Webex Halloween: All Treats, No Tricks

Remote Workers Get In the Spirit Over Webex

What’s the most frightening Halloween workday you can imagine?

….a day full of BOOring meetings?
…SPOOKY slow communication?
….Feeling SCARY alone while working from home?

At Cisco Webex, we’re all about creating workdays full of TREATS with none of the tricks.

Passionate About the Collaborative Work Day

In the Webex Customer Success team, we support dispersed teams all over the world, to help their workdays be less frightening and more collaborative. We’re passionate about allowing companies to hire the diverse teams they need to do amazing things. Using Webex to enable working from anywhere means that you always have access to the best people for the job- whether witch, warlock, or wizard- whoever you need.

But this begs the next question, what does it feel like to be a remote employee, or someone who can only sometimes be at the office? How can you still keep your company culture fun and close-knit, without time together in person?

The power of video has an amazing way of lifting team spirits and forming a community across geographies. Enabling everyone to see each other and laugh together brings culture to the next level.

Virtual Holiday Parties Made Easy

Using Webex video means holiday parties aren’t just reserved for the office anymore. We’ve seen some of the best teams embrace work anniversaries and holidays while remote, to keep work days different and inspiring. It just takes a bit of creativity, energy, and a webcam or Webex Video Device.

This year, my team embraced the ‘spirits’ of Halloween over Webex, with virtual trick-or-treating. In our own individual houses, offices, and workspaces, all 32 of us dressed up in our Halloween costumes. To Trick-or-treat, we were all told to join this call with our video cameras turned off to start (this was crazy for us; we’re a VERY video-on culture). After some giggles around a faceless call, my teammate Sarah turned on her video, knocked on the table and said “Trick or treat!” showing us her costume, as we laughed and shared compliments. It was then her turn to knock on a ‘neighbor’ and say “I’m trick or treating to Suzanne’s house!”

How Do You Throw a Digital Costume Party with Webex?

So I turn on the video on my Webex Room Device, to show my costume, before knocking on another friend’s door, keeping the fun rolling! I dressed up as one of my favorite features on Webex Teams, “Airplane Mode” . In Webex Teams you can share your status so people know whether you’re available, and I wanted people to know I was on an island vacation! [ a little plastic wrap over my video camera did the trick.]

One by one, we got to experience each teammate’s costume, watching the group spectacle grow in grid view on our devices. Our team showed up with maximum creativity- costumes ranging from witches, to cartoon characters, silly puns, and even a couple of crafty office inside-jokes. I never imagined a day I’d be able to trick-or-treat across 3 continents in 20 minutes!

At Cisco, we’re all about working from wherever you are. Sometimes, that means speedy status updates through messaging, sometimes that means live whiteboarding and brainstorming sessions over video. On the best days, it means celebrating with the coworkers you love over Webex.

Virtual Goodie Bag Takeaway

Webex as a collaboration suite takes the fear of working remotely away from my team. There’s no fear of missing out, when you can keep up with the whole team wherever you are. And we have the amazing job of enabling millions of people around the world to do the same.

Here’s the best treat of them all! We have all the resources available you need to help get your company onboarded and excited about working in a more collaborative way with Webex.

Have you ever had an awesome holiday celebration over Webex? Tell us your story in the comments!