Quentin Quarantino – The rise of after work drinks at the virtual pub to stay connected

Quentin Quarantino – The rise of after work drinks at the virtual pub to stay connected

The social interaction between teams, wider working groups and even different departments has been largely missed in 2020, what with ‘one thing and another’. Employees across all sectors have missed the downtime together, where bonds are often forged or strengthened especially during periods of project delivery and tight deadlines. 

When it was looking likely that the first lockdown was going to hit us, we left our office to gather dust and we started working from home in readiness.  We tried our own ‘virtual pub’ on a Friday after work, which was a much more informal way of networking and in addition to any specific, work related video calls during the rest of the week.  We called it the ‘Quarantine Inn’ and it was a chance for everyone to get together to discuss the previous week, the weekend ahead or to just to talk about the compelling horror that was Tiger King.  It helped us to plug the gap when it came to socialising at work and helped our culture, morale and wellbeing. 

Vodafone recently found that 42% of workers missed spending time with their colleagues since working from home became the big thing in 2020.  And the top voice within H&S and Wellbeing at Thames Water perfectly summed it up by saying he missed ‘chance encounters to have brilliant conversations with team members’. 

One London law firm has taken this to the next level, with a virtual pub every Thursday giving staff the chance to move around different rooms which include the bar, pools rooms, a beer garden and a dance floor to meet one another.  Meanwhile, away from work the same principles apply to the community with one UK brewer using Facebook to keep spirits up.  Streamed online, they offer beer tasting, weekly quizzes, Q&A (recently with a Shire Horse Team) plus cooking sessions and bingo. 

In a week where Suzie Dent talked about one of her favourite new words in our post pandemic vocabulary, the ‘Quarantini’, meaning an experimental cocktail made from ingredients found in the back of cupboards or shelves, we brace for the sherry-based incarnations due in December.

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