Get The Date Right
The right date for your team building event is crucial to its success. Try planning as far in advance as possible, so you can adjust your intended schedule accordingly around calendar blackout dates that you may not even know exist.
Employees will NOT be happy if you if your date conflicts with family time or if it interferes with critical periods in the work calendar. Putting on a team building event right before a major sales report deadline will also guarantee disgruntled employees sneaking out in the middle of activities to do their paperwork. Planning an event for your accounting department right before they’re doing their year-end tax and financial accounting is sure to have a zero turnout.
If you’re planning a holiday team building event, make sure you schedule it appropriately – once you get too close to the holidays your turnout will suffer as people have family activities and other holiday events which may conflict.
Choose the Right Venue
Work with your team building facilitators to find a venue that is conducive for the planned activities. Outdoor physical activities will require large open spaces and some props. Book your venue weeks or months in advance when possible so they can adequately prepare for your requirements. Talk with the venue managers to ensure that your expectations are met. Check the accommodations to ensure you have adequate, comfortable capacity for your size. When there is room sharing, make sure that arrangements are carefully planned and participants are made aware of them. With classroom-type lectures, make sure that facilities are sufficient. Projectors, sound systems, white boards, etc should all be checked to ensure that you’re properly covered if your event requires them.
Appropriate Activities
Discuss your expectations with the facilitators thoroughly. If there are specific outputs and takeaways that you want, your trainers should know way ahead so they can prepare and make adjustments when necessary. Any good team building workshop should be customized to meet your needs specifically – this isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition.
When using an external training vendor, providing them with a profile of the participants is always helpful when possible. Age, gender, professional levels, team dynamics, these are all helpful so that they can arrange appropriate activities that will not leave anyone out. It will also help if you discuss particular areas of concern like conflicts in the workplace, recent movements and policies, so the facilitators can also be sensitive to these dynamics during your workshop.
Keep the activities fresh. Always inform the facilitators about activities you have undertaken in previous team building exercises so they don’t repeat the same activities that your group has done previously.
Keep Everyone in the Loop
Surprises don’t work very well when dealing with large groups of people with varying personalities. Make sure everyone knows the general plan for the team building – the date, venue, and expected activities. You don’t have to explain the mechanics of every activity beforehand but give the participants a general idea of what to expect. Be sure to inform your team about the arrangements so they have reasonable expectations.
Trust the Team Building Event Experts
As a company specializing in charity team building events, we understand that you have a job to do, and you probably do it very well. This is our job, and we do it very well. Take a minute to talk to one of our experts, and see how we can help you create an event to remember!