What Is A Virtual Water Cooler? Benefits, Tools, and Ideas

In the world of remote work, 69% of workers feel disconnected from their virtual teammates, especially during the pandemic. And 73% specifically say they miss social interactions with their colleagues during lunch breaks or water cooler chats between tasks. 

If companies want to create attractive remote work environments (and improve employee retention), they need to find ways to foster relationships between coworkers online. In this guide, we’ll explain how virtual water coolers simulate casual, face-to-face interactions and contribute to much-needed team bonding.

What is a virtual water cooler?

Virtual water coolers are virtual spaces where employees have casual conversations between work-related tasks. Virtual water coolers give employees the chance to socialize, build stronger interpersonal relationships, and take breaks throughout the workday.

In a physical office, water cooler interactions usually happen in break rooms or kitchens, around an office water cooler, coffee machine, or box of donuts. At larger companies, water cooler chats are some of the only opportunities for employees from different teams to socialize.

In a virtual environment, these activities take place over casual video calls during an employee’s lunch or coffee break. Some companies use apps to randomly pair employees across the company for virtual water coolers, contributing to company-wide bonding.  

3 significant benefits of virtual water coolers

Companies worldwide turn to virtual water coolers because of the positive impact of casual conversation on remote teams.

They build a sense of camaraderie

Building trust and camaraderie in distributed teams is a challenge because of the lack of casual interactions. Virtual water coolers bring teams closer together and increase trust between team members.

During water cooler conversations, employees may share stories and challenges from their personal lives and look for support from their team members. This kind of personal bonding forms workplace friendships. These friendships may boost employee satisfaction and retention: 57% of people confirm that having a best friend at work makes work more enjoyable.

They help employees stay productive

Water cooler conversations and activities are a break from work. These small breaks improve employee focus, stamina, and productivity throughout the day.

Sitting at your desk for long hours can strain your body and brain. And when you’re not in the office, you probably don’t get up as much—you Slack your coworkers when you have a question instead of walking to their desks. That stillness may increase fatigue and lack of concentration and hurt your productivity.

A five-minute microbreak enhances focus, innovation, and energy levels. You could chat to a colleague, stretch your legs, take a glass of water, pet your cat or dog, or text a friend. This downtime is essential for your brain to regain its creativity.

Companies promote these microbreaks by encouraging teams to have virtual water cooler conversations. Even non-work conversations can spark productivity. Chatting about personal matters may create cross-team bonds, improve teamwork, or even prompt employees to set up a brainstorming session to find new ways to work together.

They enhance employee happiness and retention

Employees who foster meaningful relationships at work are happier and stick around at their company longer.

Studies confirm that interaction with coworkers is critical in employee engagement and happiness. Work happiness matters to employees, sometimes even more than salary.

Companies with happy employees may experience lower absenteeism rates and higher employee retention rates. And an employee’s mood impacts the way they interact with customers, so you may see a positive trend in customer retention and even higher company profitability. A Gallup study also found that companies could experience fewer workplace incidents and more satisfied customers when employees nurture friendships and feel engaged at work.

How to set up a virtual water cooler

You can introduce virtual water cooler activities in a few ways. Here are the four main steps to take when implementing your first virtual water cooler.

1. Choose between 1:1 and group water coolers (or both!) 

Companies can prioritize individual connections or group bonds by implementing either 1:1 or group team water coolers.

1:1 water cooler

One-on-one water cooler chats refer to only two people having a conversation. Some companies randomly pair employees across teams, which leads to interactions that may never otherwise happen. A brand new hire might get the opportunity to speak to the CEO, and someone on the marketing team might get to learn about an engineer’s day-to-day life.

This could be a great option if you have a larger company where people from different teams may never cross paths.

Group water cooler

Team water coolers allow multiple people to get together and chat, like a casual virtual social event. That can happen in virtual breakrooms, virtual happy hours after work, or in interest-based virtual clubs. In group virtual water cooler chats based on interests, people get together to talk about something they have in common, like favorite Netflix shows or painting as a hobby.

In big companies, group water coolers give people with similar interests the chance to connect and bond. Smaller companies get an opportunity to gather the entire team in casual virtual meetings.

2. Choose a suitable channel, tool, or platform

Some companies may choose to encourage employees to organize virtual water coolers whenever they please. Other companies may use tools to pair employees and suggest time slots where both employees are available to facilitate scheduling the session and encourage workers to chat.

Slack water coolers

You can set up a random Slack channel for an asynchronous water cooler environment. Employees can share memes or create themed channels to discuss specific topics like movies, sports, travel, or music.

You can also add a plugin like Connections by Roots to your Slack workspace. This kind of plugin pairs people at a regular cadence—weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly—and integrates with Google Calendar to suggest a few time slots during which both employees are free. Employees can schedule a virtual coffee or chat without ever leaving Slack.

Other tools and platforms

If you wish to move away from Slack, you can use a simple video conferencing tool (Zoom, Microsoft Teams) to hold water cooler sessions or choose a tool created specifically for virtual water coolers.

A few examples:

• Mural, a digital whiteboard with plenty of interesting features, such as sticky notes, connectors for building diagrams, and drawing options 
• Water Cooler Trivia, a platform that automatically creates and schedules trivia asynchronously and automatically every week
• Sococo, a platform that imitates a physical office by representing it on a map where you can see your coworkers’ avatars and find someone on a break and available to chat 

3. Pick a cadence that won’t make water coolers feel like a burden 

Water cooler chats should be fun and keep your employees engaged. They should not feel like a task your team has to cross off their to-do lists. For us, a weekly cadence works. Weekly virtual water coolers give everyone a chance to relax and make connections during the week without feeling overwhelmed or distracted.

If you’re unsure, you can ask a few team members to weigh in before setting up your virtual water cooler tool. Some tools even let employees opt in or out of virtual water coolers, so each individual can find their perfect balance.

4. Consider adding structure to your virtual water coolers

Most water coolers, especially 1:1 conversations, won’t have structure. Two or more people get to know one another organically, asking whatever questions feel natural. However, especially for larger groups, some structure and leadership may help break the ice and facilitate better conversations.

You may choose to incorporate presentations, Q&A sessions, or sessions dedicated to cultural exchange conversations. If so, consider nominating one participant as the host of the meeting so they can explain the structure and get people talking. However, since virtual water coolers are supposed to be informal and enjoyable, straying from structure isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Encourage the host to take a relatively hands-off approach once a lively conversation is up and running. 

3 tips to encourage employees to participate

Some people are extroverts and will naturally take the lead in water cooler activities, but others will need encouragement to participate in your virtual water coolers. Here are three tips to help you prop them up.

Lead by example

Remote workers look up to leaders and managers, and their buy-in on virtual water coolers will likely lead to wider adoption.

By participating in virtual water coolers, leaders embody company culture and spark participation from the larger team. Virtual water cooler sessions involve chatting about topics other than work, so leaders taking part in these chats send the message that they care about their employees personally, too.

Ask for constant feedback

To ensure your employees enjoy virtual water cooler sessions, update the activity idea bank regularly and ask your workers for feedback.

You can collect feedback through surveys or during 1:1 meetings between employees and their managers. Ask employees how water cooler activities affect their workweek and if there are any conversation topics or games they particularly like or dislike.

Also, encourage employees to come up with their own ideas of how the team could organize the water cooler and suggest fun activities. You can set up a document, Notion page, or Drive folder where teams can drop their suggestions.

Don’t force anyone to participate

Never force your teammates to join water cooler sessions, but let them know they’re always welcome. Forced participation will turn relaxed water cooler moments into another task on the team’s to-do list, so the atmosphere in the meeting may not be as enjoyable as it should be.

Some people are introverted. They might not be confident enough to share their thoughts, ideas, and worries with people they don’t know well. Or maybe they don’t have time or interest in water cooler chats because of private errands. These may still have great relationships with the team and be kind colleagues.

Virtual water cooler ideas and activities

As with any team-building activity, you will probably need to do a bit of trial and error to perfect your virtual water coolers. Here are a handful of water cooler tips to play around with.

• Virtual happy hours: A virtual happy hour is like going for a drink with your coworkers on Fridays after work, but online—everyone grabs their favorite drink and joins a video call meetup where you can chat and unwind after a long week

Note: To make these sessions more inclusive, include in the messaging that drinking alcohol isn’t required. Some may prefer to stick with tea or water—especially when you work with employees in different time zones—and they should still be welcome.

• Culture exchange: If you work in a distributed team, use water cooler sessions to share fun facts or interesting stories about your culture or country
• Virtual book club: organize a monthly meeting where your team gathers on a video call to chat about a book that you’ve all read and give each other reading recommendations

• Trivia night: organize a quiz on a topic of common interest for everyone involved, like a sports team, movie, TV show, celebrity, etc.

• Games: choose a set of simple online games that will make everyone laugh and allow you to learn something about each other: Skribbl, Bingo, Cards Against Humanity, Words with Friends, This or That, and more

• Movie night: choose a movie that the whole team can watch simultaneously on Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and a few other streaming services, with a feature called Teleparty that allows you to synchronize video playback and chat with your team while watching the movie
• Murder mystery: sign up for a website that hosts virtual murder mystery events for teams, like The Murder Mystery Co., and solve a “crime” together

• Team lunch: if your team works within the same time zone, gather with them on a video call during lunch break and eat together while chatting or sharing your favorite lunch recipe

• Photo/meme/gif/video sharing session: share your favorite childhood photos, memes, GIFs, or videos with your team and chat about them

Connect and empower your team with Roots 

Fast-paced work environments and busy lifestyles don’t always allow for a deeper connection at the workplace. But that deeper connection is precisely what companies need to retain employees and keep them engaged.

Virtual water coolers can contribute to good interpersonal relationships in your company and reduce burnout in your employees. Connections by Roots is a Slack plugin to help your team schedule 1:1 meetings and virtual coffees. The plugin suggests a few time slots when both people are available for a 15-minute chat without browsing through their calendars. The connections are random, so people from different teams get to know each other.

Spark fun conversations, connect people with similar interests and help your teammates introduce meet and network. Roots’ cost-effective plugins take less than 30 minutes to install, and teams worldwide already love them. 

Sign up for a trial today to see Roots in action.

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