Fun day out for employees...

Have you asked the employees themselves what ideas they have?

Hi, thank a lot for the reply. As we are planning to arrange it first time, we don’t want to ask, as it can open a huge amount of discussions and debates. We want to do, them we will listen to the feedback for the future.

Personally I would ask them (or a small group of them) as Annabel suggests.

A lot will depend on your workforce.

BBQ
Its a Knock Out type event (there are people who organise these)
Day at the Races
Day at a theme park
A combination charity/helping out event with a social event in the evening
A wellness day with lots of different activities for them to try

etc etc

My husbands company ran a fun day a few years ago and they hired what was basically a fairground - everything from dodgems, to a big wheel, to the little stalls where you throw darts at playing cards!! There were bbq's, a disco, an indoor soft play area for kids and all sorts of other bits and bobs I can't remember. It was set up in such a way that it was purely for employees and their families - everything was free including transport. It ran from 2pm well into the early hours of the next morning. Everyone relaxed, there was communication at all levels and employees saw a different side to each other. It was totally amazing and I have never forgotten it - although I wouldn't have liked to have been footing the bill at the end of it ;-)

Hi Violetta... as Keith intimates, is there an employee social committee (for want of a better expression)?

However well-intentioned, if 'the management' impose a 'fun day out' on staff you will get plenty of 'discussion and debate' anyway.

ps 400 is a lot of people.

What kind of business is it?
Does it make more sense to break this down into depts / divisions / directorates?

Hi Violetta

When our staff asked for a summer fun-day last year, we set up a Google sheet for them to add their suggestions. Yes, we got lots of different ones, but it gave us a good idea of the sort of thing that appealed to the majority. I then went away and looked at costs and with the MD decided on what the final event should be. We're a much smaller company, but we ended up sponsoring 4 days of volunteering with Groundwork, a national charity that work with local community groups, and can support with either small events, or much larger ones.
We followed that with a half day Sports Day, complete with sack race, giant egg and spoon race etc. It was run by an events company that came to our office (we have a green space out the front) and we laid on a barbecue. All good fun, and most people very happy!

This year we've done the same thing - the general mood was for something less energetic, so it's going to be the same volunteering days, followed by a city treasure hunt and pizza.

thank you very much

We've done a city treasure hunt and it was really good. Lots of running around the city centre involved.

The only thing i would add is that whatever you do, please include something that is introvert friendly - they may prefer a bit of a 'back stage' role somewhere