What are the Benefits of Hosting a Team Event or Conference?

Events are a great way to bring the team together but it can feel like there’s a mountain to climb when it comes to organising them. You may be looking to organise an event, but are facing objections from team members. In this article, we’ll be explaining the benefits of hosting an event for your team or a conference, and exactly why it’s crucial to host one in this day and age. 

Up to 94% of ALL communication is non-verbal

According to a surprising statistic by Dr Mehrabian in the 1960s’ (yes - it’s not a new stat!), between 70% and 94% of all communication is non-verbal. But why is that relevant to hosting a team event or conference? 

Well, currently 16% of UK businesses are operating fully remote. Around 62% of employees say they work remotely on a regular basis. These figures are only set to rise. This means that workers are not meeting up face to face in the way that they used to. We can wave goodbye to coffee machine chats or water cooler conversations. When we’re working remotely all of our communication is done verbally, with the exception of video chats, of course. 

Why is that a problem? Technically, it’s not a problem. Remote working is the new normal, and it works for many companies, in fact, it’s shown a lot of advances in terms of employee wellbeing and work-life balance, but it does mean that your team may be lacking up to 94% of the communication they would be having if they worked from the office. 

So what can you do about that? Hosting an event is the perfect way to bring your team together to connect on a different level. Hiring a motivational speaker that engages the audience, offering interactive activities and inspiring collaboration allows the team to really communicate in ways they may not have spoken before. It gives employees, who may have never even met each other in real life, an opportunity to get to know one another more effectively, thus building stronger and more meaningful relationships and better results for your business.

Team events build stronger relationships 

If you’ve ever worked in or managed a team, you’ll know that it’s not plain sailing all of the time. Building a team means bringing people together from different backgrounds with different views, behaviours, and perspectives. This is a great thing for a more innovative organisation, however, when opposites clash, it can create friction and cliques within your team. That costs the business time and money. You’ll often find that there is friction between departments, which ultimately can come down to behaviour types. 

Hosting a team event means bringing your whole team together, under one roof. It encourages collaboration with individuals they wouldn’t ordinarily work with and gives them an opportunity to repair and work on those broken bridges they may have with certain members of the team.

This of course may require some slight encouragement, so a motivational speaker can open up those difficult conversations for you, and help individuals to understand others’ perspectives. An interactive activity, especially focused on a prioritisation technique or behaviour styles can help departments to connect and understand why disputes may be arising. 

Team events can help to reinforce a key message 

For some, change is an opportunity to grow and try something different, they find it exciting. But for a lot of people, change is scary and something they will not embrace. However, change is vital in an organisation, and it is important to get buy-in from every team member to reduce friction and create better results for the business. 

Often, organisations will go about implementing change in the wrong way. They might send a long blanket email or make an announcement in a Friday afternoon meeting where only half of the team members have shown up.

If you are looking to make a large organisational change, an event can help you get the message across and highlight the benefits to each and every employee on an individual level. When an employee is at an event, they have already made a conscious effort to show up. They are likely to be more receptive and show a willingness to learn and understand. 

A motivational speaker can also help you to reinforce your key message. They can offer an outside perspective to help employees understand why accepting and embracing change is important for organisational growth and personal growth.

Team events can strengthen skills 

Some people can become set in their ways after being at an organisation for a long period of time. Things that they would have prioritised at the start of their employment tumble down to the bottom of the list, and skills that were previously sharpened to perfection have gone by the wayside. The truth is, we never actually lose those skills, it’s just that our attitude towards progression changes. 

Hosting a team event can help to reinvigorate that ‘first-day mindset’ that your team once had, allowing them to understand the importance of developing themselves professionally and personally, and encouraging them to develop an agile approach. 

Hiring a motivational speaker can ensure that the message you are looking to put across to your audience is delivered correctly with actionable takeaways they can implement straight away. 

Overall there are many benefits to hosting a team event or a conference, bringing your team together and allowing you to recharge and reinvigorate your team whilst inspiring innovative thinking. 

Now that you know what an event will bring to your team, why not check out one of our other blogs or get in touch to see what Alison Edgar can bring to your event?