Creating Connections Online and Off: Community Events at the SmartNews Tokyo Office

Besides keeping SmartNews’ Tokyo Office running like a well-oiled machine, the Office & Community (O&C) team creates opportunities for employees to connect with each other, which is great for both employee well-being and productivity. But putting on these events has not been without its share of challenges. When COVID-19 unexpectedly made everyone switch to a fully-remote working style, the O&C team needed to switch their event style as well.

“We used to do company events where everything was offline,” explained Jun Doi, Catalyst O&C team member. “We used to hold events like Halloween and engage our people and even their families. It was great to have people bring in their kids and partners and show off what we do here. We couldn’t do that once COVID-19 started. People weren’t leaving their homes, let alone coming to the office. We found that employees were stressed and had no opportunities to communicate with their peers.”

Jun has been especially involved with creating a new series of events that would be fun and engaging even while held totally remotely. Working with the other O&C members, the team decided to try and gather people by holding events based on various interests. One of their early examples was an online sake tasting, where employees received samples of different sake—or nihonshū as it’s called in Japanese— at their homes and participated in the tasting online. The initial response was immensely positive. Employees welcomed the chance to spend about an hour in a small group online, getting to know other people across divisions in the organization while enjoying some delicious sake.

Based on the response, the O&C team planned to hold similar events a few times a month to provide a platform through which employees could make organic connections with one another.?

“We decided to try craft beer tasting, and I started making some swag to put the beer in to make it a little more attractive,” said Jun. “And then, we moved on to events involving Chikyu Coffee—our in-house coffee shop—with a single-origin coffee and sweets pairing event. We wanted to express the value of what Chikyu Coffee does, plus gather people interested in coffee so people who don’t drink alcohol would feel included.”

For the coffee and sweets pairing events, employees received drip bags of three different single-origin coffees and three different sweets that were chosen to pair with the flavor profile of a particular coffee. These coffees were the same variety that employees get to enjoy for free when they come to the office. One of the baristas from Chikyu Coffee walked the participants through how to brew the coffee, its flavor profile, and how the selected sweet would enhance it. The response??

“There were a lot of comments that it was like a wine pairing event,” said Jun. “People didn’t realize how pairing coffee from a certain origin with a certain type of sweet would enhance their experience of that coffee’s flavor, so this was a new experience for a lot of people.”

Despite being an online event, there was still quite a bit of hands-on work required to make each event a hit, especially in the early days. One of the initial challenges was figuring out the best way to package the materials necessary for the event that would be mailed to the employees’ homes, including deciding the appropriate size of boxes and packing materials, but Jun says it was all worth it.?

“I would send out surveys after the event, and some of the comments were really touching. Like, ‘It was the first time since COVID that I felt like I could interact with my coworkers in a casual setting,’ and ‘I rarely talk to people outside of my team, so it was nice to meet new people!’”?

Making these connections is not only positive for employee well-being but also enhances productivity, making it easier for people to reach out across teams and divisions to work collaboratively.??

Now that restrictions on in-person events have been largely eased in Tokyo, the O&C team now holds both online, offline, and event hybrid events, such as Tuesday stretch sessions, which employees can join from the office or virtually. We’re all very excited about what they have in store for SmartNews employees in the future!?