As many companies begin rolling out their annual engagement surveys or consider action plans to address low scores, I wanted to share a project we launched in our HR department that had a surprisingly positive impact.

We based it on a well-known approach for improving engagement, the virtual water cooler, but adapted it to suit our environment. The results exceeded my expectations.

Why share this now?

Even with the pandemic behind us, behavior in many workplaces hasn’t shifted all that much.

• We still walk the same routes around the office.
  
• We still talk to the same people we’re comfortable with.
  
• Many employees continue to work from home, even though restrictions have been lifted.
  

These habits, formed during prolonged remote work, seem to have stuck for a lot of us. I believe the virtual water cooler approach can be valuable now, as we try to re-establish meaningful day-to-day interactions, whether we’re back in the office full-time or still working in hybrid setups.

Why we needed this in HR

Despite the return to more in-person work, engagement in our department remained low. Many of us had spent a lot of time separate from the daily office hustle and bustle. On top of that, due to the nature of HR which often deals with sensitive information, casual interactions can be more difficult. You can’t always pop over to someone’s desk for a chat if confidential data is on display.

We needed something intentional and inclusive to rebuild connection and comfort.

What we did

We created a Virtual Water Cooler Series, but gave it a twist.

We hosted a series of virtual lunchtime meetings that brought together members from across the HR department. The goal: give everyone a chance to meet, reconnect, and learn something new about each other.

We made sure to include everyone, from new hires to senior leaders.

How we ran it

• The engagement team, as we called it, created groups of about 20 participants per session.
  
• We deliberately mixed the groups to ensure no one team dominated. This actually took more time than expected.
  
• Senior leaders were included but distributed carefully across sessions to avoid intimidating newer team members.
  
• We scheduled enough sessions so that, ideally, everyone would meet everyone else at least once.
  
• Each session had a designated facilitator who organized logistics, led the discussion, and captured names and their answers in a shared file.
  
• We used a categorized list of icebreaker questions, and facilitators were encouraged to ask at least one from each category.
  

What happened

The program ran for about six months and it went very well.

• Participants were nudged gently out of their comfort zones.
  
• The energy in the sessions was completely different from the typical workday, lots of smiles and laughter that was really nice to hear.
  
• Many of the “walls” between us came down because we were able to see each other in a different light.
  

One of the best outcomes? We now have shared experiences to refer to when we bumped into a colleague anywhere in the office. We were easily able to draw upon our shared experience.

Importantly, this program had a clear beginning and end. I’ve seen too many engagement initiatives lose steam over time. This one avoided that trap by being structured, time-bound, and purposeful.

Who this could work for

I especially recommend this for teams where confidentiality limits how freely people can move around the office and interact.

In my past experience, some of my colleagues’ workplaces had their desks surrounded by privacy panels or required those special screen filters to prevent others from seeing what was on their computer screens. In those settings, even dropping off a document could feel intrusive. It’s hard to build engagement when normal social interactions are somehow restricted, or give you the feeling that you really shouldn’t be in the vicinity.

I also recommend this for workplaces with shift-based teams, such as broadcasting or online sales, where employees work beyond standard business hours and rarely share time in the office together.

This kind of structured, low-pressure initiative gives people a reason to connect, without disrupting the work or breaking confidentiality protocols that may or may not exist.

What creative approaches have worked for you to build engagement in teams with limited face-to-face interaction?

If engagement in your team or department isn’t where you want it to be, I’d be happy to help. Feel free to make an appointment to meet with me here.