It's good getting together for a chat over a coffee (or tea, etc.), taking a moment or two to just try and find bit of space and time to interact with your work colleagues outside of the normal work related activities.
Obviously over the last year or so, the 'getting together' part has been problematical, or in fact essentially impossible, challenging us all to find other ways to keep in touch, often when we are all at at a considerable distance from each other. Video calling and online interactions have necessarily had to suffice for quite some time, and a number of adaptations around colleague to colleague behaviour, have been made.
Though our team work closely together and therefore we are in touch with each other throughout the week, having a dedicated time to use as a socialising period has, I believe, kept our relationships strong and healthy whilst we each work in a different location.
There are of course some downsides to this. Occasionally other distractions can cause a lack of engagement by individuals. Something which is easily seen by the other team members and difficult to hide when you are literally sitting in front of a monitor, which clearly shows all the participants at once. This can sometimes be frustrating and a little bit irritating when other team members have also needed to stop what they were working on at the time as well.
Despite the challenges and it not quite feeling the same as being together, we have thus far successfully persevered with making time to spend together like this, allocating the same regular spot, which has recently become monthly as we have increasingly got busier with client and internal projects. We certainly won't be making our get-togethers any less frequent than once a month, as far too many things are happening which means that we need to keep in touch with one another over the intervening period.
