Even for companies with outstanding office culture, the day-to-day work routine can easily become monotonous. Sometimes, managers need to think outside the box and switch things up to re-engage their employees. Offsite events, adventures, and retreats can be a fantastic way to reinvigorate your team.
In this article, we’ll outline our favorite offsite event ideas for a team who needs to recharge outside the office.
Introduction
It’s no secret that employee engagement is paramount to a company’s overall success.
According to a recent Gallup workplace poll, engaged employees produce the following outcomes for their companies:
- 18% higher productivity
- 23% higher profitability
- 18 – 43% less employee turnover, depending on company size
With these statistics, it should be a no-brainer to prioritize employee engagement. But finding the right activities to engage them can be a challenge.
According to our recent LinkedIn survey, managers reported that their biggest challenge in planning offsite team building activities is finding an activity that everyone enjoys.
Fortunately, there’s an easy way to ensure you’re choosing the best offsite team building activities for work. Thriver’s polling feature can help you better identify what your employees love – it will help you make informed decisions when scheduling company offsite experiences for your team.
Thriver’s marketplace is chock-full of offsite event ideas for your team. Although many of these events are technically “virtual,” you can easily bring them offsite by renting an event space or party room where your employees can share the experience together. Read on to find out more about our favorite ideas for team offsite activities.
1. Custom Comedy Show
There’s nothing like laughing and bonding to recharge your employees and put a new spark in their step.
A customizable comedy show is a unique offsite idea for virtual teams. For this event, employees fill out a survey before the show, detailing their comedy preferences. The event curators use that feedback to create a personalized comedy show for your team.
This event costs $36 per person (plus any offsite space or supply rentals), and showcases comics who have been featured on Conan, Late Night with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and more.
2. Rediscover Your Purpose
After months (years, for some) of working from home – with the pandemic leaving little to do outside of that – it’s not uncommon for some employees to have lost their sense of purpose.
If your team is looking a little aimless, you might consider hosting a workshop that will help your employees rebuild a purpose-driven culture upon their return to work. This event helps employees rediscover their inner motivators, tap into their innate strengths, and align their values with those of the company.
The workshop costs $1,500 for a group of any size.
3. Managing Up Workshop
Have you ever heard of “managing up”? Most employees aren’t familiar with this skill (at least not consciously), but it’s crucial for anyone who wants to improve their workplace relationships and network their way up the ladder.
At a managing up workshop, your employees will learn to manage their managers! This workshop is online, but you are welcome to gather your employees offsite to engage them.
The workshop costs $1,999 for any group size, and will teach your employees how to identify different management styles to effectively “manage your manager” and achieve ideal outcomes for both parties.
4. Collaboration Workshop
After working from home for so long, it may be difficult for your employees to reacclimate to collaborating in person. This creativity and collaboration workshop available on Thriver’s marketplace will help your team get back into the spirit of teamwork and progress.
In addition to the workshop itself, participants will take home a document of brainstormed ideas, as well as creativity challenges to keep in a back pocket for the next time there’s a lull in innovation.
5. Return to Work Success Workshop
If you’re a manager who’s gearing up to (or in the process of) bringing your team back to the office, you might want to consider hosting a “return to work” seminar for a positive and stress-free transition.
This event will teach managers how to attend to the psychological and emotional well-being of their employees who have worked from home for nearly two years. Participants will walk away with new skills for developing their emotional intelligence, as well as actionable strategies for making the first day back in the office a smooth one.
This is a great offsite meeting idea for upper management teams. The event costs $1,750 for groups of any size.
6. Trivia Tournament
Workshops and seminars can be wonderful, but sometimes you need to cut loose from anything “professional” and activate other parts of your brain. A trivia tournament is a fantastic offsite team building activity for teams who need something fun, friendly, and competitive.
This is a great example of a virtual team idea that can work offsite. The event runs about $30 per person, and can be formatted as either individual or team trivia.
7. Mindfulness Workshop
“Mindfulness” has become something of a buzzword lately, but it should be treated as more than just a trend. Mindfulness, which is defined as the practice of intentionally focusing on the present, has been shown to improve physical and mental health and overall well-being.
A mindful leadership workshop offers a wonderful offsite event idea for showing your employees you care about their health and happiness. The workshop costs $5,000 for a group of any size, and will teach participants how to use mindfulness strategies to improve their self-care, relationships, focus, and productivity.
8. Improv Workshop
Another great offsite idea that might work for your team is an improv team-building workshop. This is a light-hearted event and encourages fun, laughter, and enjoying one another’s company. Best of all, it’s strictly group-based – no one will get singled out or put on the spot, making this a great experience for introverts and extroverts alike.
It’s also one of the more affordable offsite activities available, starting at only $20 per person.
9. Self-Care Team Challenge
Your employees can’t focus on office tasks if they don’t focus on themselves first. A self-care team challenge is a great corporate offsite event that will help your employees tune into how to best take care of themselves.
At around $500 for a group of any size, the self-care challenge is a virtual offsite activity that’s set-up with daily emails and internal communication prompts to leave your team feeling refreshed, recharged, and re-engaged.
10. Embracing Change and Uncertainty
Although we all hope that we’re moving toward the end stages of the pandemic, there’s no telling what other surprises the future of the workplace holds. With that in mind, you might consider hosting a workshop for embracing change and uncertainty.
This seminar costs $1,500 for a minimum of 3 participants. The content is highly relevant and engaging, and teaches participants concepts like how to navigate change using the stages of grief as a guide. It also goes into the most common sources of change resistance and how to productively overcome them.
11. Creativity Workshop
According to a longitudinal NASA study, most adults are 96% less creative than they were as children. This can spell disaster for companies hoping to be on the forefront of innovation and progress.
You can mitigate this by treating your employees to a creativity workshop. This event is a naturally creative idea for an offsite meeting and costs $1,500 for a group of any size.
12. Fully Custom Company Retreat
For the ultimate company offsite idea, use Thriver’s marketplace to build a fully custom company retreat.
This service is the most expensive on our list – $2,500 per person – but offers a concierge-like experience that plans every aspect of the event for you. Everything from flights and accommodations to refreshments and entertainment is taken care of, and the content of the retreat is designed around your company’s unique goals and visions.
Conclusion
There’s nothing like a change of pace to help realign employees’ focus and get new ideas flowing. An offsite event can be exactly what your team needs to improve their morale and boost their engagement.
