Lunch and Learn sessions help encourage a work environment of continuous learning. Aside from that, it's also an easy and popular way to reach and engage with your employees. These usually involve a specific topic and a Q&A component. To help you with your next lunch and learn activity, we've listed out virtual lunch and learn topics for you.
This article contains the following:
- Online lunch and learn tips
- Best virtual lunch and learn ideas
- How to host a virtual lunch and learn
- Virtual lunch and learn topics
List of Lunch and Learn Topics
Personal Development Topics
Topics on personal development help a person achieve self-awareness and define personal goals and visions. While self-development is not a one-time process and does not definitely happen overnight, it pays to provide opportunities for your teams to prioritize their development.
- Building emotional intelligence
- The Poker MBA: Success in Business & Poker
- Discovering Visual Thinking
- Entrepreneurial Mindset
- Personal Branding for the Insanely Busy Person
Adulting/Life Skills Topics
The art of growing up is a tricky one to master. It's a feat to balance everything in adult life from paying bills, living a busy schedule, socializing, and basically looking after yourself. The demands can be exhausting, but it's not to say that it can't be done. Topics on adulting will appeal to your audience, both young and older, but especially to those still starting their journey to adulthood.
- Resolving Conflicts with People at Work or Personal Life
- Independent Living 101: Laundy, Cleaning, and Self-Time
- Living with Roommates
- Adapting the Minimalist Lifestyle
Productivity and Time Management Topics
Time management is always a glaring topic, not just at work but also in one's personal life. Most of the time, we end up feeling our hands are already too full, even before the middle of the day. Productivity and time management topics may help your teams manage the most of their time and reduce that overwhelming feeling of work.
- Managing Time and Meeting Deadlines
- Overcoming Procrastination
- Tips for Staying Organized at Work
- How to Beat the Afternoon Slump
- Tips for Holding Brief but Efficient Meetings
- Suggestions of How to Achieve Work/Life Balance
- How to Reach a Zero Unread Inbox
- How to Tick off Your To-Do List and Still Have Fun
- Multitasking: Is It Good or Bad?
Health and Wellness Topics
A healthy body is not just equal to a healthy mind. It also converts to a great boss, an amiable colleague, and a driven team player. Although it may be cliche, health is always a person's most significant wealth. With these topics on health and fitness, you are providing your teams with an opportunity to take control of their health and physical state.
- Eating Healthy Food Despite a Busy Schedule: How To
- Doable Exercises for a Full-time Employee
- Sleep 101
- Stress and Burnout Wellness Session
- Desk Exercises and Stretches You Can Do at Home
- Decluttering for Peace of Mind
- Supporting a Co-Worker with Anxiety or Depression
- Sleep and Mindfulness 101
- Understanding Mental Health
- How Food Affects Your Mental Health
Personal Finance and Money Management
A financially savvy person is someone adept at planning and budgeting, is self-sufficient, and is disciplined. Although personal finance is not related to work, you can help your teams be closer to avenues to build and solidify their financial position. After all, who wouldn't want a financially stable person in their team?
- Creating and Managing a Budget
- Setting Up a Retirement Fund
- Understanding the Basics of Investment
- Planning for Your Kids Educational Fund/College Fund
- How to Manage Debt (and get out of it)
Technology Topics
Even if your organization is not in the tech niche, you can use topics related to technology in your everyday work or personal life. Topics on digital marketing to understand the basics of coding, among many others, provide your teams with an essential touch on how things function and provide leverage on their daily lives.
- Digital Marketing for Everyone
- Website Coding for Beginners
- Smartphone Photography
- Social Media 101
- Home Security Basics
Random Topics
At times, lunch and learning don't need to be just about work. The best topics are fun, engaging, and just about anything. After all, interests vary from person to person. It's also good to veer away from work topics once in a while and host something that may spark a new hobby or another interest.
- Historical tour
- Herb growing and urban farming
- Tarot how-to
- Sustainability and Random Waste
- Creative Writing Workshop
- Learn Japanese Poetry and Drawing
- Cookie Decorating Class
- T-Shirt Design Making
To Sum Up
Although still new to some organizations, your lunch and learn session are a fun alternative to make great use of your available time. With these ideas we've listed, you can plan out your next virtual lunch and learn quickly. Remember to keep it casual but informative and, most of all, engaging and fun.
FAQs
What are good lunch and learn topics?
Lunch and learn sessions can be a platform for different topics. Although it's a company initiative, it doesn't necessarily have to be about the core activities of the business. In fact, the more diverse the lunch and learn sessions are, the more effective it is. With that saying, here are some topics that you can venture on for your next lunch and learn sessions:
- Workplace Diversity
- Personal Financial Health
- Productivity and Time Management
- Personal Development
- Life Skills/Adulting Skills
How Can I Promote Lunch and Learn?
No matter how well-designed your program is, it will still be a waste if people don't know you're having one. To effectively promote your lunch and learn session, be creative and leverage your existing communication channels like Slack or emails. You can design posters that are both informative and eye-catching. Aside from the visuals, you can also put up physical signs if you have a hybrid workplace. Timing is also critical, and you have to plan out how much time you're going to give your audience to respond to your invitation.
Why Are Lunch and Learns Important?
One of the ways you can promote collaboration and learning while motivating your employees is by hosting lunch and learn sessions. Aside from that, here are some other benefits of conducting lunch and learn sessions:
- Improve Morale:A job may just be a job, but if you create a workplace where learning is prioritized, you build a workplace where people look at their jobs as more than just a source of income. Since lunch and learn sessions are conducted in a casual and relaxed atmosphere, it adds to a fun and engaging environment.
- Increase Knowledge: While it may be a given to have training specific to a particular job, lunch and learn sessions offer an opportunity to learn about other disciplines. Your employees will also know the basic skills and technicalities of their colleague's work. A little knowledge of everything helps in collaborating in a team.
- Advances training initiativesLunch and learn sessions provide avenues for your company training initiatives to be materialized. While your organization's training calendar may already be packed for your big-ticket training, lunch and learn sessions allow you to squeeze in training initiatives that may otherwise be slashed out altogether, all because of time and availability.
- Build Leadership skillsSince there's no limit to lunch and learn topics, you can tap in people within your organization to lead the sessions. Tenured employees can share their expertise, and less tenured ones can get exposure. They can hone their presentation skills and build their confidence in capturing the attention of an audience and effectively communicating their assigned topics at hand.
How Do I Host a Virtual Lunch and Learn?
Here are some tips on how to host your virtual lunch and learn:
- Choose Your TopicYour topic determines the length and frequency of your sessions. You also get to plan out what video platform to use. As mentioned, you can play around with different topics for your lunch and learn sessions. It can also depend on the pressing needs of your organization. Does your team need upskilling? Then you can do cross-training or sessions on personality development. If your team needs to unwind a little, you can make a fun and non-work-related lunch and learn the topic.
- Determine your platformThe software you'll use to host plays a critical part in the success of your lunch and learn sessions. Zoom is still a top choice in this setting because of the flexible features that the video-conferencing tool offers, including its breakout rooms. However, you still have other options such as Google Meet, Adobe, or Microsoft Teams.
- Promote Your SessionCreate your meeting invite, send out teasers about your speaker, and enjoin people to be a part of your lunch and learn session. Effective promotion can lead to more turnout and give more people the opportunity to learn something new.
- Gather and Go LiveAfter you've made all the preparations:1. Go ahead and facilitate the session.2. Stick to your planned format but also give way to some unexpected events.3. Since time is limited, have a moderator on standby.4. For questions that couldn't be accommodated within the time, make sure to provide your audience with another alternative. You can take note of them and send out an email after with the corresponding answers.
- Send a recap and a post-surveyIt's best practice to send a quick summary of what happened. You can also emphasize the highlights here and add additional materials like links to related resources or other reading items. In addition, you can indicate a post-survey association to know what your audience thought went well and what could be improved for the next time.
What Are Some Good Lunch and Learn Ideas?
- Ted Talk Type: Invite experts in the fields of topics that you'll pick and hold out an informative Ted Talk-style lunch and learn session.
- Insert Live Actual Performance: You can break out the monotony of a session by inserting a short entertainment segment such as a comedy skit or a singing performance.
- Gamify the Session: Virtual sessions may be dragging at times, especially if the format is repeated repeatedly. You can mix in-game elements in your lunch and learn session to make it more engaging.
- Share more case studies: Learning sessions are certainly informative, but the bottom line is whether they can be used in real life or not. By sharing case studies, makes your topic more relatable and brings a usefulness appeal to it.
