For anyone: What do you think are the most important things CEA does to improve or maintain staff morale? Does CEA do any regular internal socials or other fun stuff? Would be interesting to see a fun or lighthearted side to the organization, assuming there is one.
I have a lot of “life shit” that has happened (chronic health issues, I’m accident-prone, my mom died). In addition, my role can be inherently stressful sometimes (I do some risk mitigation work). CEA has been amazingly supportive. CEA has helped me figure out a schedule that feels sustainable and part of a thriving life for me. CEA has helped me orient towards my “life shit” in much healthier and constructive ways. I now have an automatic reminder (or “TAP”) installed to talk to our people ops person whenever I feel angsty or stressed, or uncomfortable. She’s so good at helping me identify what’s going on and helping me figure out what to do about it.
Glad to hear that CEA has been amazingly supportive! It does feel like maintaining staff happiness is less about specific fun activities/socials, and more about the culture (i.e. how well your co-workers help make your work a source of meaning and happiness, and how well they empathize with you and help you during tough times too).
Some things we do to support and improve staff morale:
We have weekly “Game Time” where we play a drawing game
We used to have in-person retreats and will again soon (which always involve a lot of silliness, including karaoke for those who enjoy it), this year we have also had various virtual events for the team, including a murder mystery type game and an elaborate clues-based game in Gather Town
We have had some dress-up days for staff birthdays, including one day where we all dressed up as different characters from a card game that one of our staff is good at
This year for my birthday the team collaborated on a poem where they said something nice about me for every letter of the alphabet (it was awesome!)
We have various slack channels that encourage bonding: a silliness slack channel (where we post memes, jokes, Ben’s tik toks...), a support slack, high fives to compliment others, “I done good” to brag, mindfulness, workout, and pair debugging to support good habits, etc
Different staff organize other meetings that are optional: I’m involved in a monthly “action for happiness” meeting and a weekly “accountability” meeting
We have other opportunities for 1:1s: we optionally get paired every couple weeks in Donut for “fun on ones” and have occasional Icebreaker 1:1s in Gatheround
We have a budget for personal development and morale-supporting items like SAD lamps, monitors, etc
Managers check in on staff morale weekly and our People Ops checks in with polling and reaches out or provides support by request for folks who need it
We do a “cheer” at the end of every All Hands where we all say the same word to end the meeting, selected by our “cheer tsar”—and Max always says “can the cheer tsar tell us what the cheers are”
Amy covered most of this, but to expand on a few points.
My favourite retreat activity was an EA-themed baking competition. Our last retreat was in December, and we also had a really nice “secret santa” round.
Memorable office party activities include seeing who can slide the furthest on a beanbag on a smooth floor, and trying to estimate how many average dinosaurs you’d have to have to equal the mass of the moon.
Caitlin is our head of people ops. A big part of her job is supporting staff morale—both by facilitating fun things like the above, and by making sure that staff have the support they need.
Relatedly: Is CEA planning on doing or trying anything new to improve or maintain staff morale?
One reason why I ask this question and the one in the parent comment is in case any other organization leaders or project leaders might want to try similar things to improve or maintain staff morale, whether as short-term or longer-term activities.
One thing that CEA recently changed was to go from thinking about the org as “based in Oxford with remote staff” to “remote first”. As someone who has been a remote employee for many years now, I’m excited about this change. What it means in practice, is that even after the pandemic ends
One-person-one-laptop for meetings
Coworking
Informal/social time
Systems to encourage + support travel
I’m especially excited about that last bullet point. I remember January 2016 as one of the best months of my life because I worked for weeks at the Oxford office. It was Julia’s first time visiting too and so I got to know her, Will, Rob, Michelle, and lots of other CEA / 80K staff. It will probably be a bit harder now that I have kids, but I’m really excited imagining a work setup that involves the opportunity to go work with my team and other EAs at the Oxford Hub!
For anyone: What do you think are the most important things CEA does to improve or maintain staff morale? Does CEA do any regular internal socials or other fun stuff? Would be interesting to see a fun or lighthearted side to the organization, assuming there is one.
I have a lot of “life shit” that has happened (chronic health issues, I’m accident-prone, my mom died). In addition, my role can be inherently stressful sometimes (I do some risk mitigation work). CEA has been amazingly supportive. CEA has helped me figure out a schedule that feels sustainable and part of a thriving life for me. CEA has helped me orient towards my “life shit” in much healthier and constructive ways. I now have an automatic reminder (or “TAP”) installed to talk to our people ops person whenever I feel angsty or stressed, or uncomfortable. She’s so good at helping me identify what’s going on and helping me figure out what to do about it.
Glad to hear that CEA has been amazingly supportive! It does feel like maintaining staff happiness is less about specific fun activities/socials, and more about the culture (i.e. how well your co-workers help make your work a source of meaning and happiness, and how well they empathize with you and help you during tough times too).
Some things we do to support and improve staff morale:
We have weekly “Game Time” where we play a drawing game
We used to have in-person retreats and will again soon (which always involve a lot of silliness, including karaoke for those who enjoy it), this year we have also had various virtual events for the team, including a murder mystery type game and an elaborate clues-based game in Gather Town
We have had some dress-up days for staff birthdays, including one day where we all dressed up as different characters from a card game that one of our staff is good at
This year for my birthday the team collaborated on a poem where they said something nice about me for every letter of the alphabet (it was awesome!)
We have various slack channels that encourage bonding: a silliness slack channel (where we post memes, jokes, Ben’s tik toks...), a support slack, high fives to compliment others, “I done good” to brag, mindfulness, workout, and pair debugging to support good habits, etc
Different staff organize other meetings that are optional: I’m involved in a monthly “action for happiness” meeting and a weekly “accountability” meeting
We have other opportunities for 1:1s: we optionally get paired every couple weeks in Donut for “fun on ones” and have occasional Icebreaker 1:1s in Gatheround
We have a budget for personal development and morale-supporting items like SAD lamps, monitors, etc
Managers check in on staff morale weekly and our People Ops checks in with polling and reaches out or provides support by request for folks who need it
We do a “cheer” at the end of every All Hands where we all say the same word to end the meeting, selected by our “cheer tsar”—and Max always says “can the cheer tsar tell us what the cheers are”
Amy covered most of this, but to expand on a few points.
My favourite retreat activity was an EA-themed baking competition. Our last retreat was in December, and we also had a really nice “secret santa” round.
Memorable office party activities include seeing who can slide the furthest on a beanbag on a smooth floor, and trying to estimate how many average dinosaurs you’d have to have to equal the mass of the moon.
Caitlin is our head of people ops. A big part of her job is supporting staff morale—both by facilitating fun things like the above, and by making sure that staff have the support they need.
Oh, those were good too! Definitely loved the bake-off. My team’s name of Nick Bakestead was one for the books.
I also really liked the EA themed rap battle. Even though I epically choked trying to freestyle, the raps from Aaron and Louis made up for it!
And I liked when Stefan did spot on impersonations of other staff members. I think he really nailed me, Oli, and Tara!
Lots of good ideas here—thanks for sharing! :)
Relatedly: Is CEA planning on doing or trying anything new to improve or maintain staff morale?
One reason why I ask this question and the one in the parent comment is in case any other organization leaders or project leaders might want to try similar things to improve or maintain staff morale, whether as short-term or longer-term activities.
One thing that CEA recently changed was to go from thinking about the org as “based in Oxford with remote staff” to “remote first”. As someone who has been a remote employee for many years now, I’m excited about this change. What it means in practice, is that even after the pandemic ends
One-person-one-laptop for meetings
Coworking
Informal/social time
Systems to encourage + support travel
I’m especially excited about that last bullet point. I remember January 2016 as one of the best months of my life because I worked for weeks at the Oxford office. It was Julia’s first time visiting too and so I got to know her, Will, Rob, Michelle, and lots of other CEA / 80K staff. It will probably be a bit harder now that I have kids, but I’m really excited imagining a work setup that involves the opportunity to go work with my team and other EAs at the Oxford Hub!