The Show Must Go On: Never Cancel a Corporate Team Building Activity

As I write this post, I’ve just come home late from a goodbye dinner with friends; one is moving away, one is just getting settled into married life, and me, well- my wife is 9 months pregnant, so I’m about to go off the grid for a while. I’m tired, wiped out from a full day of planning our NYC corporate team building activities – all I want to do is curl up with a crossword puzzle, then drift off to sleep next to my gorgeous wife.

But you know what? There’s still work to be done – so back to the desk I go!

That’s the attitude you’ve got to take if it’s fallen on you to plan an event for your staff – be it a holiday party, employee team building event or other corporate entertainment function. Following the economic meltdown of 2008, lots of companies unfortunately had to tighten their belts, and in-house event planners, recruiters and employee liaison folks were among the first to be let go. The role of planning and producing employee entertainment activities was suddenly dropped into the laps of many unsuspecting HR staff, office managers and business owners like you, who already have their hands full.

Especially in this volatile economy, it is so easy to duck behind the excuses of “I was too tired,” “I was too busy” or “It just snuck up on me” for explaining why the fun event you’d hoped to give your hard-working employees failed to materialize. Your staff has been working like gangbusters under the most stressful of conditions; if you’ve committed to rewarding them with an activity, event or other form of group bonding, you owe it to them to see it through.

If you cancel a planned corporate team building event, what kind of message does that send? It says loud and clear that you aren’t as interested in your staff’s happiness, effectiveness and well-being as you claimed to be. There are of course always exceptions to the rule, but unless you’ve got a genuinely valid reason, you should make every effort to ensure your employee entertainment event goes on as planned.