To create an environment conducive to relationship building and socialization, it's essential to foster a workplace culture that promotes participation in tools like Donut Intros. This will not only strengthen employee loyalty, but also encourage innovation and drive retention for your organization.
An important part of running a successful connection program is participation; the higher the number of people actively taking part, the more effective your Donut program will be no matter how big or small your team may be.
Here's what our most successful teams do to encourage high engagement.
📈 Keep an eye on reporting, and collect feedback.
Donut automatically checks in with teammates to ask if they've had a chance to meet, and if you're enrolled in the Standard plan, also collects qualitative feedback on how meetings went.
Keep a pulse on how the program is going by opting into weekly reporting emails and/or reviewing detailed stats on your reporting dashboard.
⚙️ Iterate on your program and Donut settings.
Once you have a sense of how connections programs are going, you'll have a better sense of how to iterate. The sky's the limit, but here are a few frequent iterations:
Try a new frequency. It's always better to leave folks wanting more than feeling overwhelmed.
Turn on (free) conversation starters, customize your own conversation starters, or update your intro message to provide better context or resources for the meeting.
Play with group size. Some teams prefer larger groups, and some want more intimate meetings.
Create multiple Donut channels for different needs (like time zones or working hours) or preferences (frequency, group size, department).
💬 Turn on the (free) welcome message.
Invite new hires to join Donut channel(s) to integrate them quickly and give teammates a chance to meet new people. Our free, automatic welcome message makes it easy.
📣 Announce Donut regularly in other channels.
Team demographics and needs change over time: some folks leave, new teammates join, and people's schedules change. Remind them regularly to join your Donut channel(s) in Slack or via email. Even better if a company leader can share the invitation! It's important for people to know that it's not just okay but encouraged to spend time with their colleagues.
If you need inspiration for announcements, we have a few templates right here.
🌟 Turn on the Favorite Things feature.
Allow participants to learn more about each other before they meet up for their Donut Intros. "Favorite Things" is a simple survey of your interests and hobbies that your teammates can review before meeting to learn more about you.
To learn more about implementing this in your Intro channels, please click here.
🍩 Incentivize participation.
Make your Donut program fun!
For teams working remotely:
hold a Zoom Selfie Contest (more tips on running this can be found below!) *
send coffee/tea or branded mugs to people's homes
award prizes for teamwide participation
For co-located teams that can meet safely:
place a basket of local café gift cards near the door, or allow teammates to expense a small treat
pick a common day/time for everyone to meet, and order catering
post a leaderboard in the office, and publicly recognize outstanding participation
📸 Share selfies or stories.
One of the most impactful things you can do is to have people share a selfie (or screenshot) of their meetup and a quick fact about what they learned or discussed back in the Donut channel(s).
* Want to make it a bit more exciting? You can set up a Selfie Contest in your Intros channel to encourage friendly competition! Simply share photos from your Donut meetings and let your teammates vote on their favorite ones. Each round, Donut will automatically pick a winner based on votes from your teammates.
You can learn about the setup process and see a preview here.
Whether you're competing to see who gets the most votes on their selfie, or just sharing fun pictures and stories about your time together, it's definitely worth the effort! Selfies and stories create a positive feedback loop that makes everyone look forward to their Donut meetups.
Want more help? Have a tactic to share? Check out our guide to successful Donut intros, or give us a shout by pressing the purple chat button.