Team building remains one of the most positive ways of driving your business forward, both in terms of developing a stronger team ethic and improving individual employee performance. Creating the ideal experience for your staff is a challenging past time, however, especially given the prevailing economic condition.
Creative thinking is therefore key to creating the ideal team building event, as this will ensure that your employees are effectively challenged within the confines of a stringent budget. For those of you with relatively small teams of staff, it may even be worth pushing the boundaries of possibility and arranging a team building event abroad.
Team Building Abroad: 3 Steps to Planning an Affordable Experience
The cost of international travel has fallen considerably in recent times, and this has made overseas team building an increasingly viable activity. By challenging your employees within a new and invigorating environment, you also have the opportunity to forge even more effective team bonds. Before you plan your team building event, however, you will need to keep the following points in mind: –
1. Source Viable and Affordable Locations
The world is a vast and increasingly diverse space, and the international team building industry has grown significantly since the turn of the century. As a result, it is important to brainstorm several creative team building ideas as a starting point, before identifying the locations where these plans can be implemented. The next task is to determine which resorts are the most affordable, before finalizing an itinerary and making formal bookings. By following this process, you can minimize financial costs while still bringing a your vision into reality.
2. Strike the Balance Between Aspiration and Affordability
During the brain storming session, it is crucial that your employees play a proactive and creative role. After all, there is little point in holding a team building event if its attendees are not motivated by the premise, especially if they are forced to travel abroad. As a business leader, however, you must also ensure that you do not overspend on the project and strike a balance between aspiration and affordability. Given that some international regions are cheaper to travel to than others, it may be worth deciding on a broad list of activities and then identifying affordable locations that have the capacity to host them.
3. Make Savings on Non-Crucial Aspects of the Event
The key to saving money is prioritizing, and this can be easily applied when organizing a team building event. In this instance, the individual challenges that your staff engage in are the most important aspect of the trip, and the majority of the budget should be committed to delivering the most complete experience. You should therefore look to save on the cost of flights and accommodation, especially if you are planning short trips or weekend breaks away. For smaller business on a particularly small budget, this thought process can make the different between a good event and a spectacular one.
The Last Word
Given the diminishing cost and increasing diversity of international team building activities, now is the ideal time to book an overseas experience. That said, it is still important that you invest a great deal of time into the planning stage, and solicit the opinion of your employees at the earliest opportunity. These steps will enable you to create an affordable and rewarding experience for your staff, with a view to driving your business forward in 2013.
