It’s fun to feel appreciated. Celebrating your coworkers - whether it’s over a small achievement or by celebrating their birthday - can make a real difference in an employee’s sense of belonging.

As a remote team, you might not be able to huddle together in the kitchen eating cake, but apps like twine for Zoom make it possible to recreate some of that celebratory connection. 

This twine idea is great if you have too many employees on a team to dedicate an individual birthday twine to. Keep a running calendar of when employees’ birthdays are, and at the end of each quarter, run a group twine for all of them.  

Here’s how to host a virtual employee birthday party, using twine.

1. Create a slideshow guessing game. A few days prior to the birthday twine, ask all of the celebrating employees to send you a baby/childhood photo. Add all of the photos to one slide on a Powerpoint presentation and give each of them numbers, but don’t reveal whose photo belongs to whom.

2. Configure your twine for Zoom rules. We recommend setting up six-minute rounds of three people in A/B matchmaking mode. Create two tags: “birthday” and “non birthday.” This ensures you’ll get a good mix of those celebrating and those not in Breakout Rooms. Download twine for free here.

3. Screen Share your slideshow to Breakout Rooms. Have employees try to identify which baby photo belongs to the “birthday” employee in their Breakout Room

4. Provide conversation-inspiring icebreaker questions to your employees ahead of time. Here are some examples:

• Share your favorite birthday memory.
• Does your family have any birthday traditions? If so, what are they?
• What did you do as a kid that kids don't do today?
• What was your favorite dessert as a child? What is your favorite dessert today?

5. Make it Special. When working remotely, we miss out on fun office snacks and sweets. Sweeten up the experience by sending celebrating employees a fun birthday treat. You can use any delivery app (Uber Eats, Doordash, etc.)

Happy celebrating!

Download twine for Zoom here.