How we bumped participant excitement up a notch (or many) by incorporating theme into our internal employee engagement retreat.
As a virtual event production company with a fully remote team, we frequently have the opportunity to test new engagement tools and techniques in company gatherings. We figure out what works and what doesn’t, but sometimes something extraordinary happens: we come across a gold mine. Our Special Projects Retreat was a prime example of a gold mine that resulted in discovery that we can directly and confidently recommend to our clients.
Back in June, we conducted a major shift in our company structure to open up a new Special Projects team. The goal of creating Special Projects was to expand creativity, innovation, and allow us to broaden our horizons beyond simply producing virtual events for clients. We carefully crafted this team to invent new ways to do what we do while opening the door for collaboration and paving the way to implement these new techniques.
The Planning Stages
We knew this retreat had a tall ask – to spark creativity among folks who were largely unfamiliar. Cut-and-dry educational, informational content alone was not going to serve its purpose. And then the word “retreat” sparked a thought:
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could host a literal retreat overseas?”
Then the aesthetic alarm bell rang and produced an idea. Why couldn’t we create the same kind of atmosphere in our very own platform? And so, we began drawing analogies between the journey of a vacation, and the journey we wanted to take our employees on during our internal event. In this article, read where and how these journeys aligned to create not just an experience, but a story.
The Journey
Booking our Flight
There is no feeling quite like the night before a flight – eagerness, excitement, anticipation… That’s how we wanted our Special Projects team to feel before our equivalent of a “flight.”
So, we created individualized “boarding passes” for each member of the team, including their name, physical location, and their team number (which will come into play later).
Once all the boarding passes were created, we sent personalized emails to each individual on the team equipped with their boarding passes, the retreat’s “itinerary,” as well as some metaphorical calls to action to “pack their bags, lather on some sunscreen, and call their ride to the airport.” We made sure to insert in the subject line that we were “going on an adventure,” followed by a plane emoji, of course, for personality ✈️😉. We later received feedback from participants that the email played a pivotal role in establishing the atmosphere of the retreat and sparking curiosity beforehand.
The one literal call-to-action that we included was to bring their favorite vacation accessory to sport on video, be it a funky hat, sunglasses, or a Hawaiian shirt. This was another tool to set the tone that was interactive and exciting.
Then came The Big Day…
Hopping Aboard
From the second participants entered the space, we wanted them to feel enveloped in our vacation theme. With a platform as visually customizable as ours, this part was easy and, as the event designer, really fun! Down below was the layout of our space:
Our very first session of the day was titled “Welcome Aboard!” and consisted of a humorous message from our “head flight attendant” AKA Social Media Strategist and Co-Event Designer Mishka. The video was produced fully committing to the airplane atmosphere, as you can tell by the photos below.
Boy did this get people excited about the day ahead. Even our non-morning people were active in the chat, which set a fabulous precedent for our live session to follow! There, we had a quick introduction and an icebreaker activity to keep those juices flowing. We also got to see everyone’s vacation accessories, which was both hilarious and heartwarming.
Joining a Team on our Island Scavenger Hunt
It isn’t an internal Matchbox event without a good ol’ Scavenger Hunt. We wrote an article diving into how we conduct Scavenger Hunts, AKA our Scavenger hunt “recipe,” so check it out if you’re interested!
Remember when we mentioned that everyone was given a team number on the boarding passes? This is where they came into play. Their number aligned with the team they would be working with to accomplish as many tasks as possible before the end of the day.
There were a few ways we used the hunt strategically to produce specific outcomes:
- We engineered teams to consist of team members who hadn’t yet worked together before. This way, they could get more acquainted while sharing a common goal and, perhaps, some fun memories.
- On the hunt checklist, we chose tasks which either provided us with meaningful social media content, or which served to allow team members to learn more about one another.
We gave teams until the end of the workday to complete their tasks before we tallied up the points, and you bet we seriously hyped up the announcement of our winners in our #Special-Projects slack channel!
Going on a Resort Tour & Excursion
These two sessions were the meat of our retreat (an unintentional but catchy rhyme). During our Resort Tour, we had our smaller teams within Special Projects jump into breakout rooms together to get to know each other, their goals, and their purpose. Quite straightforward and to-the-point, we specifically this put later in the day after our more icebreaker-based activities in the hopes that, at this point, folks had already eased into the mindset of team building and could concentrate better.
Here’s where we put an hour break for lunch, which many used to sneak a few more minutes with their Scavenger Hunt teams to rack up some points.
Then we came back for what we called an Excursion, which was really just a Design Session. We also wrote an article about how Design Sessions work and how useful they are, which we highly recommend you take a look at! This session was created to brainstorm ideas, which in turn served to get people excited about the potential our new team held.
This session resulted in 27 pages of new ideas. We aren’t kidding. And what else could leave you more inspired than over two dozen pages of fresh ideas knocking at your door?!
So, it was a great note to end our retreat on. Collaboration, inspiration, and new ideas!
Drop-In Experiences
There were two sections of our virtual retreat space that were designed for asynchronous perusal. In other words, they didn’t serve to be clicked on during a specific session or timeframe; they existed to be perused at any point in time.
The first was our “Passengers and Crew” section, with a tile dedicated to each individual. As you can see, they were designed to look as if each person was looking out their airplane windows, which was quite visually successful.
Within each person’s tile was a personalized, Matchbox-branded “passport” with neat information which we collected ahead of time in a Typeform.
This section was extremely important in stressing the unique value of each individual on the team. In creating a space reserved specifically for each person, it allowed everyone to feel as if they had some ownership in the design of our retreat. We also put attendee chats in everyone’s tile so others could ask questions about their passport fun facts, which created a special kind of engagement that was quite neat to watch play out.
The other drop-in category we designed was our “Amenities” section, equipped with fun theme-related tips & tricks! In The Spa tile we put ideas for exercising self-care, in The Bar we shared delicious cocktail recipes, and in The Pool we linked to a playlist with sick Reggae tunes participants could chill out to.
We made sure to reference these drop-in tiles on several occasions throughout the day, and we also slid in some Scavenger Hunt tasks which sent folks on a quest to find information within these tiles. (ex: Who started an underground cookie business in high school? Hint: This information can be found in the “Passengers and Crew” section of our virtual space!)
Intention Drives Outcome
Our Special Projects retreat was monumental in discovering the power of tone and atmosphere in driving our purpose. It began with a goofy theme and resulted in a meaningful, well-rounded journey which had our participants captivated from the moment they clicked into the space all the way until they logged out after the final session.
Within a half-day event, our team of predominantly unfamiliar members turned into a squad of giggly, engaged, inspired individuals who left already feeling a sense of belonging before even beginning in their new roles.
Plus, they got to skip the sunburns…
When you plan your next community-building event, consider choosing an engaging theme and really leaning into all the creativity it has to offer!
More Helpful Ideas
If you’re looking for more inspiration, check out our Matchbox Kitchen virtual space filled with step-by-step “recipes” guiding you through all sorts of different session types.
