Virtual coffee chats have become a norm in many large businesses across the world. And while we love the chance to talk to a colleague during work hours, it’s still hard to come up with things to say if you don’t plan for them. Particularly, if you’re worried about saying the wrong thing and making a social blooper.

If you’ve ever been in a situation like that, we can totally relate to it. And so we thought, why not write a blog talking about virtual coffee chats and how Tteam members can communicate with each other during these sessions? So, we looked at some of our data and dug up the most common and well-received types of questions that people tend to ask each other. Here’s the list:

5 types of virtual coffee chat questions you should know about

1 The work question

This is probably something you already know. But it bears repeating how many times we mess this kind of question up. The work question is easily the most commonly asked question during any conversation. You would say something like

“So, what are you working on” or “Is Jake so grinding you over that project” or something along those lines. And while this is an interesting point to begin with if you know the person, if you don’t then it becomes somewhat of an awkward exchange and you gotta drag the conversation out after that.

So, the better thing to do is to introduce what you’re doing first and then ask after the other person’s ongoing projects. When they do you can follow that up with anything that you may know about the subject. Try doing that without getting personal or crying too deep into their ongoing process.

Here are some more options for you to consider for work-related questions in your next virtual coffee chat or other employee engagement activity.

1. What is your next project?
2. How do you like what you’re working with?
3. I’ve had some experience in that area do you want me to tell you what I understood from one of my projects?
4. I’m finding this project difficult to deal with, do you have any advice?
5. This project seems to be a success. Do you want to take up a membership opportunity with it?

2 Team questions

The next most common question after work-related questions are the ones you ask about your company team. If your company has been running virtual coffee chat programs for a while you have probably spoken to more than one person from any team. Moreover, if you have cross-team collaboration, it will prove beneficial in the long run.

So, it’s natural for you to ask what other people in the team what you are doing. After that,  you can try to correlate the working process of your team and your colleagues to come to an understanding. With these kinds of questions, the best thing to do is to keep it very general or focused on the things that you know. Then, let the person open up about the topics that they want to talk about if they want. Asking questions that delve too deep might get a negative response or may sour a healthy conversation.

Here are some examples of how you can frame questions on team processes without stepping on the proverbial little toe:

1. What are the next projects that your team is looking at?
2. How will your team be celebrating their project milestones? Do you have any events planned?
3. Are there any new members on your team?
4. How do you like working with your team and who’s your favorite buddy?
5. If you could hold any position in your team right now which one would it be and why?

 

3 Off-topic or out-of-work questions

Virtual coffee chat just like most other employee engagement activities is not supposed to be focused solely and entirely on work. In fact, if you keep coming back to work during a virtual coffee charge you’re probably not gonna be a very popular coffee chat buddy.

That is why, it’s important to regulate between questions related to work and questions that explore other things. But for that, you need to have some background about the person that you’re chatting with. Things like what they like to do in their free time their favorite sports team their favorite TV show or movie their favorite place to travel during vacation, etc.

So, when you know about basic things like this, here are some more sophisticated questions you can ask your virtual coffee chat buddy:

1. How do you think the next season of football/soccer/baseball/basketball is going to go?
2. Who’s your favorite player in your favorite sports team?
3. Who’s your favorite pop star and why is it Taylor Swift?
4. What’s your favorite comfort food an ice cream flavor?
5. If you could vacation with anyone in your family who would you go with and where would you go?

Feeling a little TLDR? Get the best insights from this blog right here in this video! 🙂

4 Career growth/mentoring-related questions

Everyone goes to work because they want to make a career earn good money and retire well. So it’s natural to ask after the way your virtual coffee chat colleague is going to grow their business and career prospects. One of the most popular ways of doing so is to get mentorships and participate in continuous learning programs.

Even if your company does not offer that, it’s a great topic to touch up with your virtual coffee chat buddy. So, this kind of question is well worth asking. Be mindful, however, that if you don’t do that yourself then it not be a point that you want to take up. Try to mention things you plan as they tell you what they’re doing to grow their own career.

With that said, here are some questions you can ask relating to career growth or mentoring prospects of your virtual coffee chat colleague:

1. Is your team running any mentoring programs?
2. Are you planning to take up any learning courses outside of the company?
3. Can you suggest a course I can take up or a person I can speak to in the company for my career growth?
4. How do you see yourself developing your skills in the next year? do you have a mentoring program in mind you want to take up?
5. What is the best way to find a good mentor in our company?

 

5 Employee engagement-related questions

So, now that we’ve come to the final point in this blog, we’re gonna ask after the meta of social interactions via virtual coffee chats themselves. If your company has taken up an app like LEAD.bot, then you must have found yourself involved in other employee engagement activities. These are things like water cooler chats or new hire onboarding done through our platform. This is a very valid point of conversation with your virtual coffee chat buddy since this is a common  experience you can talk about. And so, it lets you end the conversation on a positive note.

So here are five questions you can ask about virtual coffee chat and employee engagement at your company of your virtual coffee chat buddy the next time you meet:

1. How many virtual coffee chats have you been on?
2. Do you think water cooler chats are fun in your team?
3. How long do you like to continue with a virtual coffee chat?
4. Who’s been your favorite virtual coffee chat buddy so far?
5. Do you think they should give us free coffee with the virtual coffee chat?

Are you ready for your next employee engagement activity?

Thanks for running through this blog and making it all the way to the end. We hope that these question examples will be a starting point for you to find out how to talk to your next virtual coffee chat buddy and make good conversation and good team bonding. If your team is using apps like a lead board for cross-team collaboration the best way to do that is to be open and inquisitive. If you have yet to use an employee engagement app likely but we highly recommend are up for the number of features it offers that we’re going to mention below.

LEAD.bot is a team engagement platform available on Slack and Teams. It is an all-in-one team development software with features like virtual coffee chats, buddy programs, birthday celebrations & work anniversary celebrations, new hire onboarding programs, and Pulse Surveys.

LEAD.bot also offers cutting-edge Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) for big enterprises and institutions. Executive to mid-level managers use ONA to gain highly actionable insights and build strong workplace connections. Using this app enables developing innovative employee engagement ideas to connect employees and foster better organizational health, employee retention, and overall performance with this simple app!

LEAD.bot is a product of LEAD.app and we also LEAD.bot’s sister app Sunrize which showcases workplace attendance by graphs right on Slack! Book a demo now!