One of the most important things to me in a workplace is the culture, and I know I’m not alone there! If I’m going to be working full-time somewhere, I want to like my coworkers and I want to enjoy my job. And culture is something that shifts… which means it’s something you can influence.
You don’t need to wait for leadership or the People & Culture team to implement activities that you want to do, you can usually just do it yourself! And you get two benefits out of it: practicing leading without authority, and also making your workplace more fun for you.
Today, we’re going to look at how you can start your own workplace rituals and traditions to shape the culture you want.
🧭 So, where to start?
There are lots of things you can do to influence your culture, ranging from tiny little habits within your team all the way up to whole-company events. Here are some examples I’ve loved from past workplaces:
🍵 Tea time: once a week, everyone would gather in the kitchen to enjoy a cup of tea together.
👋 Standup closers: at the end of a team standup, enjoy a quick little in-joke. This could be playing a quick game together, do a group high-five or huddle, or telling a joke.
📖 Book club: commit to reading the same book once a month and catch up for a debrief, or do a regular book-swap.
🃏 Board games: after work, set up some board games and run a few in groups.
🍳 Cooking classes: if you’re working from home, rotate who teaches everyone else a recipe and cook along together.
Think about what you want to do and then build around it! Maybe you want to spend more time with people outside of your team, deepen the bonds within your team, find people who share your hobby, learn something in groups, or anything else.
🚀 Let’s launch it!
In most workplaces, you won’t need a manager’s permission to start something casual – you can just start it. If you think it’ll be valuable, chances are that others will too.
When you’ve got your format and cadence prepared, make sure to spread the word:
Send out a regular calendar invite
Create a Slack channel
Post about it in an existing Slack channel
Talk to people about it
Find 1-2 excited recruits and get them to help you spread the word!
To make it really easy to join your new tradition, there are a few things you can consider:
Have a clear owner (that’s you!) but also be collaborative
Take people’s feedback and opinions seriously
If it scales, you can also start to share ownership with a few other enthusiastic participants
Make it really easy to show up to the first one
Keep the timing consistent
Make it opt-in
Make it discoverable – it’s easy for new joiners or curious people to find out about it
🧪 Test, evaluate, and iterate.
Make sure to run your new ritual 4-6 times to really see if it resonates with people, and give people ample opportunity to show up. You can also gather feedback from everyone who does show up to make adjustments.
Not every new tradition you try to implement will stick, and that’s okay! If you’ve given it a good shot and it just doesn’t seem to be working out the way you want it, you can put it on pause or just unschedule it.
Build your own 10/10 culture!
Some of the best workplace traditions are formed this way – not a top-down directive, but a genuine desire to make work fun from the grassroots. I hope today’s post has inspired you to start something new! 💖
