The ultimate guide to company events

What are company events?

By “company” events, we mean those focused entirely on your team – not client entertaining or public events that your employees might attend together. Company events could be anything from a companywide Christmas or summer party, to a team lunch, to a celebration of a national holiday: essentially, anything that brings your team together in an informal way.

In short, we firmly believe that events are an ideal way to bring teams together and produce real results for businesses. They can improve staff happiness, retention, collaboration and ultimately business performance and profit. 69% of workers say that they would work harder if they felt better appreciated, and company events are an effective way of achieving this.

Why are regular events so important?

It’s a constantly repeated HR message that teams that get on well socially are teams that work well professionally together. One poll showed that teams with higher levels of social interaction are 21% more engaged and productive, and a different study showed that 67% of HR professionals agree that fostering strong social connections is essential to a high performance culture.

With hybrid working here to stay and 37% of employees saying they would look to leave their roles if they became fully office-based, many companies are doubling down on the need to keep teams socially engaged. They are right to: according to a government report, virtual and hybrid work can lead to ‘employees feeling more disconnected from their work organisations and miss socialising and interacting with colleagues,’ while this survey shows that ‘I feel disconnected from my team’ is the most disliked aspect of hybrid working.

To find that middle ground between maintaining hybrid happiness and fostering social connections, regular internal events can be a vital bridge, enabling employees to build strong, natural relationships outside of the working environment. According to one survey, 79% of people believe that the relationship building at face-to-face events cannot be replicated elsewhere while 47% of people actively looking for a new role cite a lack of company culture a the major reason for doing so.

How do events contribute to your employer brand?

It’s no secret that potential employees look at more than just compensation when making a decision around whether to join a new company. In a Glassdoor poll, 77% of respondents confirmed that they would consider a company’s culture before they made a decision on whether to join it, while 56% stated that workplace culture was more important than salary for job satisfaction. It’s important for your company to outwardly display how strong its culture is to potential candidates and the outside world. Events are a perfect way to do so.

Candidates will regularly check out a company’s social media pages, across Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn and videos and photos from events are a great way to showcase a positive culture across social media and make joining the company a more attractive proposition to potential candidates. Further, listing the regular events that a company holds on job ads can help to increase the quality of candidates that apply for the role.

How do events help to retain talent?

On the flip side of creating a positive company culture, MIT research reflected that toxic work culture was the top reason for people leaving their roles.

We’re not suggesting that throwing regular events is the only way to create a thriving and effective company culture, but the fact that 79% of employees state that they look forward to company events clearly displays the impact that regular events can have on a company’s morale and overall culture.

Company culture is ultimately about making people happy, and events are fundamentally better at generating happiness than material benefits are (according to a study from the University of Colorado), while regular social events are proven to lead to both better mental and physical health.

For new employees who are just getting to know the business and the team, the process of building new social connections can feel long and slow, especially in a hybrid setting. Regular events provide opportunities to form connections both with their immediate teams and with the wider company – which should translate into better performance at work.

Celebrate your team!

Recognition is particularly important to Gen-Z and Millennials employees but the impact certainly isn’t limited to those groups. A staggering 69% of workers said they’d work harder if they felt appreciated by their organisations.

Praise and appreciation can go a long way to recognising good work, but in the same way it’s important to have a party to celebrate a birthday, it’s vital that your company marks great work with celebrations.

Events are a particularly good way of celebrating team projects or cross- departmental work. For example, bringing a taco truck to your office following a successful product launch, or hosting a cocktail and canapé evening for a team that hits its quarterly targets. Not only will help the team feel recognised for its achievements, but will also further improve the social cohesion within the team and inspire them to go and repeat those achievements. A little incentive goes a long way!

Employees regard recognition as more important than promotions or pay when it comes to drivers of good work, while employees who feel recognised are 2.6x more likely to drive innovation and bring new ideas forward and twice as willing to go above and beyond to make great work happen.

How do you get started?

It’s all very easy to say ‘company events are important’ – but where to start? Planning and booking a year-round event program can seem overwhelming even to the most seasoned event organisers, and we know that it often lands on the (already full) plates of HR and Talent teams. Luckily for you, we've got a list of 12 months of events already planned out. We've also put together some tips on how to get event proposals approved by whoever hold the purse strings, to set you off on the right foot.

Togather enables you to book the UK’s very best venues, caterers, bar suppliers, photographers and a number of other services in one place. Simply take 2 or 3 minutes to give us the rough brief for your event and we’ll get to work connecting you with the best suppliers for the job. You’ll receive quotes from these suppliers to your own dashboard, and are able to chat with them about menu options and pricing over our platform before deciding to book. All payment takes place via the platform, which ensures that your funds are held securely – so no need to worry about no-shows or scams.

We have the very highest standards when it comes to selecting the suppliers we work with, with around 1 in 20 being accepted onto our platform. We vet them on a number of criteria: not just the taste of their food or drink (although that’s high up the list), but also on their experience, health & safety documentation, look and feel, and their customer service. Our average post-end rating for a supplier is 4.95 out of 5, so we know we’re getting it right.

Our suppliers are passionate, independent creatives from all over the UK that will work tirelessly to make sure your event has the wow- factor it deserves: many of them can even provide bespoke and branded menus and products that’ll really stop your attendees in their tracks.

If you need a specific type of supplier, we have a whole department dedicated to finding the perfect supplier for your event, and even if you just want somebody to bounce ideas off, our account management team will be happy to help.

We’re not just a platform: we really care about creating unforgettable moments for every customer and every one of their event attendees.