We all remember those company events where you start with an ice breaker and go around the room giving one fun fact about yourself to help everyone learn more about each other and start “team bonding,” right?
Yeah, that’s exactly what we didn’t do. Upsourced held its 2022 All Hands event this month in Dayton, Ohio. The team rented out a cool Airbnb space (pictures below) big enough to host all 20+ of us for the day! What do we do at our All Hands? We talk a little business and highlight the successes of the year; we work through exercises to see how we can improve the company, but, most importantly, we hang out and have fun. This year we played a giant game of salad bowl, followed by rooftop happy hour and a Dayton Dragons game! (Followed by a bit of an after party, too, of course).
These types of events are key to building real trust between you and your coworkers. A lot of us only see each other face to face a few times a year, but we’re communicating daily over Slack channels. We’ve all been there when you get that “ok” message and you’re sitting there like “okay was that ‘ok.’ an ‘okay!’, ‘okay.’, or meant like the dreaded ‘k.’”?! Tone can often be misread, and that can lead to tension. This is why it’s important to set apart time for everyone to get to know each other and build rapport with each other, rather than leaving everyone guessing all the time. Our team took this to the next level by taking a communication style quiz to help us learn how to best communicate with each other, alleviating some of that gray area.
All work and no play? Try all play and little work. That’s what these events are designed for. Throughout this day of company fun, many inside jokes were created, lots of laughs were had, and lots of friendships were either built or strengthened. Having such strong relationships between team members leads to better work.
We get it; not everyone has the budget to fly their team out to Hawaii for a weeklong extravaganza. You’d be surprised the impact one day has, though. It’s okay to pump the breaks for a day and focus on your internal team and their needs. Wondering what kind of budget your agency has for these types of events? Maybe you want quarterly events to bring your team together; is that sustainable for you? Let us answer these questions for you. Everyone deserves to make room in the budget for some fun!