Smart and fun staff days – start by thinking about these things

Recreation day, Work Wellbeing Day, staff day, staff party… A beloved child has many names. Call it whatever you like, as long as you organise it. The most fun is if you come up with a name for the day that describes your team and organisation. Something that, as a name, groups the staff together. It can come from the organisation’s main image, brand, values or even an inside joke that has become a flying joke in the workplace coffee room.

Staff day as a promoter of well-being and work ability – how?

‘Work Wellbeing Day’ refers to a workplace wellbeing day, while ‘Work Ability Promotion Day’ refers to a day focused on supporting and promoting employees’ work ability. The fact is that every staff day should be a day that promotes and strengthens well-being at work and work capacity. To be precise, well-being at work and capacity for work should be supported on every working day, and on special days we should just celebrate the fact that we are such a great organisation. Well-being at work, like any well-being, is not built or strengthened by just one or ten special days each year, but the role of special days is simply to reinforce and celebrate the continuous operating model that can be seen and felt in the organisation’s operations and in the motivation, commitment and results of its staff every single day. Note this: staff days are NOT a substitute for well-being at work on other days of the year, just as vitamin tablets are not a substitute for a healthy lifestyle. However, these staff days are an integral part of good staff management, and an organisation that knows its value will never compromise on them, knowing that it would be compromising its most valuable resource, its staff, and this will be reflected in the rapid and severe loss of skilled staff to competitors.

The best thing is to organise your own staff days 2-4 times a year. Once a year may not be enough to build and strengthen a sense of belonging, and more than five times a year may lead to events that no longer feel unique, and at worst even disruptive.

Each of these 2-4 times must have a clear purpose. If you organise two staff events a year, it is natural that one is a Christmas party, while the other is scheduled in late spring or early summer, when everyone has had a long spring and is longing for a refreshing break, but before the holiday season starts. So this second one should be a light summer party or a day of recreation. If you can, you can add a training day, a visit to a partner’s premises, a skiing trip or participation in a trade fair to the autumn or spring. An alternative to the latter is to decide to be the brand leader of your sector and, instead of participating, take the initiative and organise a trade fair or seminar day in your sector yourself. Take it to the next level and combine a ski day for your own staff with an industry trade fair, bringing your entire industry together for a couple of days of refreshment and networking.

Who organizes and who celebrates? A staff day requires time allocation

The reality that organisations often face is that organising all the staff days in the world takes up quite a lot of resources. A secretary, management assistant, human resources department or a designated recreation day committee spends a considerable amount of time brainstorming, planning, researching, commissioning and building these days for the whole team. The amount of work involved in all this is considerably greater than managers are probably aware. You have to book the right space and negotiate the price, calculate how much time you need to set up and break down the event, plan the programme and find performers to fit the theme and budget, come up with ideas and get the decorations to look good, organise the catering and fit the alcohol into the budget.

Here, professional event organisers are the solution that pays off. There is no need to worry about the cost of hiring an event producer or ordering turnkey arrangements directly from an event agency. That cost is recouped firstly in the fact that these secretaries or committees can concentrate on their real work and secondly in the fact that you have access to the event organiser’s pre-negotiated partnerships for everything from artists to decoration and party facilities. The end result of this decision will also be high quality and efficient, and all staff will be able to focus on the party, including those secretaries. Often, help in organising the event can be obtained directly from the venue, or through them you can book an event producer they know and trust, who is familiar with the venue.

Now just plan the most suitable staff day combo for your workplace!