One evening this summer, 90 co-workers set sail on Boston Harbor. The triple-decker ship radiated with music as attendees mingled, snacked, and shared fun facts.
Yes, fun facts, those dreaded icebreakers that have kicked off meetings for generations. But Nitsch Engineering brought a creative spin to them that actually succeeded in bringing people together.
“We wanted to find something that we could give kind of a casual game atmosphere and give people a reason to talk to people they wouldn’t normally talk to,” recalls Anna Luciano, director of marketing. Partygoers received a fun fact about another employee before they got on the boat. The challenge: Talk to colleagues to find whom the fact belonged to. But it was no small task. The company brought in-person and remote employees from their offices in Boston, Worcester, Lawrence, and Washington, D.C. Many had never met in person.
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Employees gathered information about their person — Who lived in Thailand? Who was cast on a dating show? Who owns over 650 Beanie Babies? — by talking to colleagues, making new connections, and ruling people out. If you found your person, you won a raffle ticket for prizes ranging from a pickleball set to a two-person guided craft brewery tour.
But it wasn’t always the fact itself that gave away the person.
Michelle Callahan, a civil project manager, had a person whose fact was that he bought a new house and has an extensive vinyl collection. But what actually gave him away was a smiley face emoji next to his fact. After about 30 minutes of searching, women from another department clued her in — that was the way Joe from the service department writes, they said. And they were right. “[He] wasn’t someone I’ve ever talked to before,” Callahan says, but the game gave her a chance to.
Now, employees from across offices know a little more about each other, and some have even formed lasting friendships. “At the end of the day it really is just about enjoying the work that you do,” Luciano says.
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Macie Parker can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @Macieparker22.