When it comes time to make sure that all employees are up to date on training and company policy, it might be tempting to just gather everyone into the conference room.
It would be easy to create a dry speech with information overload that causes everyone’s eyes to glass over. This year consider taking everyone off-site to spend some time learning together. Each person spends a lot of time within his or her workspace and taking a break can be beneficial.
Your first concern might be financial and that makes sense. However, this doesn’t have to be a costly trip out of the state or even out of town. Group together in a new setting. It might be a local park that gets everyone out of the office and into a new environment. Go ahead and give them a day away from the office dress code. You’ll be surprised at how many participants look forward to sitting through a meeting in their Nike Clothes. Sometimes change is good.
If the office can completely shut down for the day, or even a few hours, you are providing all employees a chance to see each other in a new way. You may find that some are more willing to speak up and present new ideas or questions that they have been meaning to talk about.
Everyone is still going to learn and you are going to get your point across. But this time when you send out an email for the latest corporate meeting, you may find the people begin to get excited about the idea instead of the usual grumbling and complaining.
