the food (are teachers the only profession that will do literally anything for free food?) but it’s a really great chance to catch up with students outside the classroom, sit with them and find out about their lives. Grabbing a takeaway plate and eating in the office is frowned upon so we are all forced to take a break and just connect with other people on a personal level.
I love (and appreciate) all the different approaches shared in the comments below. I’m possibly the most intrigued by adding a team Discord that is specifically just for sharing life/personal stuff (not work). I already feel like we have some of that based on either local or social media interactions, but a closed environment could be fun too.
Since I work remotely and all by myself I treasure the days that me and my co designer used to get together (pre-covid) for 2 day design marathons. Lunch (and dinner) was always a great break. To just have a laugh, catch up, but in the back of our heads our ideas were spinning. This “forced” rest made it more creative.
We also would go on hikes together. Define a problem and go.
During covid we continued these hikes, just call each other and go, and show the awesome nature we are in. A feeling of normality in crazy times. And also a boost to go out.
We then added online lunch meetings. Just the two of us. And since we have known each other forever, we would eat :-)
I can imagine that I wouldn’t feel that comfortable with everyone though.
Small things like this go a long way.
I am a big fan of a hammock for example. 30 minutes in a hammock, reading, looking at the amazing tree tops, a nap even…carving out time for yourself or time to not talk about work with your colleagues. This connection always feels longer and gets you on a mental high. So yes, I am all for this.
I am going to add another thing…
I sometimes have a “call and shut up” with a friend. Both working remotely, like being in an office. You can chat now and again, but you are also both working. This feeling that you are not allone makes a huge difference.
The “placebo” effect of this is finding a “work with me” or “study with me” vid on you tube and have that running in the background.
It is weird, but it makes a huge difference :-)
I’ve been out of a management role for more than seven years before returning to the field and managing a team of linguists. We hold a monthly staff meeting and on the heels of it, we pick (it’s actually done in advance for planning and reservations) a place to go for lunch. This is the time we have to catch-up on a more personal level…first, because we can’t talk about work and second, it brings us together as a more cohesive team, when you see people as more than their workaday existence.
I for one really enjoy the Stonemaier “lunches”. The only part I haven’t enjoyed was the five minutes I was late last time because I couldn’t find my glasses :-)
When we went into lockdown back in March of 2020, one of the first things I did was to organise a “daily update” with all of the team, and a daily one-on-one conversation with one of my team members (in a rotation). Just like your lunch meetings, the intent was strictly _not_ to talk about work. It was incredibly time consuming for me (I’m involved in 2 teams, so having a daily update with 2 teams and a 1-on-1 on top is 1.5 hours per day) and there were so many things going on at the same time, but I never ever regretted doing this. Yes, my days were ridiculously long and filled with meetings, but these conversations helped everyone to keep their heads above water and to maintain some semblance of normality.
2 years later, a lot of things have changed. A lot of people are back in the office now, but more on a hybrid basis—some people work at home. So, while the 1-on-1 meetings are gone, the daily updates are still in place. The conversation topic has evolved from “chit-chat explicitly not about work” to a healthy mix of work related stuff and private stuff, and these meetings have proven themselves to be incredibly useful. If there’s one thing that COVID has brought to our team that is good, then it is these meetings.
In addition—inspired by unclesamb’s comment—something else we have put into place since COVID is to have a chat window in Teams open at all times. In fact, we have 2: the “teamchat” (for work-related stuff) and the “funchat”. This is a great way to ask quick questions and to have some fun, and it’s not intrusive at all, since we explicitly mute the notifications on these chats. So, if someone is busy, they simply don’t see the new messages, and that’s perfectly okay.
I’ve been out of the classroom for five years now, but my department of 12 to 15 teachers all had lunch together just about every day. A lot of it was socializing and joking around with each other, so it came to be that we knew a lot about each other‘s families and interests and so forth. We talked about work—challenges, ideas we had, things we were trying—and bounced ideas off each other. In that 30-minute time period, we would also have celebrations of births and marriages. It was one of the best parts of my day.
My team has been fully remote for 5 years, spread across three timezones, and we’ve always been working at ways to add in the casual conversations and relationships that make relationships with coworkers fun and rewarding. We’ve found a few ways that have been helpful:
1. We try to do monthly virtual happy hours, which sound very similar to your virtual lunches.
2. We use Slack extensively, and have a team channel entirely for overall updates–sometimes just schedule stuff, but often updates about travel/kids/pets/etc. Folks will even log in from their vacations just to share pics of what they’re doing. It’s really strongly encouraged and everyone enjoys it.
3. We’ve recently started using an app called Teemyco (https://teemyco.com/) that actually gives you a virtual office for your team, let’s you “step into” other people’s offices to have a quick convo, and even lets you alert folks that you’re “going to the breakroom” and available to chat for a few minutes. We’ve found that it’s increased our day-to-day non-work interactions significantly and made everybody happier.
I do enjoy it and have in the past but since covid it’s been dramatically affected. We meet once a week now.