Company Picnic Planning

Below is a guide of things that we think every company picnic planner must consider:

1. Guest List - Its an easy thing to compile for any company picnic or party. Pull the names from your company's email database and this will give you one. A great idea would be to invite top business prospects and clients. Always be sure to ask management before inviting clients to company picnics, however. They may want the picnic to be an event to kick back and relax, not entertain top clients.

2. Venue - This is often one of the most costly parts of the company picnic if you decide to host the picnic in an off-site location. Many times employees prefer to have the picnic away from their place of business. Having an offsite picnic will either increase or decrease the amount of work you do at the beginning of the picnic and at the end. If you decide to have a picnic in a city park then you will have to do a lot of prep and clean up yourself. If you go to a full-service venue like a banquet hall, there will likely be staff there to do the picnic setup and tear down. Obviously there could be a big difference in cost!

3. Budget - Be sure to set the budget with management upfront. Get a clear understanding of the amount of money that can be spent on the company picnic before you start spending. What would management like to spend more money on? Less money on? This is important because maybe $300 is too much to spend on a cake, but others may insist that there is a delicious and unique cake at the party. It all comes down to what management wants to spend money on at the company picnic.

4. Date - Pick a date that is not near a company deadline or during a big project that the company in undertaking. Is it the end of your company's fiscal year? That would probably not be a good time to have a company picnic if your company is struggling to meet its sales or revenue expectations. Holidays are also a poor time to plan a picnic due to family vacations and employee's desire to be away from their co-workers on their free time. Employees often times appreciate doing company picnics during the normal work week. This gives the employees a few hours of paid time off. This may also help you save on your budget because you would not have to invite the employees' family members.

5. Form Committees - Be sure to get people to help you when you are planning a company picnic. Planning one on your own can be a daunting task. However you need to make sure that if you have committees planning separate tasks and hiring separate vendors, you need to have everything run through the company picnic head. Some company picnic vendors offer multiple services and can give discounts if you run multiple items through them. For example if you are looking to rent a cotton candy machine and an inflatable bounce house, you could find a company that could do both for cheaper than two separate companies.

6. Update Electronically - Be sure to update all the employees electronically about the upcoming company picnic. Does your company have a blog or intranet site? Be sure to update the employees of the picnic progress on both of those sites. Garner some excitement about your party electronically!

Following a few of these simple steps will help make your company picnic a success. Successful party planning is all about planning, preparation, and execution.