10 Fun Ways to Use Slack to Boost Your Remote Work Culture

Remember when the word “Slack” in the context of work used to relate to slacking off? Now, when most people hear “Slack,” they immediately think of the communication platform heavily favored by remote teams. Slack and other instant messaging tools have completely changed the way we collaborate and communicate at work for the better. While Slack empowers productivity and communication for remote teams, it is also a great tool for boosting your remote culture.

Here are 10 fun and engaging Slack channel ideas to bring your team closer together, no matter where they are in the world.

1. Props and Kudos Slack Channel 🏆

Foster a positive work environment by setting up a channel where team members can give each other shoutouts for their hard work, achievements, or helpfulness. It's a fantastic way to boost morale and show appreciation for each other's contributions. It's important for leaders to model using this channel and not be stingy with compliments!

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Research shows Gen Z and Millennials expect to praise two to three times a week. While much of that praise should occur during one-on-ones or team meetings, it's nice to get public recognition, too. If you already have a kudos channel and it's a little too quiet, send a gift card to thank the next employee who gets recognized for something awesome and the person who recognized them.

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‍2. Coffee Break Slack Channel ☕

Create a Slack channel dedicated to virtual coffee breaks or a virtual water cooler where team members can join a spontaneous conversation to chat about non-work-related topics. It's a great way to replicate the impromptu conversations you'd have in an in-office environment and build personal connections among team members. Sometimes people may want to hop on a voice or video call and chat. Other times, they may prefer getting to know each other asynchronously via written communication. Water cooler and coffee optional!

If your team needs a little encouragement to mix up their social circle, try posting a topic of the day to get the conversation flowing. If that sounds like too much work, Slack's apps and integrations make it easy to automate this process.

3. Plant People Slack Channel 🌻

Those on your team with green thumbs need a place to show off their garden, and the rest of us could use some pointers on how to stop killing every plant we touch! Plants improve air quality and reduce our stress response. Oh, and according to a 2014 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, enhancing an office with live plants increased workplace satisfaction by 16% and both perceived and actual productivity by 15%.

4. Pet Parade Slack Channel 🐾

Who doesn't love seeing cute pet photos? Encourage your team members to share pictures of their furry, feathery, or scaly friends in a dedicated pet parade channel. It's a surefire way to bring smiles and spark conversations among animal-loving colleagues. You can always mix it up with weekly themes or ask for photos of pets in adorable costumes around the holidays. A Barkbox for new hires or the best Halloween costume is guaranteed to go over well and will likely result in adorable unboxing videos.

Our early data suggests that pet parents are happier and more engaged than the average employee and that unexpected gifts throughout the year have an outsized ROI on employee happiness. This is affirmed by a Globoforce study that found employees who receive many smaller gifts throughout the year are eight times more likely to be engaged than those who only receive an annual bonus.

5. Fitness Challenges Slack Channel 🏋🏽

This was one of the first things I started to miss about working in an office when I transitioned to remote work. At a past employer, I had a small group of colleagues who would take breaks and go out in a hallway to do progressively longer wall sits or planks each day. The only thing better than improving our health was the bemused looks of passers-by.

For a long time, I assumed this kind of thing was an unavoidable casualty of the move to remote, but I recently had the chance to speak with some remote leaders who made that transition successfully. They use channels where team members can share their workout achievements, set up friendly competitions, or even organize virtual workout sessions together.

A fitness-related Slack channel doesn't have to be exclusively for the hardcore fitness buffs. Weekly or monthly walking challenges or a desk bike Tour de Home Office are all fair game. If your organization is large enough, this can also take the form of multiple channels dedicated to fitness subcategories. This is worthwhile if for no other reason than seeing what your resident Crossfitters come up with for a channel name.

Oh, and in case you're as shocked by the idea of group exercise on Zoom as I initially was, all of these fitness channel ideas are to encourage asynchronous physical activity or merely a synchronous reminder to do an individual fitness activity.

6. Book Club Slack Channel  📚

Unite your team's book lovers by creating a Slack channel for a virtual book club. Members can vote on a book to read each month and set up discussion times to share thoughts, insights, and favorite quotes. There's nothing wrong with suggesting business-related books, but don't fall into the trap of only focusing on non-fiction! Any book that gets people thinking, talking, and connecting with others is good for them and the entire organization.

7. Virtual Happy Hour Slack Channel 🍻

Recreate the after-work hangout vibe by organizing virtual happy hours through a dedicated Slack channel. Team members can grab their beverage of choice and join a video or audio huddle to wind down together at the end of the day or week. Organizations often use Zoom for their virtual happy hours, and while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, Slack is a little less formal. Zoom is so often used for customer-facing calls and meetings that asking someone to join a Zoom happy hour feels like the participants need to be a little more “switched on” versus hopping in and out of a Slack huddle for socialization.

8. First Take/Hot Takes Channel 💥

ESPN’s First Take might be the most stressful show on television to watch, but it has made an important contribution to society by inspiring one of my favorite Slack channels. The rules are simple: engage that caps lock AND LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT WHATEVER YOU WANT! Lighthearted topics only; the fun is having comically strong opinions on things that don’t matter. This one might initially set off some HR spidey senses, but set ground rules so people get the idea and keep it to silly topics only.

HOT DOGS ARE TECHNICALLY A TACO!!! 🌮 🥸

SOUR CREAM IS A LIE! 🤥

(Your hot takes don’t even have to be taco-related)

9. Cultural Exchange Slack Channel 🇺🇳

Celebrate the diverse backgrounds of your remote team by setting up a cultural exchange channel. Team members can share interesting facts about their countries and cultures such as traditional recipes, and holiday celebrations, fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation of different cultures globally. If you only implement one thing you read here today, make it this! Building team culture by learning about a colleague’s cultures and traditions is an important bonding mechanism that most organizations left sitting in the office when we transitioned to remote.

10. Cooking Channel 🥘

One of the things people miss the most about being in the office is trying all the amazing dishes people would bring in. Maybe your more talented team members will post some how-to guides or favorite recipes, and others can share their attempts to recreate it. The cast of Food Network has nothing on your team!

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What did we miss?

Have additional ideas on how to improve team culture? If you have ideas the world needs to know about, send them to hello@remotivated.com and we’ll add them to the list (along with proper credit, of course)!

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We are working on more guides that will walk you through automating some of these ideas. Sign up for our newsletter below for that, and more on how to foster a connected remote culture.

If you know you already have a Top Remote Culture start your certification process today and get the recognition you deserve. We can’t wait to celebrate what you’ve built and shout it from the virtual roof top. With the social proof you need to attract and retain top talent, it can only get better from there!