In the year-end, it’s the season for off-site meetings to foster collaboration among different departments & functions. Research by Harvard Business Review shows that collaborative work requests increased significantly after successful offsites, breaking down the silo at workplace.
How could we make the most out of the off-site meetings? Here are 5 evidence-based tips for organizing effective off-site meetings:
- Pre-event analysis
- Mix colleagues from different functions
- Gamify the follow-up action plans
- Psychometric tools to discover individual growth focus
- Foster cross-functional work projects
Well-organized offsites give us opportunities to build relationships and make connections. They help people learn about others’ knowledge, build rapport and trust. These are the foundation for effective collaboration in their future work.
In an offsite we organized for one of our clients, the offsite helped the sales function and support function to gain mutual understanding of each other. Thus, they were able to collaborate effectively to increase work efficiency and customer satisfaction.