7 Essential Elements for Corporate Team-Building Events

Event invites delivered? Check. Physical or virtual venue secured? Check. The actual plan for the event? Well… maybe not everything is ready for your corporate team-building event after all. That’s what a corporate entertainer is for! With decades of experience hosting dozens of corporate events, a corporate entertainer like me knows exactly which bases you need covered.

Fortunately, you don’t need to go crazy planning a team-building event. There are just seven core elements required to turn a corporate occasion from unexciting to unforgettable. Take a look at what you need on your checklist to plan a team-building event attendees will be talking about for months to come. 

1. Tentative Agenda

An agenda is essentially a roadmap for your corporate event. It ensures that all of your anticipated content and workshops are accounted for, and helps keep track of the various moving parts involved with a team-building event. As an event organizer, your agenda should be at the top of your team-building checklist.

However, you’ll notice that I recommend not just any agenda, but a tentative agenda. I say tentative because the best events will always have an element of customization. When you work with a corporate entertainer such as myself, you can customize your agenda to not only fit the needs of your company, but also tend to the needs of your attendees.

A custom workflow is also essential if you’re planning a hybrid event. By partnering with a corporate entertainer, you can solidify time slots in your agenda for key workshops and speakers, while also leaving adequate room for in-person entertainment and engagement with virtual attendees. 

2. Unique Workshops 

Company events are a time for employees and leadership alike to break away from their routine 9-5. So, why bore attendees with mundane activities they’ve done time and time again? The entire purpose of your corporate team-building event is to get employees out of their normal environment, so be sure to plan for unique workshops in your tentative agenda.

For instance, if you’re a health-oriented group planning a virtual team-building event, dial into a virtual cooking class packed with healthy ingredients. If your event is in-person, aim to get the whole crew over to a ropes course or climbing wall. Team members can work together to problem-solve and share new experiences, making for an enjoyable, out-of-the-box event.

Another unique workshop to take attendees out of their normal routine is Bike Build for Charity. Attendees can work assembly style, constructing brand new bikes that are then donated to local schools or after-school programs. Teams can even take part in physical and mental challenge activities to encourage creative thinking and collaboration (with a touch of competition!).

3. Side-Splitting Entertainment

Of course, no event is complete without entertainment. A corporate entertainer makes sure that your attendees aren’t just smiling politely, but actively laughing and zoning into event material. Laughter is what allows employees and management teams to let their guards down, relax, and treat the event as a true social gathering, rather than another assignment.

To generate laughter at my events, I juggle — apples, bowling balls, while jogging full speed, you name it! I even joggled, or juggled while jogging, for all 26.2 miles of the Disney Marathon. I love to bring that energy to my corporate entertainment to get attendees out of their seats and into the moment. 

Even better, I focus on all clean humor, so no guests are ever offended or embarrassed while I’m entertaining. Though I can’t guarantee your employees will be expert jugglers, I can guarantee that a corporate entertainer like me will keep them engaged. That leads me straight into the next essential element of corporate team-building: engagement! 

4. Strong Engagement

Engagement is truly what fuels all team-building events, no matter if a company consists of 20 people or 2,000 people. It’s engagement that will foster new connections between employees, and engagement that will support organizational initiatives, such as corporate pillars. If you’re planning a team-building event, it’s safe to say that engagement should be high on your checklist.

The good news is, a corporate entertainer can help guide engagement, either through comedy skits, sourcing questions, or simply interacting with attendees to keep morale high and attention focused. A corporate entertainer can also encourage attendees to engage with one another and those outside of their immediate departments, to create new relationships.

Plus, if your event is virtual or hybrid, a corporate entertainer can also capture the attention of attendees at home. By hopping into the chat room or hosting the live stream, an entertainer can easily engage all attendees, not just those physically in the room. 

5. Flexible Schedule

Now that you have a tentative agenda planned and have secured workshops, entertainment, and engagement, it’s time to visualize the schedule for your corporate-team building event. The most important thing to remember when organizing blocks of time for speakers and activities is to ensure your schedule is flexible. 

Think of it this way: There will be times when you plan for a one-hour segment, in which 40 minutes will be dedicated to a workshop or speaker and just 10 or 15 minutes are allocated to entertainment. There will also be times when a speaker only presents for half of their designated one-hour slot, and your corporate entertainer will need to fill in the gaps.

Ideally, you want to be able to dedicate time where you see fit, and you might not be able to predict that while mapping your agenda. So, just be sure to leave some wiggle room in your schedule to allow for hallway track, watercooler chats, or people to attend to their business, and your corporate entertainer can fill in the gaps. 

Though there’s no magic formula of how much time should be allocated to what, your schedule should simply work best for your team and for your event goals. Aim to leave a few flexible, 20-minute gaps to account for the natural flow of the event, and a corporate entertainer will do the rest.

6. Personalized Swag

When employees leave your corporate team-building event, you want them to return home with more than just memories. That’s what swag is for! Whether it’s a water bottle, comfy threads, or something to relieve stress, swag is an easy way to let employees know you’re thankful they’re part of the team. And if you partner with a corporate entertainer, you can even leverage their network to receive personalized swag perfect for your event. 

For example, since I often juggle at corporate events, I can source branded juggling balls or stress balls for my event partners. If balls aren’t your thing, we can even create custom socks that are ideal for juggling (or just keeping everyone’s feet toasty!). In other words, your corporate entertainer can be your one-stop-shop for both skits and swag. 

7. Abandon the Comfort Zone 

Last but not least, the final element in an unforgettable corporate team-building event is the ability to get your attendees out of their comfort zone. Whether you engage employees in a Bike Build workshop or ropes course, or have them try their hand at juggling, what’s most important is that you break the ice with something fun and different. 

There’s power in the visual of all employees abandoning their comfort zone to try something new. Everyone embraces the learning curve together, essentially forcing team members to think creatively. While it might not appear that something like juggling can lead to company innovation, you’d be amazed at the results that occur when organizations exit their comfort zone and tackle a new activity together. 

Are You Missing a Corporate Entertainer for Your Team-Building Event?

A corporate entertainer does more than simply work the crowd. Through the power of laughter and engagement, a corporate entertainer can completely elevate your team-building event to get attendees out of their element and deeper into the organization. If you’re currently planning a corporate event, but don’t have a corporate entertainer, now is the time to find your perfect partner.

With a 10-year run on the Las Vegas Strip as a Headliner with Caesars Entertainment under my belt, and an Entertainer of the Year award by Vegas Inc., I’m confident I can amplify your next corporate event. Book me today for a truly unforgettable corporate team-building event.