Survive working from home: having that casual conversation that is needed

One thing that a lot of people miss of being in office physically is the easy access to a casual conversation. Working from home, we could still just send a quick message to start a conversation, but it's not really the same as just walking up to someone with warm greetings. We may have to wait for a long time before we could conjure up our virtual presence, like what it is like in the latest season of the West World. The good news is that we still have a few options to make up for this. 

One option we have is to create a "chat room" that is not intended for a specific purpose (no, this is not what it is! )

We have new tools such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, etc. This is basically just trying to imitate what it is like of being in the office cafe by creating a space where people are free to join and chat randomly on various things, just like if this is actually in office physically. As there is no specific topic or agenda, it gives more flexibility to discuss and gives more space to explore new opportunities. The chat room can be at team level, department level, division level or even organisational wise. Things like this would definitely need a good moderator to keep the ball rolling at the beginning. Use something creative like a small game to pivot people's attention towards it from time to time. 

And it doesn't need to be boring if you find the concept of a "chat room" very old-school. To hold a fun social event is also an option. Any event that we have before, there is most probably also a way to do a virtual version of it. Don't forget to leave a space to interactions, so that the needed casual conversation can happen. People like to have a drink, even virtually!