The summer weather encourages people to leave the house and go outside. Picnics and barbecues are excellent team-building events for any workplace. Considering that coworkers are ranked as the number one element that employees like about their jobs, summers are the best season to plan team-building activities and help employees connect and interact with each other.
Planning a company picnic can get strenuous, with most stress rooted in forgetting or not planning. To avoid such situations, there are certain must-haves that you should check off your list.
1. Choose a Venue and Date
The very first step is to find a suitable location for your business picnic. Choose a location that is conveniently accessible to all participants and away from crowded and busy areas. That way, everyone can relax and unwind after a long day.
Some popular choices for deciding upon a venue include:
- Park
- Campground
- High rise rooftop
- Community Center
- Outdoor banquet center
- Restaurant patio
Once you’ve chosen a location, decide on the best dates to maximize attendance. However, you might not always get the desired date and time since influential factors such as venue availability, weekends, work pressure, or family issues can intervene.
2. Decide Upon a Theme
While a theme isn’t required for a workplace picnic, it can help structure and influence practically all planning decisions, as well as make the event look more coherent. Decide on a picnic theme based on a location, activity, or event.
- Carnival: A carnival theme is ideal when planning a kid-friendly picnic. The choice of food can be corndogs and funnel cakes. You might also invest in fun games and activities like inflatable bouncy castles, ring toss, and other carnival themed activities.
- Caribbean: A Caribbean-themed company picnic could include tropical decor and regional food. You could add shrimp and spiced meats over rice and veggies to the menu, paired with fruit and tropical drinks.
- Mardi Gras: If your company picnic is not kid-friendly, Mardi Gras can an excellent choice. Offer New Orleans-inspired food items such as beignets and jambalaya. You could also add alcoholic beverages and music to your event.
- Beach Party: This theme can be either kid-friendly or adults-only. A beach picnic is excellent for people seeking a relaxing atmosphere. Simple food items such as hamburgers, hot dogs, and sandwiches might be on the menu, with beach volleyball being a pleasant sport.
No matter the theme, you should set up some step & repeats and custom vinyl banners. Your employees can take pictures and share on social media. This approach can help promote your business economically and while your employees can get fun photos from your themed picnic.
3. Hire Event Planners
Planning a family picnic does not require external expertise; however, if your company is involved, there would be a larger attendance, and thus, you would need an event planner. Event planners can help you stand out by delivering meticulous arrangements and saving time.
They also take care of all necessary installations, such as tables and canopies. Event planners coordinate on their behalf with vendors to ensure the smooth functioning of the picnic based on your theme, objectives, and budget.
4. Catering Services
Company picnics can have large attendances; hence, you require catering services to serve food and drinks. This is a must no matter whether the venue is a hotel, park, bar, or any other place. Catering services provide a delightful food presentation displayed on beautiful table covers arranged by them.
Catering services are a great way to save time and alleviate the stress of arranging food items, purchasing ingredients, cleaning up, and other factors. Besides that, you receive delightful food presentations, varied cuisine choices, and menus customized to everyone’s preferences.
5. Seating Arrangements
Some company picnics leave tables open, providing everyone the freedom to choose where to sit. However, if you wish to promote inter-departmental collaboration, make seating arrangements so that people from different departments are seated at the same table. To encourage collaboration between departments, develop arrangements depending on each employee’s job function.
When everyone arrives at the site, clearly identify their seating arrangements. For this task, you can display a seating chart or use small tokens with each employee’s name and associated table number.
6. Entertain your Attendees
Entertainment activities also provide a solid structure to your company picnic and create a pleasant ambiance. When choosing entertainment activities, keep your theme in mind and the type of mood you want to achieve.
For example, if your event is western-themed, having a rodeo playing country music along with western dancing would be a good option. Some popular entertainment ideas include:
- Live band
- Hula dancers
- Magician
- Rodeo
- DJ
- Outdoor movie theater
- Balloon animals
- Pony rides
7. Goal-Based Games and Activities
Activities and games add a cheerful vibe to company picnics and boost interaction. Decide upon games and challenges depending on your picnic goals and attendees. For instance, if you wish to promote collaboration, include more team-building exercises.
Here are some more ideas to help you decide:
- Slip n slide
- Tug of war
- Sack race
- Art contest
- Scavenger hunt
- Toss golf challenge
- Egg on a spoon race
- Horseshoes
- Mad libs
8. Establish Ground Rules
Be open about event arrangements and inform your employees about what to expect to avoid any last-minute conflicts. This approach also ensures compliance with local laws and venue rules. Some key factors that you must account for when establishing ground rules include:
- Whom to invite? (spouses, kids, etc.)
- Will there be alcoholic drinks served?
- What should attendees bring with them?
- Is participation in activities and games mandatory?
- What is the time or arrival and closing of the event?
Final Words
Company picnics are crucial for any business looking to boost employee morale and promote healthy collaboration. Picnics are an excellent way to provide low-key fun for everyone to socialize with each other outside of work. To promote team-building activities and keep things interesting, plan fun games and activities that include teamwork and help you accomplish your employees getting to know each other more.
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