Left High and Dry for Your Virtual Happy Hour? Here's What To Do
If you host a virtual happy hour and nobody comes, is it still worth doing? Do you find yourself wondering: What’s wrong? Why am I here in this virtual room, virtually alone (except for my kids playing and dog barking in the other room)?
It seems like everyone has jumped on the train to host virtual social events—including us (though, to be fair, we did host virtual events pre-pandemic). Experts from the Society for Human Resource Management to Glamour to Forbes have recommendations on the why and how to host virtual social events for your team. Essence has cocktail recipes for virtual gatherings. Organizations are advertising their “coffee chats,” “36 minute huddles” and “weekly connects” in attempts to draw people in and provide a place to have a semblance of normal and potentially awkward chit-chat.
Offering a casual virtual meeting space can help co-workers feel connected during this time when we cannot be physically near each other. But we have to remember, there is no replacement for the real thing. Just as online learning is to in-person learning, virtual happy hours are to actual happy hours. Using the same words to describe them only complicates things…they are different experiences altogether. Yet, just as you can be stood up in person, you can also be ghosted online.
Last week, I hosted a virtual happy hour. It had no real advertising or build up in advance. No sign up. Just a broad invitation to join me to chat with colleagues. I prepared for it, researched the current practices for virtual happy hours and then launched it. And waited...and waited…and waited.
Alone in this cyberspace room, I stared at my image on the screen for about ten minutes, then I double checked the link. Just in case I am in a different room than what I posted for participants…nope. Right link. I did not take it personally. People are busy, overwhelmed, and maybe just not interested. That’s okay. But if someone wants to virtually socialize, I’m there. Then, I started to tinker with my camera and lighting. Is the right side of my face more shadowy than the right? I practiced taking screenshots. You never know when you’ll need to take a quick screenshot so practicing that Shift+Command+3 shortcut will help you improve your screenshot speed and agility. Finally, I shut off my camera and muted myself, but I stayed in the meeting in case someone showed up. But also because I had blocked one hour to socialize. I did my hair. I put on a blazer. You know? I was ready.
When it became pretty clear that no one was coming, I started writing this blog post. I had great recommendations to get people to attend:
Invite people
Send a reminder an hour before the event and five minutes before
Re-send the link
Make it sound exciting
But no solid ideas on what to do when no one shows. And no pithy, draw-you-in title for the post. So, I called my brother to talk it out. He’s a writing professor for various online universities and always really good at generating quippy titles (like the one on this post). Turned out that he, too, has experienced no-show virtual events. His only advice was to hope that no one showed now because if only one person attends, it puts a lot of pressure on you and on that individual to simulate a fun, social event.
We caught up through the rest of the hour while I remained at my desk—just in case. I have another virtual social hour scheduled this week and I’m going to do it again. This time, I’ll follow my own advice about the pre-event outreach, but even if no one shows, it’s fine. I’ll still be there. I have three more brothers to call.