To kick off our corporate event planning series, we are starting with the classic: In-Person Events.
Bringing people together is an art form. Most people have taken on this task in some shape or form, whether it’s hosting a backyard barbecue or running a full scale professional event. Whatever the format, hosting requires attention to detail, timely planning and a lot of patience. When it comes to in-person corporate events, the goal is to prioritize socialization and turn your focus to anything other than work.
If you’re in charge of hosting your company’s next event and not sure where to start, we’ve got you covered on all the high level basics. We will outline the main items you need to tackle to get started in your planning.
There are different types of in-person corporate events and our focus will be specifically on our go-to year-end/holiday events. They are listed from simplest to most complex to plan:
Cocktail Hour: Short on time or bandwidth to plan? Small team + budget? Cocktail Hour is for you! Cocktail hours are a great way to get everyone together for a few hours with very little effort.
In Office Event: Perfect for teams that are 100% in-office with smaller budgets for events.
Restaurant Dinner Event: A planning combo of the cocktail hour and in office event, you’ll use a mix of both to host a successful dinner event for your company.
Dinner & Activity Event: Our personal favorite. Your team has worked hard all year and you want to make sure they know they are appreciated. Go all out with an amazing dinner followed by an activity where employees can participate or some type of entertainment that everyone will enjoy. This type of event takes the most bandwidth and planning, but also makes the biggest impact.
You’ll notice three things that almost all of these events have in common: Flagging any food restrictions and allergies, pre-determining alcohol limits and briefing your team on behavior policies. If you only take away one thing from this blog, please let it be this: Always brief your employees on HR policies and behavioral expectations prior to any in-person event. A quick reminder before a gathering will let your employees know that you take these things seriously and set the appropriate expectations.
Our final tip, applicable to all in-person events is this:
Get a Photo Booth. Just trust us on this.
Feeling overwhelmed over your upcoming corporate event? Leave the planning to us. Let’s get in touch.