Team outings and corporate events are a great way to facilitate bonding with your team members, reduce employee stress, and give employees a chance to get to know one another outside of the office. Such events should be all about having fun, building great relationships and saying thank-you to your team for their hard work. Many organisations struggle to source inspiration for event ideas that are aligned with company strategy and excite employees at the same time. What sort of events can you organise that will increase communication skills, encourage teamwork, innovation, creativity, leadership and improve team morale? Let’s have a look at a few.
Mystery Dinner
Rather than just taking your team out for dinner at a local restaurant, mystery dinners create an air of excitement and anticipation. Send group of employees from different teams within your company to a dinner hosted by one of your company’s leaders and paid for by the company. This type of dinner allows random groups of people from the same company to spend an evening eating good food and having conversations together. The only thing participants should know about the dinner ahead of time is the date and time. Then, on the day the dinner is supposed to take place, send each group an email with the name of the place they’re going to and who they’ll be going with.
Auction Night
Great for fundraising, as well as a fun evening out, an auction event is where items or services are sold in front of an audience to the person who is prepared to pay the highest amount. By having audience members place ‘bids’ for each item, it creates a sense of fun and competition between employees. Engage a popular workplace member to be the auctioneer and have a selection of fun and inspiring prizes that staff will want to buy. You could include a silent auction aspect to the evening as well, where guests write down bids on an array of items and the highest bidders at a particular time in the evening will win. Combine this with a dinner of nice food and you are sure to have an event that’s fun, memorable and a great way to raise funds for a company charity.
Awards Night
Award ceremonies are a great way to recognise and reward the hard work of teams and individuals within the business. Award categories can be formal such as employee of the year, salesperson of the year or more fun such as best dressed, friendliest, most creative, and most punctual. Once you have the categories, you can make custom certificates and trophies and present them at a fancy dinner with great food and dancing. Make it a glamorous event, encouraging staff to dress to impress.
Cabaret or Burlesque Evening
This one is a bit different and will get staff members talking. Cabaret is a stage performance, typically held in restaurants or bars. It mixes music, song, dance and drama with an overarching theme that is normally more suited to adult audiences. Staff members will be treated to a nice dinner, a few drinks along with a memorable performance. A great way for employees to bond in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.
Casino Day
This is a fun way to engage staff and get all team members involved. Organize several stations with different casino games, such as blackjack, roulette and poker. You can buy smaller inexpensive versions of games from department stores, which will help keep the game table options varied. Chips can be cashed in for small prizes so everyone feels like a winner. If organising this type of event, it’s best to check with your organisation as some companies do not allow any form of gambling, even if real money is not involved.
Celebrate A Company Anniversary or Milestone
Don’t miss an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of your company with the people who matter most – your employees. Providing a great time to celebrate accomplishments, recognize and reward individual achievements, and reflect on the state of the business, milestone or anniversary events can be sit down dinners or cocktail events. They give employees a chance to dress up, mingle with teams and employees they may not get a chance to speak to on a regular basis and celebrate the fun and successful workplace of which they are a part.
Looking for the perfect corporate function venue in Melbourne? Whether it’s a fun team building event for your employees or a corporate event such as a seminar, conference, or training workshop, Merrimu is the leading place for corporate function events in Melbourne. With the space, privacy and ample parking area for events in which delegates can feel relaxed and at ease, there’s no better choice than Merrimu. For more information on our corporate packages, call us today or contact us online.