Tuesday, October 30, 2012

How To Make A Christmas Corporate Event Work For The Company

By Cara Logan


It is likely that most organisations could benefit from some additional team building time, other than that spent purely in a professional environment. With Christmas fast approaching, what better time is there to encourage team bonding with a corporate event to thank your staff for all of their hard work? Additionally, this will allow your team the perfect social event in which they can get to know each other outside of the office.

Christmas corporate events are wonderful opportunity to promote team building. However, corporate events represent a significant investment, not just in terms of money, but also time. In fact, corporate events typically take up 1% of your total available working hours and staff budget.

Quarter four is often considered the busiest period for the majority of companies. The idea of the additional work it would take in order to organise a successful corporate event can seem too much pressure for some companies, which is where an experienced events planning company may be of benefit.

Corporate event planning requires that many things be taken into consideration so that effective decisions can be made. This includes venue and location sourcing, the entertainment, the invitations, the publicity, the food and drinks, the music, the decorations, and a whole lot more. Keeping a checklist helps corporate event planners tremendously. It is important that each detail of the corporate event be taken care of.

When planning your corporate event it is important to ensure that you are firstly clear about the event's objectives and tie them in with any corporate goals that have been set. This way the event can be geared towards whichever outcome you are hoping to achieve.

Whilst most objectives are likely to be psychological, such as rewarding staff or mending rifts between departments, it is important to consider how to find the most positive outcome possible. To reward positive behaviour often works well to reinforce a positive message within your workforce.

Once you have defined your goals, and decided on a general approach, the 'psychology' of a corporate event needs as much planning and coordination as the logistics of transport, accommodation, activities, break times and meals.

For example, suppose you want to build better relationships between management and staff. You can do this by mixing them in groups and/or at tables during mealtimes. However, left to their own devices they might naturally sit with their colleagues and friends, so you need to ensure they mix, without it appearing too contrived. You can do this using methods such as:

-Ensuring everyone is briefed and understands the need to mix and network.

- Producing a formal seating plan

- Seating people in a random order such as by their birth dates.

- Everybody switching seats and tables between courses.

You will understand what suits your company best, however - make sure that all decisions are made with your objectives in mind.




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