Despite high-performing employees that are working from home, you get a feeling more employees are feeling disengaged. You have had plenty of Zoom video chats, and Ggoogle meets where you never saw anyone's face.

When you have disengaged employees, they start looking for where the grass is greener. You also know disengaged employees lead to lower customer satisfaction and a hurting bottom line.

When this starts to happen, a happy hour is a great way to get your employees excited and engaged again. But with some people in the office and some working remotely, you need to learn how to host a virtual happy hour for your team's sanity.

Hosting virtual happy hours is great for team building or can just also be a fun social event to drink with friends. This unique idea is also a great way to test out some delicious cocktails right at home. Plus, with a cocktail delivery service, hosting a virtual event with mixed drinks has never been easier. Read on for more virtual happy hour ideas from DRNXMYTH!

STEPS TO HOSTING A VIRTUAL HAPPY HOUR

That sounds like a ton of work, but DRNXMYTH wants to make the process incredibly simple. Here is your step-by-step guide to hosting your very own virtual happy hour for a team or friends.

1. Figure Out a Time

Arguably the most difficult part of the virtual happy hour is scheduling the virtual event itself. With everyone working everywhere, you have to figure out time zones, flexible work schedules, deadlines, and honestly just personal preference.

We don't recommend a virtual happy hour after 12:00 (anyone's time) on a Friday unless you are going to let people off work early. Even your most highly engaged employees just want to enjoy their weekend.

On a Thursday though, people are a bit more willing to do a virtual cocktail hour. They think of it as a way to ease into the almost weekend. Also consider Wednesday. It's a celebration of making it half way through the week and that alone is enough to warrant a virtual party.

Just don't do it on a Monday. If you do it on Monday, your employees will feel like you're trying too hard. Plus, hosting any type of virtual party on a Monday isn’t the most productive way to start the week. Don't be your dad wearing crocs, cargo shorts, and a graphic tee trying to be cool with your friends. It's not a good look. 

2. What are you Going to Meet on?

If your company already has established ways of meeting virtually, no worries. Move on to the next step.

If you don't have clearly established ways of meeting through something like Zoom, Go-To-Meeting, or any of the other thousand options, Google Meeting (previously known as Google Hangouts) has a free version of their meeting software you can use as long as you have a Gmail account.

All you have to do is create a calendar event, and ensure you add a google meeting to it. 

Check out this article from Google on how to Start a Google Meeting for detailed instructions. However, if you have a remote team, this part of the equation has already been solved.

3. BYOB or Company Provided?

You've got your time scheduled, and everyone has the correct link (probably). Now for the virtual happy hour activity. Do you want to ask your employees to bring their own beverage, or do you as a company provide the drinks for your employees? Well, you are going to have much higher employee satisfaction with the event if you provide the booze  for your remote team.

The thoughts of your employees go from "They want us to log onto a call to drink with our coworkers?" to "I get to take a break from work, and get a drink? Yeah, I'll be there." when you provide the drinks.

Here's the problem. That's a freaking logistical nightmare. Everyone is working everywhere. You have to ship the drinks to all those different addresses. Postage alone is going to cost as much as the drinks themselves. 

Here is the solution. We partner with you to deliver freshly mixed cocktails to every employee before your virtual happy hour and you get all of the credit. Boom. Social distancing and a better employee experience all in one easy package for your work happy hour.

Start the Group Delivery Process Today.

4. Get to Planning

Following these steps, you will have a killer virtual happy hour. Start figuring out the best days and times for people in your organization for a virtual happy hour. Then Start the Group Delivery Process with DRNXMYTH so you can get your entire company freshly mixed cocktails without having to deal with the nightmare of figuring out all the logistical details.

5. Ask Your Employee How it Went

Every company is different. Some employees may want to have breakout rooms where they can get to talk in smaller groups. Some employees may want to just have a big group where they can goof off and play a happy hour game. You won't know for sure what is best with your organization unless you ask how it went.

Use a survey to measure employee engagement with your virtual happy hour. You should ask your virtual team questions like:

• Did you attend the virtual happy hour?
• If not, why?
• What did you enjoy about the virtual happy hour?
• What would you want to see differently in the next virtual happy hour?
• What would you want to see added to the next virtual happy hour?
• Do you have any ideas on what we should do for the next virtual event?

Questions like these will help you assess what's working and what isn't with your virtual happy hour event. These events take time and money. You want to ensure they are improving levels of employee engagement and support team building.

To get the best results, you may consider making the survey an anonymous survey. Most people will provide more honest feedback knowing that they aren't going to be associated with their answer.

If you don't have a way to survey your employees, consider using Google forms. You can easily create a custom survey for free and send it to each person individually.

To see what cocktails you could get your company, check out our full line of cocktails. We provide cocktail delivery in NYC, cocktail delivery in San Diego, cocktail delivery in Miami, and cocktail delivery in Los Angeles with more locations coming soon! Maybe get one for yourself. Just to try. You can expense it.