Internal conferences are an essential part of any business. They can positively maintain an active and thriving workplace community, although it can also be a challenge to keep your attendees active and engaged. Many view these corporate events as something they “have” to do, rather than what they “want” to do.

The solution is to shift the response to “I want to”, by making your conference enjoyable and beneficial for all attendees including yourself. Here are our top 7 tips to get people excited and engaged about your conference.

1. SET AN AGENDA IN ADVANCE

Prepare. Prepare. Prepare.

Before your conference, send an agenda to your workforce. Encourage feedback and staff input on a suggested issue or idea as a means of employee involvement and improvement on the event content. Keep the agenda short and sweet to make it clear and simple for all attendees to understand and become excited about your future conference.

2. POWER LEAD

Our behaviour is influenced by what we experience, therefore exposure to a boring conference will indicate negativity in an individual’s behaviour. A positive brain stimulates positive behaviour, with productivity increasing, creativity tripling and performance ratings growing. A powerful and positive lead for your conference is extremely important and sets the tone of the whole event.

Power Leads can be used in the form of:

  • Beginning with an element of fun
  • Recognising a positive staff member
  • Acknowledging company or team success
  • Sharing gratitudes

3. FACILITATE BRAINSTORMING

Internal conferences are the integral building blocks within the collaborative process, where each team member contributes their desired strengths – without these, a team may struggle to function. Brainstorming allows for everyone to work together, contributing their opinions to arrive at unified solutions. Utilising this communications tool can improve employee engagement – as a team working together can often accomplish more than an individual.

4. INCENTIVES AND REWARDS

Incentives and rewards are tools designed to implement a positive association with conferences. Team members will feel encouraged to involve themselves, knowing it will result in positive recognition for attending and contributing to the overall event.These perks of the conference are fantastic for building a workplace community. They can make individuals feel valued and in turn will generate an environment bursting with motivation, productivity and excitement.

A good tip is the use of free refreshments at your conference. Free food and drinks are always an effective bargain tool for improving attendance. Utilise this bargaining tool towards the end of the meeting entices attendees to stay for the whole conference.

5. PICTURES WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

Presentations with visuals are 43% more effective and imagery fantastic tool to retain your presentation content as it’s processed by your brain 60,000 times faster than plain text. Utilise this by featuring interesting imagery and infographics to portray your brand message in your conference presentations, and around the venue.

6. INJECT A SOURCE OF FUN

Encourage humour and fun as integral parts of the business culture, to improve employee engagement and motivation within the workplace. Entice the attendance of conferences by introducing games, live demos and the use of interactive media to demonstrate key agenda topics.

7. CONTENT IS KEY

The content is the brains of the conference – without this it wouldn’t function. Make sure the content is worth attending, keeping an enthusiastic approach from start to finish. Ensure your content is filled with the right balance of education, entertainment and engagement.

Encouraging involvement can be difficult, therefore introducing a form of entrainment, such as show and tell presentation, allows employees to connect over a shared recent experience. This permits employees to personally feel valued and involved, subsequently improving motivation and productivity.

CONCLUSION

Conferences remain an important element of any business to positively maintain a thriving workplace community. They stimulate engagement, motivation and improve company and industry performance. Conferences have a purpose, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only focus – introduce entertainment and involvement to inspire attendance and enthusiasm amongst the workplace. This is your time to shine, make your corporate event exciting and not one of those dreaded “have to” tasks involved with every job role.

To find out how Identity could help in all these areas at your next conference, please contact us on telephone number 01323 469111 or by emailing letstalk@identitygroup.co.uk.