Where is the room to chat in the world of hybrid working?
In the week that I joined Chwarae Teg I was lucky enough that it was also the annual All-Staff day, where I got to meet lots of people in the organisation all at once. The only thing was, it was all on screen and I don’t need to tell anyone who works in an ‘office job’ that agendas are tight, and online meetings are back-to-back. Amongst the leap forward in the understanding of what flexible working looks like, we seem to have lost the connections and chat that happen whilst making a cuppa.
As many people continue to work from home, it got me thinking. Where are the projects that are serendipitously sparked as you line the buffet queue, the person at a meeting who inspired you, that you catch on the way out of the room? I mentioned this in the online breakout room at the staff day, and everyone in my little room agreed. We miss the time to simply chat and connect with new people.
I decided to do something to bring back the random conversations… through Equalitea!
In 2020, amid the first big “Lockdown” I took part in a Randomised Coffee Trial. Home working meant really missing making connections with people and having unplanned conversation, listening to the view of another person without anyone else listening in. When I saw the Coffee Trial pop up my first thought was how exciting to chat to someone new without a planned agenda!
But what is a Randomised Coffee Trial?
It’s a way of bringing like-minded people together, who might otherwise not get a chance to chat. It’s as simple as signing up, being randomly matched to another participant and arranging a time with them to meet and get to know each other with no agenda.
What about the inspiration behind EqualiTea networking?
The s-hero that is Kate Carr organised the Coffee Club movement here in Wales (and further afield) learning from Randomised Coffee Trials. She said
“Connecting people so good stuff happens is my passion so it’s absolutely brilliant to pass the Coffee Club baton on to Sarah and to get people talking over ‘EqualiTea’. More than ever, we need to be inclusive, connected and make sense of how we are all feeling. ”
I took part in three different chats, each one hugely different in topic but all equally enriching in a world where we have become so separated from chance encounters. Other participants described their experience as an opportunity to be creative and practice our softer networking skills again.
I felt a need to have unstructured conversation, a place in this new world to make connections and share ideas with colleagues and likeminded people that, right now, there is little the opportunity for.
How will the EqualiTea event work?
Balancing our lives in a constantly changing world isn’t easy, so we want to make this as simple as possible:
- Click the form below to sign up.
- You’ll receive an email introduction to your randomly selected ‘match’.
- Contact your ‘match’ to agree your preferred app to meet, and a time that suits you both (if that’s not the suggested event time).
- Share the joy on social media using #EqualiTea (being mindful that information may be sensitive).
- Get chatting over a cuppa!
Inclusivity
Virtual networking enables us to be more inclusive too. As a champion of equality, I also love how this concept breaks the boundaries of geography and (in some ways) access.
Surely one good thing is that we can move out of a Cardiff bubble in Wales. Chatting to a disabled family member, he said that the new world wasn’t that different for him – he has always been isolated and using digital spaces to connect, and in fact felt more connected as the world locked down because he was now part of the norm.
Of course, many of us want to get back to an in-person cuppa and chat, but life has shown us that there’s no time like the present. Let’s not wait, now is the time for talking and connecting.