Planning a Team Offsite? Make It a Success with These 8 Pro Tips

Ditching the conference room for a different environment can do some incredible things for your entire team and company culture. It can open up new perspectives, build trust, and spur discussions and camaraderie that may not naturally happen at the office. Plus, if you have a distributed team with remote staff or a hybrid work, it can be beneficial for bonding, team spirit, and problem-solving to get together from time to time over a shared experience.

The question is, how do you make sure your offsite doesn’t fall flat? Whether your event is based on strategic decision-making or it’s purely designed for team building, we’ve got you covered. Here are a few guidelines to help you plan a fun, useful, and memorable team event.

1. Exit the building

Seriously, get out of there. Otherwise, people will fall into the same roles and routines they do every workday. If you stay in the work environment, your team may feel pressure to answer emails and tackle work to-dos.

You want people to be fully engaged in the event you planned, so it’s important to embrace a change of scenery. Even if you’re planning a low-key activity, head to a park or make a reservation at a local hot spot so your team can truly get away from their day-to-day.

2. Plan ahead

To avoid an offsite that’s more flop than fun, get the details in order well before go time. Try these tips:

• Get team buy-in before you plan. Are there “wish list” topics people want to cover? When would be a good time frame to arrange it from time of year to periods of time during the day? What sounds better: a museum visit or a hands-on class?
• Find the ultimate locale early on. Make a lunch reservation a few weeks before or find a hip, accessible spot—just make sure to book it well in advance. During your search, keep the following things in mind:
  • Proximity to the office
  • Atmosphere
  • Parking
  • A/V hookups
  • Natural light
• Know your goal. Whether it’s year-end planning or bridging the gap between different personalities, write down exactly what you want to accomplish.
• Create an agenda. If it’s casual, this could mean outlining lunch, breaks, and end times. If you’re planning on completing an objective, say crystallizing a new strategy, make it more formal, and build in time at the end to reflect on how the day went.
• Delegate. Encourage team members to take ownership of different aspects of the event, from icebreakers and lunch to brainstorming sessions.

3. Include a mix of structured activities and downtime

You can’t require everyone to put their phones in airplane mode for a day and never look back. Downtime gives your team the chance to have natural conversations, while structured activities keep the event from dragging.

Try to think of a team activity that has a good balance of both. While it can be tempting to squeeze productivity out of every last moment, remember that often the unstructured moments are when the magic really happens. Not sure what type of outing to plan? This massive list of 35 team-building activities will give you a solid place to start, including:

• The human knot
• Building a story
• Blind drawing
• The compliment circle
• Penny for your thoughts
• One question
• The common factor
• Whodunit
• Sneak a peek
• Teach a new skill
• What do we have in common
• Three-question mingle
• The marshmallow challenge
• One-word icebreaker
• Count to 20
• Two truths and a lie

4. Make it (somewhat) educational

If you want to plan an outing your team will remember, tie in some fun or perhaps a new experience. You’ll get double points for planning an activity that requires the team to learn something new together, like a cooking class, rather than an activity that requires competition, like go-kart racing. Remember, the aim is for your team to unite and succeed together, enjoying the process, not for specific individuals to win.  

5. Keep it inclusive

While a circus class might sound like fun in theory, if some team members lack the strength (or interest) needed to participate, they’ll probably be bored on the sidelines. You want to make sure your event engages people to try new things without isolating anyone.

6. Schedule the offsite during work hours

People have lives outside of work, and most will appreciate an employer who respects that. By planning your offsite during the time people would normally be at the office, you’ll likely increase attendance, too.

If you’re worried about losing those precious hours of work time, consider hosting an event that’s part work and part play. Divide the day in half, and dedicate the morning to a team-building activity and the afternoon to reach a strategic decision.

7. Be considerate of your nonexempt employees

Company events during work hours can be construed as work under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). To minimize their liability, some employers make events voluntary for nonexempt employees. If you want to be sure your nonexempt team members attend, consider the following:

• Pick a time that’s outside of normal work hours
• Don’t talk about work stuff during the event
• Don’t have any nonexempt employees perform tasks during the event

8. Think about passing out a legal waiver

Whether your event involves hiking local trails, teamwork in an escape room, a scavenger hunt, or goal-setting in an art deco space, you want to protect yourself against mishaps. One way to minimize risk is to have everyone sign a waiver that protects you if an injury happens or things get out of control.

Read through this sample form to get an idea of what a waiver covers, and then talk to your employment attorney to get one made that is specific to your company and event.

Your offsite can now be on point. Follow the tips above and watch as connections and breakthroughs emerge. Who knows? You may even be tempted to make your offsites a more regular thing.

After the off-site event: your action plan

Offsites shouldn’t happen in a vacuum. Once your company offsite has ended, build on the learnings from it, turning them into actionable steps:

1. Conduct a follow-up review of the offsite to assess whether it was truly successful. Even if there seemed to be strong team bonding and employee engagement during it, circulate a survey afterward to solicit feedback:
   • Make providing names optional to encourage honest evaluations.
   • Ask questions that cover everything from the agenda to the location to the format of the activities to get a well-rounded view of how everything was received.
   • Allow respondents the opportunity to provide thoughts on areas of improvement for the next team offsite, along with suggestions for possible future initiatives to from onsites and brainstorming sessions to offsite meetings and company retreats.
     
2. Collaborate with leads (whether they’re the team leads or team members who were delegated the responsibility of taking ownership of certain activities) to assist with organizing all the artifacts (e.g., notes, documents, worksheets, decks, whiteboard screenshots, videos, roadmaps, etc.) from the events they helped run or moderate during the offsite.
   
   Encourage them to serve as facilitators to arrange additional small-group, cross-functional sessions that could be needed to prioritize the objectives, strategies, and tactics that came out of the offsite meetings. They could also bring together small task forces to develop strong ideas for projects with clear objectives, deliverables, timelines, and goals. That could be an opportunity for anyone who wasn’t part of the larger offsite to feel included, such as if the offsite was only for directors or managers and the remaining staff members weren’t in attendance. If you take that approach, make sure you also include anyone who works remotely so they don’t feel excluded.
   
3. Share all the above next steps you’re implementing with your entire company, or have your leadership team distribute the news. When there are offsites, employees are eager to find out what was discussed and what came out of them that will be put into play. Transparency is key to generating the level of enthusiasm needed to create momentum. Plus, everyone will then feel invested in executing strategic plans, fostering healthy team dynamics.
   Communicating with everyone also provides reassurance that company resources were put to good use, especially when considering the business expenses and budget considerations that are associated with offsites. Share a summary through an email or an all-hands meeting. Provide a chance for your team to ask questions, whether they can direct them to a specific point person to gather answers for them or include some time for a Q&A following any announcements about it at company-wide or discrete team meetings.