by Lisa | Dec 9, 2020 | Business, Event Planning, Facilitation, Technology
How do you plan to host your holiday office party this year? Since many employees are still working remotely, a virtual office party is a great choice. If the thought of hosting a virtual holiday party seems overwhelming, don’t worry. We have got you covered! You can still organize a fantastic holiday office party this year and say, “Cheers!” Here are some practical tips to help you plan and host your virtual office holiday party.
The Covid-19 pandemic created a lot of change in the workplace. Quarantines and lockdowns pushed most companies to pivot to virtual. Now we are in the second wave of the virus as the holiday celebrations begin.
How do you plan to celebrate your holiday company party this year?
Since many employees are still working remotely, a virtual office party is a great choice.
If the thought of hosting a holiday party on zoom seems overwhelming, don’t worry.
We have got you covered! You can still organize a fantastic holiday office party this year and say, “Cheers.”
Here are some practical tips to help you plan and host your virtual office holiday party.
Organize Ahead
Don’t make the mistake of not planning!
While virtual parties may seem more manageable than non-virtual parties, without the right planning, things can get out of hand quickly. Use a spreadsheet to plan and stay abreast of each of the activities.
There are numerous logistics involved when planning a virtual meeting, and your spreadsheet will help you organize better and stay on track.
Choose the Right Time and Date
Don’t forget about the date and time. Make sure everybody or most people will be available to attend the party.
To ensure your employees’ full attention, your holiday party should not coincide with the holiday itself. Additionally, ensure the time is convenient for team members in other time zones.
An easy way to decide is to take suggestions from your team. Ask them about a suitable time and date.
Choose the Right Platform
Pick a virtual location suitable for everybody.
At this point, your employees are familiar with virtual meetings. So there should be minimal challenges in providing instructions to your team about connecting to most of the popular video conferencing apps.
Consider the time and people limit of the platform. Zoom is a likely choice because of its flexibility.
However, your employees may be tired of Zoom by now. So, consider other virtual locations like Houseparty, Facetime, or Google Hangouts.
Whatever platform you decide on, do a test-run! And test-run some more! Be sure there won’t be any technical difficulties during your party.
Don’t Forget to Send Out Invites and Reminders.
Use your invite to get employees excited about the party!
Be creative with your invites, whether it is an e-invite or physical invite. Set a festive tone with your invite. That way, they can start looking forward to the party.
Don’t forget that your invite should contain the party’s time, date, and virtual location. And send reminders to keep your employees anticipating the event.
Pick a Theme or Do Something Out of the Ordinary
Pick a theme for your virtual party!
Think of hosting the virtual holiday party as an opportunity to do something extra-ordinary. Here are some party themes or ideas you can consider for a virtual office party.
Whatever you choose, make sure it is virtually stimulating and engaging.
Send Physical Gifts
Show your appreciation for your employees with gifts. Hosting a virtual holiday party should not stop you from sending a physical gift.
Send the holiday gifts ahead of the party to your employees. To avoid delivery problems, make sure you have the correct mailing address and send well ahead of the event date to ensure sufficient time in transit, taking into consideration the holiday shipping delays.
Play Games and Provide Entertainment.
Just like other parties, provide entertainment and games!
Games will keep people engaged in the party. You can even provide gifts to the winners of the competitions and games. Here are some office party game ideas you can choose from.
Take your entertainment a step further. Book entertainers like musicians, magicians, comedians for a remote show. Doing this will make your virtual party experience more worthwhile for your employees.
You can still create the perfect virtual company holiday party experience for your team. All you need is the holiday spirit and a little planning!
CLICK HERE for a free quote for Tech Hosting for your Virtual Holiday Company Party.
by Lisa | Nov 20, 2019 | Business, Facilitation, Graphic Recording, Leadership
There are a multitude of personality assessments out there that can review all types of things. From the more professional traits a person may possess to something a little bit more lighthearted – each assessment can be eye-opening and helpful for an individual’s personal growth or a team’s improvement. Some companies even have a personality test included in their interview process, but we recommend adding an assessment to your next team building event or staff retreat.
The See in Colors team is trained to provide two types of personality assessments that are highly beneficial to company teams no matter the size or industry. The first personality type test our team can provide yours is the Myers Briggs assessment. There are 16 types in total, each one with unique skills, traits, and abilities. You can learn more about the various types here. The second type of personality test our team can administer is the DiSC profile assessment. While Myers Briggs is a little bit more on the individual side of personality tests, DiSC is more organization/group driven. You can learn more about DiSC through their website here.
Both tests provide great insight into your team strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to get a better picture of your team dynamic. Each test is a great option for your next team building activity or staff retreat. Take some time to review each test. See which one would be best for your company. Each one provides great insight and helps reveal some great things about your team you may have not noticed before.
Before your staff retreat, participants will complete a computerized test. After everyone has completed their test, we gather the results and prepare them to share at your meeting. We have trained team members that know all of the ins and outs of each personality type to walk you through it all.
We use graphic facilitation to guide you through the results using powerful visuals that keep everyone engaged. During your retreat, we sketch the qualities and skills of each personality. We understand it can be a little difficult to keep up with all of the types, so through visual storytelling, you and your team can easily digest them.
Wondering about next steps? We can share best practices on how to utilize each team member’s traits for the good of your company and the overall team goals! Want to learn more? Visit our contact page to get started!
by Lisa | Nov 6, 2019 | Education, Facilitation, Graphic Recording
Creating engaging ways to connect with your coworkers, team members, investors, etc. is crucial to being able to get your message across and get them to understand the point you are making. In this post, we are going to break down the importance of visual thinking and elements within your presentations for your business and everyday activity into the workplace!
Make your presentation stand out
Forget the days of black text on a white background. Been there, done that. Adding images into the mix allows people to engage with the material shared. Looking at a screen with just text is dull and certainly doesn’t spark creativity.
Encourages participation
If you are creating a presentation that includes feedback and discussion, make it time well spent with visual elements to get people talking. Using visuals takes your presentation to a more relaxed and comfortable set up as well. Don’t let your material be stiff and stale.
Focus on the important stuff
Getting a presentation together can be intimidating and overwhelming, especially if you aren’t a fan of public speaking. Use visual thinking and graphic recording elements to take some of the pressure off of composing the right words for the slides, but let the images do the talking for you.
Let visual thinking ignite action
Visual thinking gets the gears turning for your team and leads to motivation for putting those thoughts into action. If you have a more significant project or company goal, let visual thinking get your team ready to take it on and get things done efficiently with high spirits.
Think about it! What could visual thinking do not just for you, but also your team? While we covered these techniques for a presentation and group setting, all of these ideas could also work on an individual level. Want to learn more about visual thinking and graphic recording? Visit our website!
by Lisa | Oct 23, 2019 | Business, Facilitation, Leadership
Any time you encounter a classroom or meeting setting, people automatically check out. The classic white walls, long presentation, and monotonous lecturing are enough to rock any enthusiastic employee right to sleep. Here are a few ways you can switch up your training tactics so that you keep people awake and engaged during the entire lesson:
Make it interactive
Lecturing is easier, but it is the least effective method of teaching. Even if you have your wonderfully typed out and designed PowerPoint presentation, you are still going to lose a large portion of your audience so don’t use that as a crutch. Studies show that interrupting a lecture every 10-15 minutes for an activity is the best way to keep people engaged.
Make it visual
Everyone learns in a slightly different way. For the people that learn by seeing, create a visual display around the room that will constantly cue them right back to the front and keep their minds on the topic being discussed. Use sketchnotes to create your visual! This will be a fun switch up from the usual pie chart or bar graph. Not only will this keep the attention on the topic, but it will also help them understand what exactly you’re teaching when they see it displayed visually.
Incorporate more writing and less reading
A great way to retain information is to write it out – there is a reason teachers made you take notes all those years in class! If you like to give handouts, don’t have them completely filled out to begin with. Create blanks, bullet points, and additional empty pages to keep people focused on what you’re saying so that they can get all the information down.
1, 2, 4, all
This is a method used to get every single person in the room engaged at the same time. After your presentation, ask a question to the group and then have them get in groups of 2, then 4, and finally all back together to discuss the answer. This is a way to get every person talking to each other, process the information presented and allow you to see what was retained from the topic discussed. Want to learn more about this technique? We love this post!
Time for reflection
Once you finish your presentation, complete the above step with specific questions and see what was retained from your talk. Evaluate what methods of the presentation itself were most effective for people by asking them what they deemed most helpful. You can easily read the engagement of your audience so take note of what kept them interested as well as what lost their attention.
by Lisa | Oct 9, 2019 | Education, Facilitation
With every new presentation or lesson to share with your team, company, whoever – more distractions could hinder them from genuinely gaining something from your materials. From cell phones to pinging computers, you need to really engage with your audience at all times, especially when you are sharing information virtually.
While your audience may be closely paying attention to you, that secondary tab opened on their web browser may say otherwise! We have tips to share to keep your learners intrigued by your information!
- Add sketchnotes to your presentation. As you go from slide to slide, use your sketchnotes throughout the pages to share as you go along. You can import a scan of your sketchnotes or directly upload a photo to your presentation deck.
- Draw some sketches ahead of time. You can draw images before you log on and start the presentation on the back of index cards. Turn your webcam on and show note cards to introduce new sections of the training. This aspect of your presentation is unexpected and will surely keep your audience hooked in, and on the lookout for the next card, you will share!
- Use the polling feature of your software to ask questions and get participation. Ask your members to comment in the chat or select an option on their screen. This will allow them to contribute to the material but also ensure that they are paying attention. Strategically place these types of prompts during certain parts of your presentation to keep everyone engaged.
Try out these ideas in your next presentation! The index card idea is my personal favorite and is a simple one to utilize for sure! Use technology to your advantage to enhance your audience’s experience with your work and allow them to retain the materials easier as well!
by Lisa | Sep 25, 2019 | Business, Facilitation, Graphic Recording
Receiving feedback is an important part of the completion and strategy process of any project, no matter what field or industry your business is in! However, providing feedback to a team member or project partner can be a delicate balance of constructive criticism and presenting ideas to spark something positively.
A great way to get feedback is through the ‘I Like, I Wish, What If’ method. This meeting facilitation technique is used quite often during design thinking. These three prompts can provide your group with some ways to get feedback flowing!
You can set this up for an online meeting or an in-person meeting. Here’s how:
- Online Meeting: Use our free template, click here to download.
- You can ask participants to print out the form and write their thoughts out.
- Here’s another idea, you can share the form on your screen and ask participants to report out using Zoom breakout rooms and the annotate feature.
- Not sure how to easily navigate virtual meetings, we can support you. Contact us here.
- In Person Meeting:
- Creating a large poster board or post-its with these three phrases at the top.
- You can use the blank space underneath to collaborate and sketchnote everything that comes up.
I Like
The first section of this method pulls all of the existing things from the project that team members like about it. Think about the overall structure or organization, or you could point out some visuals or colors within the project that you enjoy. Be thoughtful about this section and try to pull at least one thing per person that is already working with the object that is being reviewed.
I Wish
The second section is for critical thinking about things that may be positive about the project but could be improved a little bit. Potentially the length of a project or the number of slides in a presentation. These refinement suggestions can change things for the better, but without completely altering the integrity of the original work.
What If
This section is for brand new ideas or evolving ideas. You can open the door to a solution of a challenge, but don’t limit yourself to the possibilities that can come from this specific part of the exercise. Free-flowing ideas are welcome!
Make sure to cover each section of this method, no skipping! It can be used for getting feedback from a workshop, strategy session, or retrospective. There are so many ways to implement this strategy. Check out other posts on our blog!
