Founder in Eleven

Encouraging a friendly outside-of-work relationship between employees leads to a more fun and productive work culture. Coworkers will go above and beyond to help their friends with both work and non-work issues.  Given the competitive environment for good employees, outside events improve recruiting and retention as employees are increasing looking past monetary compensation towards the culture and environment of their employer.  This post will discuss various company gatherings we had at Technology Services Group (TSG).

Overall Guidance

TSG events promoted team bonding and were a great way for TSG to use our profits to grow our office culture.  Some overall event guidelines we followed:

• In-Office events: These were often mandatory and employees could charge in the meeting time.  A typical in-office, all-hands meeting would include some bigger announcements as well as a game that encouraged company stories that promote the fun culture at TSG.
• Out-of-office events: These were always non-mandatory and we did not allow employees to charge time.  Everyone would be encouraged to attend but no one was required to attend the event.
• Specific ending time: Particularly when bars or liquor was involved, we felt it was important to specify the start and end of the event.  Having an end time both controlled the cost and the amount of drinking.
• More, less expensive events: In discussions with team, we concluded that having more affordable events versus one pricy event had better impact on the culture.
• Spread responsibility: One way we used to gain buy-in from all levels was to give direction and responsibility to 3+ year employees in picking their event and promoting it to the company (within a set budget).  As founders, we had fond memories of our own bonding events early in our careers, but understood that our younger staff might have different activity preferences.

With these guidelines in mind, we organized the below events at TSG..

Covid Zoom “Wrap-Around”

Given the pandemic and remote work, the ability to actually meet face-to-face got pretty difficult and unsafe.  TSG started doing and event combined with the employee of the week to get to know everyone.  “Wrap-Around” would work this way:

1. Before the employee-of-the-week Zoom, the moderator would send out a question in slack.  Questions could range from silly, like  “If you could have a superpower, which one would you be?” to more serious, like “If you could tell your high-school self one thing, what would it be?”
2. During the Zoom, before the employee was announced, the moderator would work down the team to answer the question.
3. Team members could leverage Zoom’s comments feature to tease each other’s answers.

The focus of this event was to relieve some of the stress of Covid and the isolation of remote work.

Traditional Happy Hour

We would plan our happy hours to start between  4:30 and 5:00.  Some of our happy-hour practices included:

• Conducting an ice-breaking game in office before the happy hour –  To build comradery, TSG would have some type of game (e.g. new-hire Jeopardy or Family Feud) where TSG would share fun/playful trivia about TSG history.  Light-hearted company culture stories that focus on previous employee mess-ups were best as it showed staff that everyone makes mistakes.  The games allowed for some bonding and laughing before the event.
• Destination near the office – given that many people lived across the Chicago area and commuted with public transportation, having the event close to the office made it convenient enough for everyone to “stop by” and led to better participation.
• Thursday over Friday night – Thursday nights tended to have less conflicts and were better attended.  This also gave us the opportunity to bond further on Friday over discussion of the night before.
• Drinks AND food – While drinks in moderation were fine, we would always involve some food to avoid drinking on an empty stomach.
• Specific ending time – We thought the event should be a a traditional “Happy Hour” and not run late into the night.  We would end the company tab at 7:00 with the ability for the manager to add more time/money if event was going well.

While many of the staff look back on the happy hour for some memories, the managers started to worry about a drinking culture where employees might feel too much pressure to drink.  TSG gradually evolved to have more sporting-type events with food/drinks afterwards.

Athletic Events

Some events included softball, volleyball, hatchet throwing, whirly ball, and corporate challenges (6K run through Chicago).  Given the use of public space, the events had some advantages over happy hours:

• Lower event cost – Athletic events were cheaper than happy hours given high drink prices in downtown Chicago.
• Greater employee bonding – Happy hours tended to be loud and cliquish, newer employees not as integrated with older employees. Athletic events were less cliquish since the office could be divided up into set teams that encouraged mixed bonding.
• More memorable stories – Stories from happy hour typically involved drinking whereas athletic events would be more action-oriented, “remember when Parker ran over Aubrey at home plate?” stories.

Premier Night

In a group of other small IT firms, TSG rented a movie theater for the Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith premier back in 2005. The event was surprisingly affordable and well attended.  For later premiers, TSG had a short happy hour in our office and then a walk to the nearby movie theater for big release movies.  One nearby movie theater even included drinks and dinner.  While the team was bonding somewhat less considering it was difficult to talk, employees and guests would brag with friends, family, and recruits that the company was paying for the premier. 

Offsite Training

TSG conducted offsite training once a year for analysts, new managers, and instructors.  Rather than train in the office, TSG would rent a large vacation house in May for three days and avoid the summer congestion.  Training would typically be 8-5 with group breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and combination of games at night. The house rental cost was minimal and benefits included the in-class bonding of employees/instructors and good company stories. 

Holiday/Anniversary Party

Once a year, TSG would have either a Holiday Party in December or an Anniversary Party in January (see my post on Holiday Party Hacks). Having a holiday party in December was practical if the company could leverage our office space or a shared area like a building cafeteria. Typically the availability and cost of other facilities can make scheduling a good event in December difficult.

As TSG was founded in January, 1996, holding a January anniversary event rather than December holiday party was significantly cheaper and easier to schedule. The anniversary event avoided the conflict of other holiday events or employees that might want to spend time at home or remotely during holiday season.  For those of us in colder weather climates (Chicago), January had obvious benefits of having an event in a typically low social season. TSG evolved to have the events be less about just drinking/eating and focused on having people “do” things.  Successful events included a casino night and live band with karaoke.

City-specific events: Horse Races, Baseball Games, and Basketball

Being a Chicago company, TSG would leverage Cub or Sox games and trips to the Arlington Racetrack. These events tended to be more during work hours and did have higher costs than the athletic events, but they let us share the uniqueness of Chicago with many employees who might not have grown up in the Chicagoland area. 

TSG also maintained 4 season tickets to the Chicago Bulls.  Tickets would typically be given out to staff ad-hoc rather than be used for a larger all-company event.

Ski Trip

TSG would plan an all-company Ski Trip to Breckenridge, Colorado, a tradition that started in 1997.  This tradition started in 1997 and continued through the history of TSG.  Similar to the off-site training and athletic events, it involved people doing (ski/snowboard) during the day with shared breakfast, lunch, dinner, and card/board games.  Some key points:

• Ski trip costs – TSG would pay for lodging, flights, food and rental cars.  Employees would cover rental equipment and lift tickets.  One year, TSG offered paying for lift tickets as a means to get employees to get their time reports in on time.  See post on solving late time reports.
• Employee Vacation Time – To reduce costs and be fair to employees that didn’t attend the event, TSG would require attendees to use vacation time or work overtime the week before or after for the work days they missed. 
• NCAA weekend – TSG would plan for the event in March for spring skiing and to often for watching of the NCAA games when not skiing.
• Saturday through Tuesday – While scheduling typically depended on when the rental houses were available, we found better flights and rates for Saturday flights.  Also from a lift line perspective, we would typically tried to avoid Saturday ski crowds.
• Ski-In/Ski-Out at Breckinridge – TSG would typically rent a large house in Breckinridge that was Ski-In/Ski-Out.  While we looked into other areas, the combination of flights and house options, the tradition turned into Breckinridge as it had the most houses that could accommodate our team (largest event was 36 employees).

During recruiting, the ski trip was always a big hit and differentiator.  Typical cost came to between $600 – $1,000 per employee.  The higher cost to the event was easy to justify given bonding, recruiting and retention benefits.

Company Gatherings – Summary

During our 25-year anniversary Zoom event (Covid times), one of the questions for many of the alumni was “share your favorite memory.”  The majority of comments focused on company events or other non-work interactions between employees.  Building a strong culture involves both bonding inside an outside a work environment and has huge benefits on the culture and financial results.  Founders should look for opportunities to build company lore with events that show their commitment to the culture and bonding of employees.