Discord is the new office

With a lot of people working from home at the moment and a shift in the mindset towards more acceptance for this, as managers see it actually works, finding an effective way to manage and motivate your co-workers is very important. COVID-19 accelerated the shift towards the home-office. Many people I talked to about their experiences with working remotely struggled in the beginning to find their flow, but quickly adapted to juggling work, kids and (remote) social life. Of course a home-office is not perfect for everyone, but the majority of personal and business relations I asked about pro’s and cons of the subject had more positive than negative things to say about working from home. Advantages, like more efficient and flexible time management, no commute time, no traffic jams, being able to have lunch and dinner with your family, not rushing to be able make sports class in the evening on time, enjoying focus without interruption and many other examples were mentioned as things that will be missed, once we have to return to a physical office full time.

At Gameye we have had a remote team for years. Our staff is working from the Netherlands, Germany, Italy the UK and from wherever they are at the moment. Because of that the change of situation had no real impact on our structure. Discord is our office and it is open 24 hours a day, does not need maintenance and has enough tables and chairs for everyone in the company. We have several channels, with the main ones being:

A ‘good morning’ channel, in which all of us inform the others of our main tasks of the day in the morning.

A ‘general office’ channel, where people just ‘sit next to each other’ and go about their day to day work, indicating they are open for chatting with the others.

A ‘business class’ channel, in which meetings are held and topics are discussed, for which not all team members are needed.

We also have several other channels, of course, channels for specific departments and channels to share personal moments/pictures, for example, but all in all our ‘office channel’ is where we hang out with each other. On the picture above you only see two of us, because it is holiday season, but normally there are at least 4–6 people of a 12 person team online constantly throughout the day. Not the same, as colleagues are jumping in and out, depending on their own personal structure. That is great, as during a normal day you see most of your colleagues without being forced to attend video calls. The discord office became normal after a while and a thing you switch on in the morning like skype, slack or whatever tool you might use to communicate.

We also encountered challenges, though. We used to meet on a regular basis, to ensure we had personal contact with our co-workers. We usually did so during shows we used to attend. Hanging out a week in San Francisco during GDC or in Cologne during Gamescom is hard work, but great for the team spirit. For colleagues who had no relevant function at those events, we used to organize a team outing at least once a quarter. Visiting a virtual reality arcade in Rotterdam and working together in a physical office for a couple of days there, having dinner with the whole team in the evening, or flying everybody to London, doing an escape room and working there for a few days, are just some examples of get togethers we did.

All this fell away during the COVID-19 crisis, though, and we saw that our contact was very business focused and the personal contact was virtually non existing anymore. That is not good for morale and the team spirit. A colleague having a bad day on discord is just annoying, but a colleague telling you about his or her bad day during a chat at the coffee machine, explaining they did not get much sleep because their kid was sick last night, is someone you can relate to and understand. Without those little personal moments it is really difficult to read a persons emotions and get to know them better.

We did several things to counter that. We established the ‘Friday night game night’. Every Friday evening after work we get together to play a game online. We usually have a poll which game we would like to play and again we use discord to just chat, talk about games or whatever comes to mind. It’s completely voluntary, which is important, as there should be no pressure to attend anything with your colleagues in your free time. But to be fair, it’s from 17.00–18.00, so you even could see it as work time. And if it’s fun, people will attend more easily. We are a gaming company after all and gaming together is fun. We even play the games of our customers, to get a better feeling about what we are actually doing as a company, but as this is done in a playful way, it’s cool and beneficial for the team.

We still had the feeling we needed to do more. So as another personal moment with your colleagues, we established an activity hour during work time. Every member of the team gets assigned an activity they have to lead during an hour in which we all are present on discord. Again, we are talking about fun activities. We already had a movie quiz, a music quiz, a game quiz, even a baby picture quiz. For the last one the whole team sent a picture of them as a baby to the member the quiz was assigned to. He then presented the pictures in a random order during a discord presentation and everyone had to attach a name to a picture and guess who they think it was. That was really funny and the stories behind some of those pictures helped getting to know colleagues better on a personal level as well. We normally give a small price to the winner of the quiz, which we do weekly, which can be work related, like a webcam, microphone or a new keyboard.

We even combine personal moments of our week with the quiz at the end of the week sometimes. We had a bake-off one Friday, for which all members had to bake a cake before the discord meeting. Some of us even did the baking live on discord as well, which was great fun. The cake then was evaluated by the other colleagues. Everyone had 3, 2 and 1 point(s) to give, based on how tasty it looked, the story behind it or the work that was put into it. We then all had a coffee and a piece of cake ‘together’ on discord, some even having their family join for a laugh and a piece as well. Leading up to that, we had the ‘coffee week’. Colleagues who were posting pictures of their coffee break during the weak leading up to the bake-off were able to win a small price. Could be you having coffee in your garden, having a coffee meeting on a terrace with a client or just a picture of your Star Wars mug. The best picture won a small price. That way team members got a better feeling about where their colleagues were, and how their day looked like. It is voluntary, so not to control anyone, but to stimulate conversation between team members.

And in case you were wondering why our ‘office’ channel currently is called ‘the bar’: Last Friday we had a cocktail workshop on discord. We assembled all the ingredients needed and for two cocktails and a cocktail shaker in a physical package and sent the packages out to all team members. In case it did not arrive, we told the colleague what to buy and reimbursed them. We also offered alcohol free versions, for colleagues who do not drink, of course. Then one of our colleagues lead the workshop by telling the rest a little more about what a cocktail is, where the name comes from, followed by showing us how to mix the cocktails. All in discord.

I do not see Gameye having a traditional physical office again. It is important to keep creating those contact moments, business and personal ones. It is important to make the personal ones absolutely voluntary, to ensure your colleagues feel comfortable. It is important to make them fun, so people want to join them. And it also is important to try new things, so the team stays motivated. So let’s see what will happen on our discord next week.

Stay safe and stay the course!

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