Planning a team offsite? Are you looking for off-site ideas that will be worth everyone’s time and energy? We know that company off-site planning can be challenging because you want it to result in high ROI without exhausting your team for weeks.
Let’s take a closer look at tips for planning a team offsite and explore corporate off-site ideas that benefit both your company and the humans behind it.
Tips for Planning a Team Off-Site That Your Team Will Want to Participate In
So what is an off-site? An off site is a corporate event that takes place away from the office. You can use team off-sites for many different things, including planning, training, and team-building. Let’s go over important things to consider for company offsite planning.
Define Your Off-Site Goal
The first step to planning a successful off-site is to determine your goal or big picture. What is your objective for having this off-site? What do you want to accomplish, and what are some nice-to-have features? What problems are you trying to solve? Get super specific about your goals, then move on with the rest of your off-site planning.
Choose Location
When planning a team offsite, you want to choose a location that shows you care about your team’s convenience and makes them feel appreciated. If most of your team is located in a central location, you want to select a site that is accessible to everyone.
If you plan a company retreat, choose a place that can host all of your events. You’ll want to make sure they have indoor and outdoor space that will handle everything you want to accomplish.
Plan Your Agenda
Planning your agenda for the site is almost as important, if not more important, than choosing a perfect location. Keeping your goal in mind, you should choose a format that isn’t too overwhelming for your team but still allows enough time to do everything.
Some format options could include a local one-day off-site, if everyone can meet up with minimal travel. Or, you have a two-day off-site, which is better for some travel.
Finally, you could choose a three-day retreat. These company retreats are really great when you have teams coming in from many different areas.
In any case, make sure you leave room for unstructured time too. Lay out the ground rules at the start of the event so everyone knows what to expect during the offsite.
Divide Activities by “Business vs Team”
You want to strike a balance between “team” activities and “business” activities. You don’t want it to be an expensive vacation, but you also don’t want to overwhelm everyone with work stuff for 36 hours straight.
You could try, maybe one day, doing an activity that helps the business, then the next day, do fun team wellness activities. Or split these types of activities up evenly.
For example, one day you focus on activities that help build the business, while the next day you concentrate on team development. On the second day, you can incorporate more enjoyable wellness activities such as team-building speakers, fun sports, and competitive games — anything that makes the team feel appreciated and valued.
Corporate Off-Site Ideas to Boost Success of the “Team” and the “Business”
We will first look at activities that promote your team’s well-being. A happy team works better. Then we’ll go over activities that can help improve your business. It’s so important to have a good combination of both for a successful company offsite.
Corporate Off-Site Ideas for the “Team”
You should provide activities that focus on the human beings on your team.
Outdoor Obstacle Course
A great off-site idea is to do an outdoor obstacle course. You can make these hard, with climbing walls and rope challenges, or just fun, simple courses. The cool thing is you can get creative and choose an obstacle course that really matches your team.
So if you have a high-energy, competitive, and even athletic group of people, give them a high-level challenge that will showcase healthy competition and hopefully foster some team bonding.
Karaoke
Karaoke is one of the best ways to bring your team closer together. A study found that karaoke brought people closer together faster than any other group activity that they tested!
So while you may want to bring some earplugs, hosting a karaoke at your off-site is a great, proven ice-breaker, team event that can help your team collaborate and have fun together.
Wellness Spa
A wellness spa is a great off-site activity to add to your list of fun things to do at your business offsite. You want to show your team that you care, so give them some nice, relaxing wellness activities.
You could have yoga, meditation, drinking or tasting herbal tea, acupuncture, EFT tapping, qigong, or any other self-care practice you can think of. You could schedule one long day of wellness activities or a wellness hour or two a day so that everyone gets a chance to relax.
Relay Races
Relay races are fun and really help to get everyone working together. You could do three-legged races, egg-and-spoon races, or office chair races outside in a fun environment.
These types of activities are good for building trust and boosting team morale. If you have newer team members who are shy, these are great ways to encourage them to talk and get to know the rest of the team, especially if their leg is literally tied to someone else’s.
Corporate Off-Site Ideas for the “Business”
When you plan an offsite, you need to focus on the “business” too.
Themed Workshops
Host activities that focus on skill development, such as leadership team training or industry-related workshops. You can work on role-playing activities, idea generation, brainstorming sessions, or any other type of training that could benefit the company as a whole.
Do a Blindfold Maze
Set up a “maze” with cones, streamers, or caution tape and split everyone up into small groups. Then have one person blindfolded while the other team members guide them out of the maze.
It will be a fun way to get everyone collaborating, and it will also help improve communication and trust within your team, especially if you have some who work remotely.
Innovation Labs/ Prototyping
An innovation lab is a collaborative session to get everyone’s creative juices flowing together on a new project or innovative idea. You could have prototype challenges where you split everyone into small teams and give them materials to build something that would solve a company problem.
While some members might see this as silly play, early-stage prototyping is a great way to identify what kinds of failures to expect along the way, but at a much lower cost. You can use LEGO, Play-Doh, or clay, or try 3D-printed materials for your team to build with, and set a time limit to make it more challenging!
Team Canvas Session
Team canvas sessions are a strategic way to get everyone on board with the same goals or values. These are great if you have new employees and you want them to integrate easily with other members.
Sessions can last around an hour and a half and can be done in large or small groups. Team members can get creative and use color-coding to make the canvas look more appealing, and it’s a fun way to help everyone develop an action plan together.
Gamified Learning
Who doesn’t love learning games? Your off-site could incorporate trivia about the company and play a trivia game with small prizes to make it more exciting for everyone. You could also run Clue-style murder-mystery games to get everyone to play and work together.
Simulation training is another good idea. You can put teams into real-world simulations or work-related situations and see how well they adapt and problem-solve together. Turning learning into games makes it more enjoyable, increases engagement and knowledge outcomes, and a few little prizes along the way make it a worthwhile off-site activity.
Choose the Comedian Company for Your Next Business Offsite
We know that off-site planning can be a hassle, but we hope these tips make it easier for you. If you need team-building speakers or just some fun entertainment, The Comedian Company has you covered.
We have some of the best keynote speakers who can motivate your team at your team’s off-site. If you’re looking for some entertainment, our hilarious corporate comedians are ready to bring lots of laughter to your event. Just fill out the form to get started!