Yet in the past 6 months we have sold significantly fewer.
This is because teambuilding is changing.
Whilst motivating and developing teams is perhaps now - more than ever - a vital element of surviving and succeeding in a recession - people need to feel that they are doing something that is more justifiable - financially and emotionally.
We are seeing many more clients looking for shorter, more strategic interventions that tie into other activities - such as management meetings, off-sites, training days etc.
Clients are nervous that they will be deemed to be 'wasting' money if they fritter it on activities that have no direct action outputs or immediate and identifiable returns.
One continuing trend is a move towards CSR based activities which satisfies the head, the heart and often the budget.
Budget is another big issue - whilst the quantity of enquiries we receive is only slightly down - the budgets are significantly down. For some - this is as a result of mandates that have been handed down from on high effectively telling team leaders to continue doing exactly as they did before but spend no money (the phrase 'champagne taste - lemonade money ' springs to mind.)
In response to all this we have developed a number of team based activities that can last one hour, half day, full day - whatever is required. They are designed specifically to require little or no set up and little or no specialist equipment - thus keeping the charges down to simply our facilitation fees (which in line with the market we have of course reduced.)
To help you get maximum value from your next team development activities here is a checklist:
- Be clear about your objectives before you send out a brief
- Have an idea of what budget you can make available and share this information with your suppliers
- Try and avoid D.I.Y - recession or not team-building is a specialist area best dealt with by specialists.
- If budgets are tight - it is better to do team-building events less frequently but do them properly than to try and save money. A badly conceived or badly executed team event has exactly the opposite effect to one that is well planned, well conceived and well executed.
- Get competitive quotes from at least three suppliers but remember to give feedback to those you decide not to work with
- See if the costs can be shared with other internal cost centres - ie. marketing, sales, training etc...
- Make sure you get feedback after the activity to guage how it was received and what you can do better next time
- Make sure it is Fun. No matter how serious the message, the rationale or the reason for doing it - there is little enough fun in business now.
- Be bold - Look for things that will inspire, delight, ignite!.
