Company Picnic Planning – 5 Tips to Help
Planning a company picnic can make you feel like you have a lot hoisted on your shoulders. Below are our first 5 tips to help you get through your company picnic planning experience.
1. Cost:
Do you have any idea how much it costs to throw a company picnic? When you are give the task to plan your picnic be sure that your boss gives you a crystal clear idea of how much you can spend. Obviously if you are organizing a company picnic for more people, the cost per head could go down. If you are planning a picnic for only a few people, the overall costs will be less, but the per-head cost will be a bit higher. Plan on spending at least $50 per person on a good company picnic. That is usually a minimum amount of money to plan on spending. You want to make sure that when your employees leave their company picnic they feel appreciated. Spend the appropriate amount of money to boost morale and gain more productive employees.
2. Company Culture:
What is the company culture like where you work? Is it a fun-loving, light-hearted place to work, or is it more serious? Are most of the employees young or old? Do they have families?
These questions will help dictate your venue, timing, and activities. If your company is a light-hearted bunch of family-oriented young professionals, it may be appropriate to plan a fun-filled day at the park with the employees’ families. You may want to rent inflatables, have face-painters, and plan some fun field games to play with the families at the picnic.
3. Site Selection:
You can probably save a little money by having your company picnic at your place of business. Perhaps this won’t work for your company, however. Maybe you will want to have it at a city park.
Consider the costs of doing your planned activities at each venue. For example if you have your picnic at a city park during the summer, you will likely need to rent a tent, coolers, or umbrellas to keep people comfortable. If you want to play music at your picnic you may need a license to do so. The same goes for renting inflatables and having other forms of food, drink, and entertainment at a city park.
4. Vendor Selections:
Your planning is only as good as your vendors! If one of your vendors does not show up at their committed time, your event will suffer. Look for online reviews of the vendors you are considering. See if the vendors have references you can check to see how well they perform. Choosing good, professional vendors goes a long ways to company picnic success.
5. Don’t Be Cheap!
Tip #5 goes with Tip #1. Don’t try to be cheap with a company picnic. Your employees and guests will be able to tell when you are going cheap on them. You want a picnic to be about showing appreciation for all the hard work your employees do throughout the year. Make sure they feel appreciated!
