Employee wellness should be your new priority when booking a meeting venue

Employee wellness is crucial to productivity

Employee welfare is a key component to any successful business, as it directly impacts the profitability and sustainability of the company. In this context, events play an important role in fostering an employer-employee relationship that goes beyond traditional hierarchy. With more companies giving a higher priority to employee welfare, today’s meetings can go beyond purely functional needs and use their resources to reconnect teams within a supportive, nurturing environment. Every element of meeting design should be carefully considered with delegate welfare in mind. That’s why selecting the right venue or partner is the first step to addressing attendees’ holistic wellness needs.

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The way we work is changing. The way we meet needs to change too

Remore working has changed the game. As employees increasingly work and connect remotely, they have fewer opportunities to meet in person. Studies have shown that face-to-face interactions are essential for strong interpersonal relationships: we need personal time to get to know one another and build trust. How can we expect our professional relationships to flourish if we only see each other in zoom meetings or have short email exchanges throughout the day? To build and strengthen strong interpersonal relationships, it’s now vital to incorporate intentional moments of connection in professional settings. Events have become the ultimate tool for creating a sense of community and reducing stress levels by bringing people together in a comfortable environment where they can relax and connect with coworkers outside of the office. Therefore, meeting design is all about the journey and the experience.

What to look for in a venue, if you are aiming for employee wellness

Meeting planning in future years will focus on creating spaces that are a true respite from the daily routine. In our industry, we’ve already seen this trend emerge in the form of breakout areas and creative lounge spaces.
Innovation is not just about cool new features and technologically advanced gadgets. It’s also about paying close attention to your employees’ wellbeing and finding ways that you can make their lives better. In 2023, events will be designed with employee welfare at top priority by providing dedicated space for wellness, mood management, and providing a valid alternative for employees to escape the routine of sitting in front of a screen all day. Simply put, an event must be of value in and of itself and it must be a pleasure to attend, in order to be worth the attendees’ time. If you hear someone say “that meeting could have been an email”, it is clear they are talking about a dull meeting, a meeting that it was all but pleasant to take part in. This is what event planners and their clients must avoid at all costs.
That’s why it’s important to look for a space that allows the free flow of conversation and open dialogue for creative thought generation. A space like this will nurture relationships between employees on different teams, and create connections between separate companies as well. You want your attendees to feel comfortable in their surroundings so they can loosen up, have fun, and let their guards down. In this sense, nature-oriented design, open spaces, breakout rooms and plenty of available refreshments may prove more important than high-tech innovation.

The importance of user-centric design

The new keyword to venue-scouting is “user-centric design”. Moves like incorporating lounge areas into larger spaces or taking out walls between rooms are designed to make it easier for people to break away from their everyday routine, meet new people, and form valuable connections with like-minded individuals. An effective event is one that makes these interactions easy for participants by creating space for them to do it naturally—and one way to do this is by designing a layout that is conducive to these things happening organically. If you design breakout spaces with ample room for informal conversations and networking opportunities, you take some of the pressure off of the conference leaders and event planners to make sure every interaction happens on their timetable. And if you give attendees a chance to feel comfortable outside of the scheduled program, they’ll be more likely to open up with each other and form stronger relationships.

Flexible design and seating options are conducive to space optimisation

In the past, there were two main ways to arrange seating for large events: classroom style with rows facing forward, or a more casual “in the round” setup with everyone facing each other. The former is perfect for presentations and lectures, whereas the latter allows for more social interaction during breaks and meals. Nowadays, however, it’s all about creating a holistic experience for attendees by incorporating their total comfort into a meeting design. This means classroom-style seating or round tables are no longer your only options for meetings. You can create multiple seating styles and configurations within a large, consistent and welcoming meeting space.

Conclusion

Whatever the integral features of employee welfare are, they will form part of a new model for event planning. A different model for a different world — one in which meetings exist to maintain and enhance relationships, not just to convey information. If contemporary event planners can take on such responsibility and provide the solutions their delegates require, those same delegates are likely to maintain those bonds and relationships, long after the meeting has ended.

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