The COVID-19 induced lockdown has ensured that a significant proportion of the workforce is working from home. Even before the pandemic, the concept of remote work had caught the fancy of several organizations, but now, it has reached a different level altogether.
Working from home does have its merits, but it comes with a downside too. Employees find it difficult to connect with each other at a social level, which can affect their productivity.
To keep company workforces connected and engaged, HR solutions company Springworks has come up with an app called Trivia to help remote employees in bonding with each other over games and quizzes in an effortless fashion.
The app is trying to keep the team spirit and camaraderie intact when many companies are struggling with such issues during the pandemic
Since its launch on June 19th, more than 26,000 players have played one or more games with Trivia. It has been installed on 1000 plus organization workspaces. Recently, Trivia was launched for Google Chat as well.
“We aren’t surprised by the fast adoption of Trivia. Even while building it and testing it in our own Slack workspace, we knew how valuable it would be for teams working remotely. Teams using Trivia have been raving about it since its launch two months ago. And the fact that we keep adding new game types keeps them hooked to the app,” says Kartik Mandaville, Founder and CEO of Springworks.
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Springworks, the company behind Trivia, is an HR startup that uses blockchain and Machine Learning to solve HR challenges. The startup has the backing of notable investors such as Science Inc. and Bloomberg Beta. It has offices in Bengaluru and Santa Monica in the US. Mandaville is a serial techpreneur, who founded AutoBudder, a software that automatically wishes friends on their birthdays.
How it Works
The app works inside the communication tools of choice for most companies like Slack and Microsoft Teams. There is no need of going outside of the communication tool, scheduling a time to play, or downloading an app.
The idea is that users can take a two to five-minute break by playing and bonding with co-workers over five types of games, such as quizzes, anagrams, word puzzles, opinion polls, and Gotcha, which is Trivia’s version of Psych.
Its ease-of-use comes from the fact that it lives inside Slack and MS Teams, so the user can start a game at any time and his/her colleagues will be notified instantly. Most other icebreaking apps require scheduling time on colleagues’ calendar.
WFH is Here to Stay
Trivia’s quiz bank has more than 30,000 quiz questions, hundreds of anagrams/word puzzles and opinion polls, so there’s no running out of options to play a game here.
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“Remote team building is a challenge, and though we saw it coming, we didn’t expect it so soon. It’s products like Trivia that are going to be the new face of team engagement. The way we work is changing, and Trivia is shaping a new way to have fun at work,” says Michael Jones, CEO of Science and former CEO of Myspace. Science is an early user of the app and is also an investor in Springworks.
The app is trying to keep the team spirit and camaraderie intact when many companies are struggling with such issues during the pandemic. In any case, remote working is here to stay even after Covid-19 is over, so apps like Trivia might just be the beginning of an industry.
