Hosting a corporate retreat is one of the best ways to get feedback from your employees. In addition to researching corporate retreat locations, organizing transportation for the attendees, and coming up with a delicious menu, spend some time thinking about how you can gain feedback from your staff during the event. Bringing your team to a new location will help them reflect on everything they’ve experienced at work since they started the position. You can use this feedback to change your company culture for the better.
Not sure where to begin? Here are some tips you can use:
Use traditional methods
These techniques are user-friendly and don’t require a ton of time, money, and effort. Simply leave paper surveys on each table and ask employees to fill them out before the event ends. You can also hire feedback staff who’ll go around the event venue, engage with your employees, and ask them how everything’s going. Consider scheduling some one-on-one time with each of your team members or managers to see how they are getting along in the job. This is a great option if you are looking for more in-depth, personalized feedback from your team.
Harness the power of technology
Technology is here to make your life easier as a manger. This is a great option if most of your employees are tech-savvy. Feedback apps and digital surveys can speed up the feedback process. For instance, you can ask your staff to download an event app of your choice on their smartphones. The app won’t only send them push notifications about the event (i.e. the date, time, and venue) but will also remind them to give their feedback.
You can also create a hashtag for your event and encourage your employees to use it on social media or use a social network where attendees can virtually “check in” to your event and leave their comments.
Experiment with interactive methods
Some companies install feedback stations with buttons to know if attendees are enjoying the event. These buttons can feature positive and negative emojis (i.e. a thumbs-up icon vs. a thumbs-down one) and allow people to easily answer questions or simply indicate whether they’re having fun or not. Most people will love the ease of use and will want to use the feedback stations.
Host a friendly competition
Nothing will your team grow closer like a friendly competition. Whether its problem solving, racing, or capture the flag, mentally and physically challenging team building activities will your workers get into the right mindset during your next team outing. These gams and puzzles will help your workers think and behave in new ways, which gives you and your colleagues a chance to get to know them better.
Once the competition or team building exercise is over, bring everyone together for some team bonding. Encourage everyone to think about what they could’ve done better or what they learned about their colleagues during the experience.
Use these tips to come up with a great corporate outing idea for you and your team! Everyone could use a little rest and recreation during these stressful, uncertain times. Show your team members just how much fun work can be.
If you’re still at the planning stage and need a venue, call Oakwood Resort. As the leading Indiana retreat center, we cater to businesses that are based in Elkhart, Goshen, Warsaw, Fort Wayne, and South Bend that need a fantastic location for their company outings. We also provide training seminar venues as well as spaces for other corporate events.
