How to get colleagues eating lunch together (without forcing it)

Lunch is the most underused hour in most offices. Everyone stops at roughly the same time, most of them eat with the same few people or at their desk, and the colleague from another team who could have saved them a week of work sits two tables away. Nobody is avoiding anyone. It's just that asking a table of strangers if you can join them is one of the hardest small things to do at work.

A lunch program removes that ask. Done well, it's the lowest-effort way there is to help people meet across teams. Done badly, it's a monthly sign-up sheet that fills with the same eight names. Here's the difference.

1. Ask on the day

Lunches planned a week ahead get cancelled, because a week ahead nobody knows what Thursday holds. “Are you in for lunch today?” at mid-morning gets an honest answer. Pick a cut-off an hour or so before lunch, and set the tables then.

2. Keep tables small, but not too small

A table of four or five is the sweet spot. There are enough people that nobody has to carry the conversation, and few enough that it stays one conversation. Two people is a one-to-one, which some will love and others will find intense. One person is not a table: tell them kindly there's nothing today, and leave it there.

3. Mix teams, and avoid repeats

Seat people from different teams where you can, and avoid putting people back with the people they sat with in the last few weeks. The value of the program is in the people you'd never otherwise meet.

4. Let people bring a friend

Walking into a lunch of strangers alone is the part that stops most people from trying. Let them bring one friend, seat the friends together, and keep it to one pair of friends per table so the table still mixes.

5. Name a meeting point

“The long table by the window in the cafeteria” removes the most awkward moment of all: hovering with a tray, looking for faces you've never seen. Give every office one meeting point, and put it on every table.

6. Follow up quietly

The best lunches lead to a coffee. After lunch, let people say privately who they'd like to see again, and only connect two people when both chose each other. Nobody is ever turned down, and nobody has to make the awkward ask.

What to measure

• How many people have opted in, and how many say they're in on a typical day
• How many tables actually met
• How many tablemates came from other teams
• How lunch went, read only as a total once enough people have answered

Don't track who sat with whom. You don't need it to know the program works, and people relax when they know nobody is watching.

Where Let's Get Coffee helps

Lunch Table does all of the above on its own. Members opt in once with their office and the days they're usually in. On those days a morning invitation asks if they're in, and they can bring one friend. At the cut-off, everyone is seated at tables of three to six, mixed across teams where possible and away from recent tablemates. Each table gets first names and teams, the meeting point, and the time. Afterwards, a private rating and a private pick of who they'd like a coffee with, which becomes an invitation only when it's mutual. Hosts see totals, never who sat with whom.

To be clear about where it stands: Lunch Table is running in a pilot office now, and we're learning from it before opening it to everyone. If you'd like it for your office, talk to us.