It might be something that is slotted into you calendar at the start of every year. Maybe it’s always included in your planning cycles. A team away day or company offsite is something that will either fill people with dread, or be a good day out to be looked forward to. If you are lucky, people will be keen. They will know that in the past you have had many a successful team away day.
Let’s be clear, we are not talking about axe throwing and escape rooms.
Not that you can’t build the fun stuff in afterwards.
Not that you can’t have fun in your team away day.
But the focus is on bringing your senior leadership team, project team or maybe multiple teams together to achieve a particular goal
Whether that is something more relational like building trust and getting to know each other better. Something more operational like improving your communication processes. Or something strategic like creating a strategy or refining your values these are all the kinds of reasons you may come together in the fist place.
You can do the beers afterwards.
What is it you need to do to set your day up for success?
There is a fair bit of work that you will need to do to make your team away day a successful one. Not least of all finding a time when everyone can actually come along!
The kinds of things to focus on are:
- Set some solid objectives so it is more than coming together to hang out for the day. You want to make this worthwhile.
- Invite the right people – do you need the whole company, or just a small group. If you are planning a strategy this may be more for your senior leadership team. If you are looking at company culture maybe you need everyone.
- Make it relevant to people -even though you are likely not making it optional for people to attend, a carrot is always better than a stick! Think about what exactly it is your team members will gain, and what kind of value they are bringing.
- Do the groundwork – team away days can be long and actually quite hard work even if they are well designed and include some more fun stuff. Think about what you can do beforehand to get people thinking and prepared, maybe gathering data and information together.
- Get yourself a good facilitator (obviously) – Do I need to say more!? If you are going to the trouble of taking a day out the office you want to make it a good one. Having a good facilitator is all part of making sure you have a successful team away day.
How do you know you have had a successful team away day?
What Directors and Team Leaders commonly look to to measure the success of their away day is feedback.
Feedback either captured at the end of the day or soon after from the participants that came along.
This is of course really valuable and will tell you how people are feeling and what they got from the day. But it will only tell you about the day itself.
It may tell you whether you have got the outputs you said you wanted. Maybe a new vision, some refined values or a prioritised list of new ideas to take forward.
But to really know if you have had a successful team away day you need to think about impact.
Asking some of these questions in the short to medium term will tell you a lot.
- What have we been able to put into practise from the away day?
- What has been the biggest positive change as a result of the team away day?
- How have you changed what you do as a result of the team away day?
- What has helped you to action your plans?
- How have you been able to monitor change?
- If I could have done the day differently, what would I have changed?
- What questions are we still left with?
We always build an impact assessment into the facilitation work we do precisely for that reason. A short questionnaire or even a short session in the near future will tell you a lot.
Also think about things like:
How well did you build next steps and accountability for any carryover of actions into your team away day.
What priorities and actions were defined.
How well formed your commitments were and whether these were acted upon.
And lastly – a bit of a vibe check. How are people feeling 3 months or 6 months on from your team away day?
Keeping it in people’s minds by building in some continuity and check ins is crucial to making sure it was just not a good day out.
If you feel you need help making sure you have a successful Team Away Day, get in touch – we can help right from the start!
Photo by Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash
