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Occasionally, it can be good to get out of the office as a change of scenery offers the opportunity for fresh ideas, team bonding sessions and lets your employees know that management care about their emotional health as well as their performance levels.
Focused Fun
While everyone loves the chance to get away from their desks the team still need to be led as otherwise the day becomes a bit of a waste. Motivation is key; you don’t want people wandering off, going outside a lot or becoming bored. Set yourself SMART goals, breaking down each section of the day and deciding what the team will do and when. Look at what areas need to be improved upon. Is it communication? Cohesive strategy? Thinking outside the box? Whatever the answer try to plan activities that focus on these elements. For example, if you’re honing in on communication employees could be split into pairs or small groups and tasked with making their way through a mini obstacle course. The catch? One person is blindfolded and to complete the course they need to listen carefully to their teammates.
Know Your Audience
When planning corporate retreats and away days you also need to think of your employees, their age range, and their physical capabilities. You might be tempted to organise separate events for older and younger staff, but this can cause divisiveness and highlight that you are treating people differently. Running a start-up? The chances are that when it comes to tech companies, or start-ups a majority of your workforce will be relatively young so it’s fine to plan more physical activities like football, canoeing, paintball and even hiking. It’s fine to have physical sessions but balance those with quieter, low impact activities like peer mentoring, informal chats and brainstorming seminars. Give each person attending a copy of the timetable well in advance and let them know you’re available to answer any questions.
Choose A Multi Purpose Venue
One of the easiest things to get wrong is to pick a venue that’s either too far away, ill-equipped for corporate events, or one who’s not used to large groups of people. You need to decide how everyone is getting there as depending on its location; it’s probably worth hiring a bus or coach. That way if there are any problems at least everyone is in the same place and a solution can be reached quickly. Good venues for away days have on-site seminar rooms, with a commercial AV installation, computer facilities and the freedom to change the layout. Your colleagues also need to eat so are you going to provide packed lunches? A sit-down meal? Or set food up buffet style? Have a think about the timings as well as nobody will want to tackle a climbing wall on a full stomach!
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Encourage Feedback
Whether you hand out surveys, hold a quiz or use the anonymous review method it’s important you get feedback on what went well, and what could be improved in future. Employee feedback also gives your staff a chance to express their opinions about the whole day, making them feel like their views are being heard and thus taken into consideration.
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