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10 tips for organizing awesome, COVID-safe offsites
Chances are, you've spent the past year video conferencing with a remote team. Well, that holds true for most of us. We're all looking forward to putting the days of virtual happy hours on Zoom, video calls, and remote team-building activities behind us.The fact remains that we are living in a world dealing with a pandemic. We are happily starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel, but that doesn't mean that we can throw caution to the wind and live like we used to just yet. That holds especially true when organizing effective team-building activities in real life.Bringing remote workers back together for things like offsites is fundamental to encouraging team bonding, teamwork, and employee engagement and satisfaction. Not to mention that they're a great way to integrate new hires into the team beyond onboarding!But how exactly can we do that and keep our employees safe and protect our company’s budget in the event of unexpected changes or cancelations? Check out our 10 tips below.
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Book refundable rates on every aspect of your trip
Always adhere to local health guidelines
Testing, testing, testing
Track and manage attendance data
Embrace health passes
Be clear and transparent
Treat people like owners
Try to host your event outdoors
Set a clear and reasonable mask policy
Remember: it’s still supposed to be fun!
Should you allow hybrid team building events?
The answer to this question will greatly depend on where a business is located. As mentioned before, different countries have different restrictions in place at the moment, and vaccine rollout is quicker in some than others. Employees may not be able or comfortable to attend all events physically.So, should you provide the option for employees to join an event or offsite via video conference? In these unprecedented times, you should do what you can to accommodate safety at all costs.That's why you should provide employees with the option of joining the event via video chat or a virtual meeting and participating remotely. Granted, virtual team-building activities can't really compare to the real thing—but safety should always come first.Dedicate some time to building the hybrid portion of your offsite. Set up a proper, interactive video conference through Zoom, Slack, Skype, Teams, or whatever platform you use. Make sure all employees attending virtually have access to the link on time and appoint a moderator to make sure they're engaged with the event.You can come up with specific team-building exercises for your virtual event, including different online games to make sure your whole team is immersed.
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Team building ideas for your next offsite
At TravelPerk, we like to plan company events with our employees rather than for them. That's why we always ask them what activities they would like to see happening at our next event—and we let them take the lead! Some of our particular favorites recently have included:
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- Board games - from the Settlers of Catan to Pictionary, our team mates enjoy breaking off into smaller groups and get into the competitive spirit!
- Trivia quiz games - TravelPerkers love putting their general knowledge to the test in a spirited game of trivia.
- Wellness activities - our team is full of yoga-lovers, Zumba-dancers, and padel players who can't wait to share their talent with their team mates.
- Arts & crafts - we've got a very creative team of artists and crafters who help their team mates develop new skills.
- Team building games - like volleyball, basketball, gladiator duels, bubble football, or wipeout!
- Book club - this one might require some more time to plan in advance, but getting people together to discuss a book is a great way for them to have a meeting of the minds!
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