A Company Getaway
The goal: To help people understand the company objectives, develop co-worker relationships, learn new skills or all three.
The reality: After your last company meeting, you came home with a tan and a better golf swing. As a side-effect, you also got to know the management team a bit better.
The fix: While the goal of company getaways last year may have been to provide incentive or reward in a labour shortage, this year dollars need to be used to their maximum effect. Chances are your next meeting won’t be somewhere warm and toasty. Calgary meeting planner Leanne Calderwood is already seeing companies choose Banff over San Diego. “The economy, I think, could help the meeting planning profession in that regard; because meetings will be more focused, the team-building aspect will be more structured, rather than free-form.”
One of the best things you can do is firm up your meeting’s aims. “If you have goals and objectives in place, at the end of the meeting you should meet them. Walking into the meeting without them, things can be kind of hairy, the agenda can be disjointed and you might pick the wrong location,” Calderwood says.
If employee networking is an objective, for instance, plan an extended lunch and a welcome reception. Explain clearly that the goal of the meeting is to find people who can help you do your job better, and vice versa. Getting out of the office may make it easier to develop a personal rapport and connect over personal interests. “When you have things in common, it’s easier to chat and that leads to more of a business connection, and away you go.”
Final message: Tell employees why you’re going away, then make sure the structure of the event backs up the purpose.
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