January 16th 2024
In a world where people are working harder than ever, it’s nice to sometimes enjoy a day filled with fun activities and adventures with those you work with – whether that’s a challenging day of physical teambuilding or planning the ultimate office Christmas party.
Team offsite days allow you to build trust or further strengthen your relationships with co-workers. The success of these days is measured in how everyone feels, not the numbers of everyday business.
Today, we’re going to break down how you can create an unforgettable team offsite day for your employees – giving them a renewed sense of purpose and closeness to those around them.
1. Setting Clear Objectives
Firstly, you’ll need a clear plan. Setting objectives for the day may seem easy at first; we book an activity and do that activity – but there’s more to it than just that.
Choosing the right activities that align with your company goals and ethos, but also fills your employees with enthusiasm can be a tricky line to tread. You want everyone to get involved throughout the day.
Physical activities that promote collaboration, teamwork, and critical thinking are fantastic ways to bring quieter members of the team out of their shell – such as adventure parks.
If you’re not looking for a heavily-physical challenge as such, consider trivia nights, escape rooms or even cooking classes or wine tastings – all great activities that bring people together.
2. Choosing the Right Location
So, you’ve chosen your activities for your team offsite day. You now need to consider where you’re going to be travelling to take part in them.
Physical activities usually take place outdoors, so you’ll need to manage travel to and from the location. You can always ask your team members to travel themselves, but travelling and arriving together can help to promote bonding before the day even begins! If your activities require a specific type of venue, you can weigh up various options and get your team to feed back on their preferences.
It’s also incredibly important to select a location with accessibility options, so that no one on your team is left out. This is why we suggest assigning a team member the responsibility of booking the location in advance after making the necessary checks.
3. Crafting the Agenda
A successful team offsite day has a structured agenda. Everyone needs to be on the same page about when they expect to arrive, the length of each activity and when there will be breaks.
A typical structure of a team offsite day could look like this (dependent on how many activities you’re planning):
- Meet up to travel to the venue/location
- Travel to the location
- A short gathering/huddle, explaining what the days holds (going through the agenda)
- An icebreaker session to get team members loosened up
- Activity 1 – Workshop (led by an instructor, a learning opportunity)
- Break for lunch
- Touchbase on how everyone is feeling about the day so far
- Activity 2 – Bigger team building exercise requiring all to participate
- Activity 3 – Smaller team building exercises to round out the day (quizzes, brainteasers)
- Travel back to the office/workplace and part ways
4. Team-Building Activities
Team-building activities are critical to team offsite days, as they promote a sense of collaboration between employees.
You want to get your employees doing something that requires multiple people involved to complete. Great examples of this are puzzles.
From jigsaw puzzles to brainteasers, breaking everyone up into smaller groups (that can rotate periodically) to come together to solve things is a great way boost morale.
You can also consider scavenger hunts, board/video games and even things as simple as charades to get people on their feet and engaging with each other. This boost in competitive team spirit will help to keep people engaged throughout the day.
Check out our team building guide for the workplace if you want to further bring your team together when they get back to the office!
5. Effective Communication
For a team offsite day to be as successful as possible, you need thorough and proper communication between you and your team members.
A great way to get people to open up is to host a discussion circle earlier on in the day. This can also be thought of as a team building exercise, as team members get to express their thoughts and feelings (be them work-related or not) and allows channels of communication to be open for the remainder of the day.
You need to promote effective communication to minimise the possibility of team members falling back and not being as involved as they might want to be. Check in on everyone regularly and let them know that the floor is always open for them to express themselves.
6. Catering and Refreshments
Let’s be honest, everyone looks forward to lunch! Team offsite days are not only about the activities – the food and refreshments can also have a big impact!
You’ll need to account for everyone’s dietary preferences:
- Vegans and vegetarians
- Gluten-free options
- Sugar-free options
- Low-calorie options for those watching their weight
- Avoiding foods that certain religions may not want to partake in
- If drinking – alcohol-free options too
If there is at least one option for each of the list mentioned above, all should go smoothly in the food department! It’s always good to double check with your team though, just in case – no two teams are the same after all.
7. Encouraging Participation
Getting your team members fully involved might be harder at the start of the day, but as it goes on, you’ll need to foster an environment where they can thrive.
Allowing team members to find their voice can be great for your business too, as there are many benefits of collaborative working with companies and teams outside of your four walls.
Some people are naturally shy and reserved, and that’s totally fine too. For those team members, try not to thrust them into the spotlight straight away. Understand that they may take more time to open up to the group.
A common drawback of group discussions is that there may be one or two people leading the conversation, and others simply listening. Try to give each team member some time to discuss their thoughts and feelings, so that some aren’t left feeling excluded.
Try to create the understanding that what is discussed on the team offsite day can’t have a direct impact on their working lives back in the office (within reason, of course!).
8. Post-Offsite Day Follow-Up
After a successful team offsite day, it’s critically important to collect feedback from your team on how everyone thought it went. This information not only provides an insight into what you can do better to facilitate the needs of your team going forward, but your team then understands that you’re listening and will give more of themselves to their work.
Sending out a questionnaire or feedback form is a great way to collect data anonymously. Some team members might only give their true thoughts if their name is not attached, so bear that in mind.
Ask what they think you can do better on the next team offsite day, what else they’d like to do activity-wise, and their general feeling towards you or other team members. Also – try not to take it too personally!
All-in-all team offsite days are fantastic ways to really bring your team(s) together. Giving them time to express themselves, work together, and build more lasting interpersonal relationships. This opens up opportunities for collaboration within the workplace that may not have been possible before.
We hope you’ve taken some notes today on what we think a great team offsite day looks like, and we urge you to put some of our tips into action when planning your next team outing!
In the meantime, if you’re looking to expand your office, bringing new people into the fold to book an even bigger experience next time, head over and take a look at our serviced offices and managed office spaces today. You can use our office finder tool to find amazing offices in your area!
