The Benefits of Destination Events
Hosting destination events is one way to bring a team together…and it’s a win-win for everyone
Whether employees are back in the office or still working remotely, destination events can offer them much more than weekly, daily or hourly Zoom calls can. This is especially true now that COVID has begun to wane, which has allowed people to travel more frequently and with fewer worries.
This post-pandemic landscape (well, approaching post pandemic) has made destination events, whether in locations such as Greater Fort Lauderdale, Florida and elsewhere, increasingly popular for more than a few organizations. Although they may not be up to pre-pandemic levels of popularity, the ability for companies, their managers and their employees to turn away from the same old same old—no matter for how long—can be invaluable.
These events are known for boosting morale, creating vitally important personal collaborative interactions and improving worker satisfaction rates across the company, all of which lead to improved core-mission productivity.
And this is no small matter, especially given that:
- Ninety-five percent of executives are concerned about retaining their key employees, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers
- Forty-seven percent of top performers are currently looking for other jobs, as discovered by Leadership IQ
- One-in-three employees, as reported by MetLife Employee Benefit Trends, are feeling dissatisfied and disloyal, to the point of hoping to be working elsewhere in the next 12 months
Those impacts are obviously bad for business, as turnover rates increase and the filling of vacant positions with qualified personnel becomes increasingly difficult. And this doesn’t even factor in the high costs associated with new-worker onboarding, training and benefits.
Indeed, employees now more than ever have increasing opportunities to test the waters elsewhere, especially if that elsewhere offers flexible perks such as destination events. After all, the grass can actually be greener on the other side—and many employees are eager to hop the fence to get there.
Simply put, these are all bottom-line issues. For instance, losing someone’s detailed institutional knowledge can be devastating for both ongoing and upcoming company initiatives, wreaking havoc on scheduled project milestones and pushing completion calendars further and further out. The only organizations that benefit from this are company competitors.
That said, businesses can rethink their old ways of thinking to keep their momentum moving in positive directions. For instance, destination events can:
- Increase productivity, particularly in informal situations
- Improve employee connectivity, bonding and team building, even when employees are from different departments or disciplines
- Decrease feelings of isolation that can reduce productivity by up to 21 percent
- Boost creativity, inspiration and satisfaction, as well as increase employee motivation and loyalty
So even if the event is at a hotel across the street or in another city and state entirely. For instance, Greater Fort Lauderdale has a plethora of team-building activities (the Fort Lauderdale Water Taxi or airboat rides in the Everglades) and venues (the Museum of Discovery & Science & AutoNation IMAX or the Bonnet House Museum & Gardens). There are few reasons to not get out of the old-timey confines of the office (traditional or otherwise) and lessen dependence on the electric tether of video conferencing. (Many online meetings are unnecessary anyway, and employees often consider them time-wasting nuisances.)
To some, destination events may sound wasteful, because they’re perceived as being too expensive to plan and manage and simply an opportunity for employees to turn worktime into playtime. But this is mere speculation, at least until companies begin seriously considering the good that can come out destination events.
But as of now, many employers simply don’t recognize that the seemingly non-tangible benefits of destination events are instead tangible in many ways. Indeed, they can result in significant bottom-line business advantages that pay for themselves over time by, for example, not only improving employee productivity, but also encouraging out-of-the-cubical, out-of-the-Zoom-screen-box creative thinking; improving employee morale and company loyalty; and lessening employee feelings of burnout and isolation (very real issues). Indeed, destination-event benefits can result in faster-time-to-market advantages at lower operating costs.
If a company wants to experience this, it needs to define the goals of its destination events, recognize the events’ importance to its employees and itself, and pick host locations that offer more than meeting room space. Indeed, chosen locations should have great off-hours venues, restaurants and activities, which will further enhance your employees’ comradery, team-building goals, creative and inspired thinking, and their feelings of their value within their organizations, which in turn encourages company loyalty.
Sure, the planning and management of destination events may sound to some as being fiscally irresponsible or productivity wasters. But simply forcing people back into their cubicles and online video meetings doesn’t take into consideration the dramatic changes that have recently taken place in overall business operations.
And given the decrease in job satisfaction and company loyalty many employees express, companies need to rethink how they can hold onto their best and brightest so they can avoid major business disruptions. They can do this in part by eschewing their age-old and out-of-date ways of managing their workers in favor of more contemporary retention efforts that meet or exceed the higher expectations people have in terms of their work/life balance.
Don’t forget hosting destination events is one way to begin doing this. And it’s a win-win for everyone.
Related content:
Planning a Business Event? Consider Greater Fort Lauderdale [Video]