Want a soup-erb way to bring people together?
BEWARE, this is puns a-plenty, but carries a serious message.
When we did our recent jobseeker survey 12% of people said they left their last job because of the lack of organisational culture. Work well-being is fast becoming a top priority for employees!
We strongly believe that bringing people together for non-work related activities is a key ingredient to building a thriving workplace culture. A regular activity between co-workers that is part of the working day can really help nurture relationships.
A way to soup-up your office lunches
I wanted to share an idea with you to help bring your team together - this is a perfect way to do some team bonding as we head into winter.
Breaking bread + nourishing connections
A few years ago I was working from the Bizdojo, a shared working space in Wellington and instigated The Soup Club. The idea was simple - a low-key way to bring people together over soup once a week to break bread and have a nourishing connection and chat. People loved it so much it carried on after I left this space to have my daughter.
A “Pho”-nomenal team building activity
To kick start this soup club idea in your workplace, I’m including my fave soup recipe (thanks to Alison Holst!), along with a few key ingredients to take the first step towards this team-building activity.
You’ll be soup-rised how easy this is!
I’ve also included a few ideas on how to run this soup club - including some how-tos, Google sheets to organise your team, rating cards if you want to get competitive, and some soup-er conversation starters to use alongside this.
Udon need much to make this a success
Let your imagination and creativity go wild. I’ve seen beer and cheese soup, tortilla soup, udon noodle soup, dumpling soup, dessert soup - there are so many options!
Sharing this idea makes miso happy.
I hope you like it too! If you do go ahead with soup club, I’d love to hear how it goes, any new takes on this you implement, or any extra soup puns that I have missed…. Tag in your team in a photo and let us know #dogood #soupclub
The Rules of Soup Club
🔸 See who is keen to be involved and outline set your own rules for Soup Club. (The first rule of soup club is you DO need to talk about soup club.
🔸 For example
Each person needs to make enough soup on their elected day to feed X people (and in return they get free soup the rest of the time).
The soup maker needs to supply bread and any other accompaniments (sometimes it is easiest to get gluten-free attendees to BYO bread)
It needs to be served by [set time] on a [set day] etc. I recommend one soup club day a week for a series of weeks.
If people can’t do their soup day, they need to find or swap with someone
If people are out, leave your soup container out to save your soup for later.
🔸 Get attendees to sign up for soup making duty (I have a handy google sheet you can copy and share with your team to invite them to join at!)
🔸 Make sure you account for any allergies and dietary requirements e.g vegetarian soup, no mushroom etc.
🔸 Join your team together on soup club day and get to know each other better over a winter warmer. Sharing food naturally allows us to share our culture and outside life in a safe space
“When someone cooks for you, they are saying something, they are telling you about themselves: where they come from, who they are, what makes them happy” ~ Anthony Bourdain
Optional extras:
Soup club, Master Chef styles. Rate the soup each week for flavour, presentation, creativity and more. See our rating sheet if you really want to get competitive….
Get soup and conversation flowing. We’ve included some handy conversation starters to get soup club conversation flowing. Learn more about each other and form a deeper connection.
Share the recipes. You could even make a winter warmer recipe book - maybe it would make a great fundraiser too??
Vote for a Soup-er Hero at the end of each soup club round for the best soup or most memorable soup. Maybe you could soup-rise them with a small prize - or maybe all of you can be winners and you take your team to visit your local Ramen shop!
