Team Building Events
Events that are fun and have a business impact!
Employee Forum Off-Site Event
Challenge:
The leadership team was geographically dispersed. The two small offices were at odds and there was an individual in a leadership position who was creating a toxic environment.
Action:
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As the HR leader for this company, I was collecting employee feedback through multiple avenues— All Hands, Q&As, exit interviews, 121s, department and functional meetings. We had consistently been receiving both positive and constructive feedback from all parts of the business.
We had a low eNPS in 2017 of -25 and an issue with a leader creating a toxic work environment was just coming to a head.
I had my own department’s experience and the individual’s direct reports documented The individual was managing up quite differently to the CEO. Individuals were scared to officially come forward and teams were hesitant to bring their ideas forward or challenge this leader’s directives which seemed to be contrary to the company’s values.
I created a business case for an offsite without management to allow a voice to the team and determine the extent of the toxicity. The COO and I planned and facilitated the event.
We introduced our 1st Annual HF EE Forum. We sent 30% of the non- management team members to a 2 day offsite in Colorado.
Selection criteria was based on the following:
Cross Section of Tenure; All locations represented (office 1, office 2and remote); Cross Functional Team; Good Cultural Ambassadors
Purpose of the two day offsite: To engage team members with a continued focus on building a great company with an enduring culture. Open and honest dialog about areas we must focus on as a fast-growing company.
Goals: Actionable recommendations to create better team member engagement at Health Fidelity. This team will highlight areas of opportunity to support the company’s mission to hire, develop and retain great talent.
Result:
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As suspected the toxicity was affecting most of the team. Three major initiatives came from the employee input and discussions at the offsite.
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No Assholes
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Product Strategy- new process was created for prioritization of product roadmap
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Organization Structure
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Some of the improvements that came out of this event were:
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Let’s not hire assholes! Interview process was reviewed by cross functional team
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Culture interview was introduced
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90-day new hire survey was created
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Addressing toxic behavior
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Since employee forum, people were more willing to come to HR and upper management with issues and ideas
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Created training and presented to company the various paths for conflict resolution and how to escalate concerns including an anonymous whistleblower hotline
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Toxic employee issue was addressed, and individual left the company.
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Company values were brought to the forefront.
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Monthly value awards
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No assholes became a part of our culture and was a guiding post to have open conversations
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We stressed that it was okay to disagree and present different points of view and opinions as this led to innovation. But it must be done in alignment of our values of respect, integrity, teamwork, and accountability without bullying and harassment.
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The company’s Employee NPS increased from -25 to 24.
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Team members got the opportunity to meet face to face - addressing business issues and having fun.
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This event was the catalyst that opened up communication, increased trust and was the foundation of everyone having a voice!
Masergy Communications 2006
Challenge:
CEO was an avid climber. His vision was to take the whole company camping and rock- climbing for a 3 day team-building trip! What?!
Action:
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I am very analytical and logistically focused. I am very good at breaking down the steps of a process and making sure all the necessary steps and stakeholders are involved. I created a project plan, a budget and aggressive timeline.
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In great detail I planned out the schedule and the logistics of 100 people in 10 teams. Logistics included senior team and director presentations, water, food, transportation, rest rooms considerations, first aid and emergency care.
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Team were strategically created to mix the team up with employees that normally did not work together. We also designated team leads outside the management team to develop our upcoming leaders.
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We had team leads training in wilderness first aid and climbing basics at the local indoor gym.
Result:
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For Masergy’s all company 3 day off site meeting in 2006, we took 100 employees semi-primitive camping in Lawton , Oklahoma at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. In addition to 3 nights of semi-primitive camping we took employees on a 2 hour hike in which the activities included team building, climbing and rappelling.
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Masergy was based in TX with 25% of our team remote. This experience bonded employees with employees outside their normal teams and departments.
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We recieved positive results in the post event survey, 8 out of 10 thought it was the best. Camping was not for everyone! The only injury was a sprained ankle on the night hike to watch the shooting stars.
