Everything you need to know about corporate events

Does your workplace need to shake things up a bit? Or have you already marked your calendar and set a date for your next company event - but are struggling to come up with activities or ideas? Whether you're planning a party or a team building session, read on as Officeguru guides you to your next corporate event. As a party organizer, you'll get ideas for fun company events, and you can read more about why it's important as a manager or HR manager to invest in team building and company events.

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Create unity with team building or a corporate event

Over the past few years, many companies have realized the positive benefits of team building because it helps to increase unity and camaraderie in the workplace as well as productivity and efficiency. With team building or a corporate event, you can create unity and teamwork among the entire organization, across teams, departments and/or across the ranks of the company.

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The difference between team building and corporate events

In essence, there isn't much difference between team building and corporate events, but while team building primarily focuses on creating better cohesion among employees and improving teamwork skills, a corporate event can be a more festive event with a greater focus on building closer relationships and having a good time.

Team building

Create unity
‍Team building often focuses on creating unity and challenging employees with exercises in cooperation across genders, roles, positions, etc. For example, you can let your employees solve complicated tasks together, or you can challenge them with collaborative games that ultimately strengthen them both on an individual, group and team level.

Strengthen collaboration across the organization
Team building is a great way to get employees or the entire organization to get to know each other a little better. For example, team building allows you to include many different departments in the company and move workplace relationships into a new and different context. Here, employees from the finance department and employees from the communications department can get to know each other better and learn how to collaborate across their departments‍.

The benefits of team building
‍Many people find team building overwhelming - and sometimes even a bit anxiety-provoking - but it usually ends up being a great experience for everyone involved. Team building forces your employees to work together, and when a difficult task is solved, it will give the group a sense of unity, confidence and belief in each other.

This sense of team spirit, unity and belief in each other is something employees can take back to the workplace. The collaborative exercises and the tools, tools and things they have learned in team building will help them approach tasks in new ways and see things from different perspectives - something that will strengthen the company in many ways.

Become more effective - together
‍In addition to cohesion, team building also helps to promote each other's strengths and weaknesses. This will also be something your employees can take back to the workplace, making it easier for you all to solve complicated tasks together. From team building, they will have learned who is good at what and you can more easily delegate tasks between you.

Employees will also be able to strengthen their various collaborations because they have already overcome difficult challenges together in team building. In addition, having fun, exciting and educational experiences together will create happiness and a good mood, which is reflected in overall job satisfaction in the office. By making use of team building once in a while, the whole company will experience improved workflows, productivity and increased efficiency.

Company event

Build relationships with your shoulders back
‍A company event can focus on team building, but typically the focus will be more on building relationships outside of work. This is the perfect opportunity to let your employees get to know each other better, while creating a great atmosphere and space to talk and socialize on a more relaxed and less professional level. Employees can let go of the reins a little and put their shoulders down.

A corporate event doesn't just have to be a Christmas party
‍A corporate event can consist of many different things. It can be a classic Christmas party where you eat good food, drink delicious drinks and dance late into the night, but it can also be in the form of fun activities that also contribute to building good relationships between colleagues. Maybe you're going out to play mini golf? Or a beer tasting? Or maybe your corporate event should consist of other activities - you can read more about that further down the page.

Corporate events with depth and educational content
‍A corporate event can, as mentioned, be more than just fun and games and instead focus on team building and better teamwork. It can also be an exciting lecture, a trip to a museum or an entertaining theater performance that gives employees something to think about. However, it's often beneficial for most people to have the opportunity to catch up with colleagues afterwards over a bite to eat or a drink.

Why are company events so important?
‍Educational and/or fun company events are important because they increase job satisfaction and the general atmosphere in the office. It's nice for most employees in a workplace to be able to take a break from the serious and important stuff and instead spend some time with colleagues to talk about something other than work. Company events and team building are great ways to build relationships between your employees and can lead to great new collaborations across the board - and maybe even new friendships.

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Fun company events make for happy employees

When you as a team leader, HR manager or director invest in fun company events for your employees, it creates happy and efficient employees. It's a form of employee benefit that is festive and that most employees will typically look forward to. It also contributes to a good sense of community and collaboration between employees and helps create a fun and pleasant working environment where employees thrive.


Read more about job satisfaction here.

Corporate event ideas: team building, party or the ideal combo?

It can be difficult to find the right activities for a corporate event or team building. That's why we've put together some ideas for corporate events and team building to inspire you as an organizer.

Ideas for team building:

Escape RooM
‍Do you and your colleagues - or your employees -need to be challenged and solve puzzles and mysteries? Usually it's about getting out of an escape room within an hour. This means using your logical, creative and solution-oriented skills - not to mention your ability to cooperate. In most places, you can get a recording of how well the group did, and this can be used to look back on how you solved the difficult challenges together. This is team building that can be analyzed afterwards.

Orienteering
‍An orienteering race is an opportunity to get outdoors with colleagues. Often you are divided into smaller groups, which is ideal if you want to try to create more cohesion between different departments. And then it's off you go and around to different stations with fun activities. There are many different companies that offer guided and customized orienteering courses.

Pentathlon
‍This combines both team building and competition, which is a great way to engage the team. The team must be good at utilizing each other's skills, strengths and weaknesses. The pentathlon can consist of different activities that you either come up with yourself or get help from a company that offers guided team building.

‍Seminar/meeting in beautiful natural surroundings
‍Teambuilding can also be in the form of a seminar or meeting where you give presentations to each other or do activities of your own devising. A good idea is to find a place where you can stay overnight in a scenic area. That way you can go for some good walks, get some fresh air and maybe have a nightcap together because you don't have to drive home in the evening.

‍Gastronomy team building ‍

Do you need to learn how to make a mega delicious dish? Maybe help each other put together a wonderful meal that you even get to enjoy together afterwards? Then gastronomic teambuilding might be for you. It's a great opportunity to work together and take home some great tips for your own kitchen.

Ideas and activities for corporate events:

Game tournaments
‍Mine golf? Table tennis match? Table soccer? Regular soccer? The possibilities are endless and the only limit is your imagination. If it's a workplace or office event, consider a chess tournament, a bingo night or something else where you compete against each other.

‍MEGA foosball
‍We just mentioned foosball - but what about MEGA foosball, also called human foosball? Here you act as the foosball players yourselves, which makes for a challenging and fun corporate event where the laughter muscles will definitely be put to use.

Wine/beer tasting
‍If everyone in a team drinks beer/wine/alcohol, wine or beer tasting can be a fun activity for a corporate event. If some people don't drink alcohol, it's also possible in many places to serve non-alcoholic beer, for example. However, be careful not to exclude any employees/colleagues.

Music quiz
‍Musicquiz can be both a feature of a corporate event or the "foundation" of a corporate event, and it can either be something you do as a company somewhere out on the town at a bar or café, or you can hold a music quiz in the office on a Friday afternoon with some snacks and delicious drinks or good beer.

‍Party, party, party
‍This is one of the easier and more obvious ideas for a corporate event - on the other hand, it almost always spreads joy and good fellowship between employees. Whether it's a Christmas party, a summer party, a cozy Friday bar, a fun theme party or something completely different, a party is usually a company event that everyone loves. You can hire a photographer or a photo booth to take fun pictures, or you can play fun party games to create unity while you party and have fun.

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What should you be aware of before organizing a corporate event or team building day?

It's important that you consider everyone who will be attending your corporate event or team building day. Among other things, it's a good idea to get an overview of how your employees' or colleagues' health is, or if anyone in the team has special needs or anything else. For example, if you have both younger and older employees or colleagues, it's important to invite them to a company event or teambuilding session where everyone can participate. If there are older people who aren't doing so well, or if you have employees or colleagues who are pregnant, you might want to consider a pentathlon/orienteering race and beer/wine tasting respectively.

If a corporate event or team building session is to be truly successful, it's crucial that everyone feels they can participate and that there's room for them. Otherwise, it can have the opposite effect of what you actually want with the initiative and purpose of your corporate event or team building day. It can be difficult to accommodate everyone, and if it's impossible to organize a company event because there are so many considerations or needs to be met, consider splitting it up a bit more - alternatively, talk to those who may not be able to participate at the same level as the others and ask them if they are okay with only participating in some of the activities.