An atmosphere of enjoyable games, abundant friendly exchanges, enhanced team bonding, and a joyful team environment.
| Company Size | Industry | Challenges |
| 150+ | Computer Games |
|
Kongregate brings fun to the world! They are a team of passionate gaming developers known for popular mobile games including the hit collectible card game Animation Throwdown – downloaded hundreds of millions of times! They choose Trivia to elevate team bonding and bring a whole new level to their tight-knit remote-first culture!
We spoke to Gabriella Antivilo, Human Resources Coordinator at Kongregate to learn more about their team culture, employee engagement, and how Trivia is now an integral part of Kongregate. Read On.
Tell us about Kongregate; how many employees do you have and were you folks always remote?
Kongregate is a gaming company and we build fun games. We have an awesome team of gaming developers. Currently, we have 150+ employees and 100% remote. We had offices in Chicago, Portland, San Diego, and San Francisco, but 2020 was when we decided to go fully remote. Right now we have 80% of employees in the USA, and the rest are based across Latin America, and we also have a few in Southeast Asia.
That's great! How did your team stay connected and build relationships before Trivia?
So this was more of a responsibility of the team managers and operations coordinators. The Ops Coordinators hosted a virtual Halloween party last year where everyone dressed up and had fun in costumes and later in the year they arranged for a brigadeiro decorating class that was a big hit. We have tried a lot of team-building games that could be played online like escape rooms, puzzles, and team games.
Did it work? What were the challenges?
I would say it worked to some extent but was not the long-term solution we sought. Primarily, organizing something online is time-intensive. The HR team as well as the employees really needed to take time out for this activity and it’s really not feasible when you have project deadlines or are super busy. Another big challenge was cost and participation. As mentioned, if some teams have deadlines or are just extremely busy, it’s hard to get big participation for certain activities, even those that are paid for like an escape room or hackathon. We were looking at a tool that integrates with Slack and something that can get up and running within a few minutes. Trivia fulfilled this for us. We installed Trivia, set up the automations and were all set. That we can play a quiz or a game in literally 5 minutes is such a superpower says Gabriella Antivilo.
What did you want to achieve with Trivia?
The biggest challenge I would say is getting people from different departments connected to each other, to know each other. Games are a fun way of breaking ice, especially for remote teams. To give an example, the accounts and engineering teams might not know each other that well as they don’t work together. This is the kind of gap that we wanted to bridge. We wanted some tool that would help the employees know one another beyond work, to have that camaraderie and connection that makes remote model work. With Trivia, we have seen our CEO participate in the games, and everyone gets to know each other, so that’s a win-win.
Another important factor or worry for remote workspaces is getting employees to easily take breaks during work. Remote work often blurs the boundaries between work and personal time and it’s pretty easy to get swayed away and be at your laptop for hours. We wanted our employees to enjoy themselves while at work and take a quick break with a fun game, indulge in workplace banter, and refresh themselves before diving back into work.
What made you choose Trivia?
Honestly, we did evaluate a few other tools before deciding to go ahead with Trivia. Our main reason was the Celebrations feature which automates the birthdays and work anniversaries; celebrating milestones is a big part of Kongregate’s culture. Apart from this, the game suite was fantastic. The custom quiz and Pictionary were something that the team really liked when we did the pilot run.
Let’s talk about the team bonding with Trivia; how does the team find it?
Oh, it’s been fantastic. We have a custom quiz Friday every week and it’s so much fun. The employees send me questions and I create the quiz and we all play and enjoy it so much! Besides this, we are huge fans of Gotcha! and Water Cooler. The banter over Water Cooler is really awesome.
The best part is that I have automated the games and it’s so fun getting different games through the week. The team really looks forward to the game time and we do see terrific participation.
The team likes the fact that it’s all in Slack, no need to move out to another platform or download anything to be able to play.
As someone who is responsible for employee engagement, what has Trivia brought to your table?
It has definitely saved time! HR professionals would know that engaging a remote team is a challenge and Trivia has definitely helped me overcome it. In fact, we recently had an entire week full of games and the vibes were heartwarming. As far as employee engagement goes, Trivia has helped me check all the boxes for it.
As someone who is responsible for employee engagement, what has Trivia brought to your table?
That would be such a bummer! I have so many games and quizzes lined up for the next two months and it would all go crazy. We had such a good time with Trivia, we would definitely want to have it forever!
