Employees are craving connection in the midst of a virtual world, and monthly company happy hours just aren’t cutting it anymore.
Remote workers currently make up approximately 45% of the workforce, according to a recent survey by Gallup, making it difficult to create strong connections with coworkers. That’s why Ian White, CEO of HR tech platform ChartHop, invited his employees to join him off the grid for a few days.
“I'm a big believer in remote work — I think it supports many different types of lifestyles,” White says. “But the downside is that it can be isolating and distancing to only see coworkers as boxes on a Zoom screen or lines of text in the Slack channel.”
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ChartHop’s employee base nearly doubled over the span of the pandemic, with remote work allowing the platform to expand beyond their flagship location in Brooklyn, New York. So in an effort to ensure that old and new employees could finally meet, White and 125 of ChartHop’s employees traveled to Lake George, New York from all over the world to gather at CampHop, a three day cabin stay where they had the space and time to get to know each other.
“[With remote work,] you tend to interact with people in terms of the work product you need from that person, rather than the full human being,” White says. “ [We wanted to] have people make connections outside of their department, by doing some fun activities.”
White talked to EBN about his experience at CampHop and the importance of creating environments where employees can build relationships for company culture and productivity:
Tell me more about CampHop — it seems a lot like adult summer camp, which sounds like a lot of fun.
It definitely was! As a fully remote team because of the pandemic, we had so few opportunities to get together in person and we really wanted to create an inclusive experience for everybody who wanted to attend. We didn't make it a requirement to go to CampHop, but the vast majority of the company did. [We wanted to] have people make connections outside of their department or area with people they may not normally have fun with, with the help of fun activities. It was definitely a summer adult summer camp vibe going on — we had a talent show and we had a campfire and we had some give back activities, like building bicycles for kids. We definitely went light on the content and heavy on the togetherness to plan an event like this.
How were you able to plan this outing amidst a global pandemic?
We originally started with this idea back in May, 2020 when I decided that the company would be fully remote. At that time, I didn't know how long this pandemic was going to last but we would, as a remote team, find opportunities to get together. I made that commitment from very early on.
We were probably 10 or 12 people at that time. Then in 2021, with the vaccine and things reopening, we started to make plans to hold our first CampHop in the fall of 2021. We had actually booked a space and had a plan for 80 people in the Poconos. People were very excited right away. And then of course there was the Delta variant in the late summer and fall of 2021. So we looked at it and said, maybe it's not the best time to get everybody together. We put those plans on hold and in the meantime the company continued to grow even more.
So by the time that wave came and went, we decided to put this together for the spring and announced it to the company, shared some pictures of where we were going and people were just really excited. You don't always get excited about a work event, but when it's a work event that is fun, it allows you to connect with people that you haven't been able to connect with.
So I’m curious — what was the furthest someone traveled to be there?
We had someone come in from Taiwan. They had actually moved to Taiwan at the start of the pandemic and we hadn't seen him in over two years, which was amazing to see him. People also flew in from Amsterdam and Canada. It was really great.
Why is it so important to create these environments where employees can just meet and get to know each other organically?
I don't think there's some magical thing that you get from going to an office every day. But I do think if you're not going to have an office, you need to create the space for those in-person connections to form. And it may be less frequent than every day, but making it a more special event makes it become something that people really remember. The way we remember [CampHop] is from an emotional and social connection standpoint that comes from our experiences we shared together. Creating that experience was something I wanted to do for the whole company.
[As for] employees, top talent in competitive markets are looking for employers and experiences they feel connected to. And that becomes even more so important if you're remote. Employees might do the same work for three different companies, but which company is the company that they’re going to feel the strongest attraction to? Companies must invest in experiences that help bring their employees together — that's what’s going to drive higher retention and better outcomes.
Since CampHop, what has the feedback from employees been?
We surveyed everyone on how they felt about the event and whether it brought them closer to their coworkers and the scores were off the charts. People were absolutely thrilled. We had 84 people respond to the survey and 49 of them gave it a 10 out of 10. We asked ‘How much did CampHop improve your ability to perform your job?’ and 48% gave it a five out of five and another 36.9% gave it a four. So the vast majority of people thought it would help them with their job.
So we have to know. Given all of the positive feedback, will there be another CampHop next year?
We will absolutely be making this an annual event. And we're finding other ways to bring people together even between CampHops, because the value of in person connection is so high.
