Corporate Events are high stakes events where, if things go wrong, they could go pretty wrong quickly and could cost the organisation, dearly. As a Human Resource Manager, you will find this to be a challenging task. You may want to hire an organiser but still, we feel you need a few precautionary tips to avoid any last minute stress. But before starting to plan, you should go through these 8 Important Questions that need to be Answered Before Planning  Corporate Events.

A nicely organised corporate event can have many benefits. It can get free press, boost employee morale and create marketing buzz. On the other hand, a poorly organised event can have disastrous consequences for the company and cause a lot of distress. To ensure that you give your best shot, let’s look at Corporate Event Planning tips. There are also many psychological tricks to successfully plan an event and keep people engaged, check out this blog on psychological principles for attendee engagement and find out how.

Here are Tips on How to Avoid Stressful Situations while planning Corporate Events

1. Identify Threats before deciding the location of the Venue

It is always a good idea to know what kind of threats you may face. Weather factor is a great concern if your event is an outdoor one. An outdoor event should always be booked with an adjoining indoor space because of the unpredictability of the weather. A corporate event may also face threats such as labour strikes, protests, civil unrest and safety of guests. The planning has to take careful thinking of all these factors.

 

2. Check the Venue in great detail with a Venue Guide

The Venue space has to be checked for how spacious it is, whether the lighting is enough, what the noise levels are and what the condition of the washrooms is. This means that it is imperative to physically go and do reiki of a couple of venues before deciding one. BookEventZ provides a guided tour of its Flagship venues in which you will be explained the details and you can decide what suits you. You can start here.

 

3. Develop Effective Communication lines

You need to find out which mode of communication is the fastest and best-suited to your venues, vendors, events staff and guests. You can also fall back upon the good old email to stay connected, but a lot of people today feel more comfortable using messaging apps. We find Whatsapp groups and email groups to be the best way to do this. The guests can be reminded of the time and venue using a pre-recorded bridge call. Also, Skype group video call can be a time saver as everyone will be able to literally see what the status of the event decorations is. Frequent use of this feature can help last-minute struggles. To improve communication skills amongst your team members, you can have a look at these Super Fun Team Building Activities for Employees at the Workplace. 

4. Keeping the Company’s Vision in Mind

The company organising the event would want to say something about themselves to their employees and the public at large through the event. The Founder or the Director must clearly convey his or her vision as an event is a marketing opportunity in order to avoid giving the wrong message. The Planner needs to understand the what and the how of the marketing position of the company. Again, an effective line of communication can be helpful here by stopping bad ideas from going further at their outset. There are several ways in which you can spread a positive message using your corporate event. For example, you can Plan an Eco-friendly Corporate Event.

5. International/ Out of Station Guests and Clients

Different time zones can delay your event planning to no end. Some developed countries have a strict non-working hours policy, where you won’t be able to get them to respond unless they are at work. But if you build a relationship with them and figure out a comfortable schedule for communication, you can avoid such troubles. Remember, professionalism is the prevention which is way better than the cure.

6. Executing Out of the Box Ideas

Some event related ideas provided by the planning team can be hard to organise. Ideas like entertainers, music bands, dance troupes, circus troupes will make your event even better. But keep in mind that the very best ones are booked a few months back, so make it quick. It’s a good idea to see them at one of their rehearsals and make it clear what the company desires. Also, they might require access to the venue a few days prior to the event, so take that into account. You might also find that some requests are just not deliverable in the given budget/ time frame so know when to decline assertively.

7. Ensure Everyone Who Has Attended Feels like a Winner

Sometimes when Corporate events are on the weekend, the employees might be inclined to skip them or leave early. The cure for this problem is that the employees attending should be given a say in the organisation of the event. For example, you can ask the employees to fill up an anonymous google form with their own best idea for the event. Another way to ensure attendance is to communicate early on about free giveaways or easy to win competitions. Everyone attending should feel like they made the best decision by going there.

8. Give Limited Tickets

One of the biggest challenge before planning any event is figuring out the number of guests attending. If the event is free of cost to attend and you are not sure if the people attending might get a few more guests than expected, make it clear early on by giving limited tickets. This way, even if an important client brings along an extra guest, you won’t run out of space or food. The first step will be to send invitations for the event and record the responses. You can use this free service to create invites.

9. Keep Things Fun!

Guests at corporate often loath long Powerpoint Presentations so try to keep them to a minimum. Delivering the same information in another interesting way can be challenging and more engaging for the audience. Also, the entertainment department has to be up to the mark. You can also go for a themed office party to elevate the fun element.

10. System for Client/Guest Feedback

It is imperative to collect responses about what the clients and attendees felt about the event. You can record video testimonials but the most honest reviews can be collected through an anonymous google form submission.

Remember, the event planning rule, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. So always have plan A, B and C in place. Here are some more tips for organising the perfect corporate party.