Here at Strive we’re event experts that believe bringing people together is the hidden secret to driving company performance. Hope you’ve grabbed a cuppa and sitting comfortably as we share with you some of our top ten tips to think about when planning an event to engage your people…
1. Set Expectations
It is important to communicate effectively with your employees in the lead up to the event itself to set expectations for what is to come. This is important so that they arrive in the right frame of mind ready to engage in the agenda. It’s ok to keep one or two things back as surprises on the day, but be sure to communicate the main expectations for the event for maximum engagement.
2. Don’t try and Conquer the World in a Day
Be careful of packing your event agenda so full that their minds are ready to explode. Carefully filter and prioritise the right content so that the messages you want people to remember really land and are retained, rather than overloading with too much content and nothing sticks.
3. Don’t go Granular
When you’re content planning as well as not squeezing too much into the schedule, also plan the session content to avoid going too deep into the detail. Remember this is an all employee event, remember some things are better saved for departmental sessions and for all employee events we need to stay relatively high level with the messaging. We know from experience that this can be fairly challenging with multiple internal speakers that all believe their topic needs more air time, so strong stakeholder management is key.
4. Make An Impact
They say that first impressions count and we think the same thing applies with events. Have a think about some wow factor branding, entertainment or creative moment that you can create within the first 30 seconds of arriving at the event.
5. Energise and Nourish
Choose a menu of food and drink that energises people throughout the day. Events that are caffeine and carbs all day are not conducive to high alertness and high engagement. Offer lots of choices as everyone has different tastes and preferences, and try to incorporate slow release nutrition and fresh ingredients. Planning your agenda around the inevitable post-lunch slump is always a good idea too in order to maximise engagement in the content.
6. Avoid the Awkward Intros
You’re likely working in a world where many of your people work remotely, maybe they’ve joined remotely and haven’t met each other in person. For some reason it often happens that we don’t always recognise people in person, despite having met them on screen – (oh you’re much shorter in real life!?) – this can be awkward amongst colleagues so it sounds silly but name badges can be super helpful to avoid the awks moments like this, and of course for that forgetful boss who has just forgotten all the names.
7. Get the Start Time Right
You’re a people focused business, with a focus on prioritising balance and wellbeing of your people, yet on the day of your event you ask people to get up at 4am to be there on time… err no! Plan your start time accordingly to allow people to travel without a silly start.
8. Sitting Comfortably
We always recommend, where possible, that you choose cabaret over theatre style for maximum comfort. Having a bit more space for a glass of water, notepad and so on is a small detail but makes a big difference to employee comfort and therefore their information retention.
9. Contextualise
We always ask about the business context to know what else is going on around this event, and although we might sound nosy it’s actually so we can ensure the tone of the day fits in. So if you’re planning this yourself, always give thought to the mood of the business at the time.
10. Gather Insight
Every business and every company culture is unique. Whilst there are some universal frameworks for event planning that we can apply across the board, in general every single programme is tailored to the audience and the culture. It’s really useful to gather some insight in a pre-event survey to help you design the event with the specific attendees in mind.
If you enjoyed reading this and would like some further support with your upcoming events, drop us a line on:
