Do You Think About Inclusion When Planning Team Building Events?
Are you going to actively consider Inclusion when you book your next team building event? Are you aware of people in your team who require consideration of their specific needs? Is inclusion something you consider upfront, or as an afterthought? By being proactively inclusive in your planning from the start, not only are you doing the right thing, you’re creating an opportunity to truly maximise the opportunity from your inclusive team building event.
Jump to our Inclusive Events Checklist
Why an Inclusive Team Building Event?
By making your planning process inclusive from the start, you will create an inclusive team building event that is far more effective and impactful. After all, the very point of ‘Team Building’ is that the whole team is involved. This ultimately means that everyone’s needs are met, and everyone is given the opportunity to give input and add value to the discussion. You’re aiming to strengthen relationships in your team after all, and part of that is learning about each other and encouraging understanding. If your event is not genuinely inclusive of the whole team, then you’re missing out on valuable input they could share. You’re not getting the full picture.
While this post focusses on the inclusion of people with disabilities, hidden or otherwise, inclusion extends far beyond disability. Have you considered:
- Part-time team members?
- Cultural or religious needs?
- Carers or parents?
- Remote workers?
Don’t overlook the value that every individual can bring to your team, and how each individual will grow and support your business through your inclusive approach.
Where is Everyone? The Statistics That Got Us Thinking
What really got us thinking about inclusion at our team building events was the statistics. Since we started, over 50,000 people have taken part in one of our Charity-Inspired Team Building Challenges. But only a handful of these people have identified as having a disability or let us know about extra access needs or support.
That just doesn’t add up.
After all, 2024 UK government statistics suggest there are around 5.6 million disabled people in the UK workforce. That’s around 17% of all workers, so we should realistically have met around 8k people with disabilities. This most certainly hasn’t been our reality. I honestly think we could count the total people identifying with having a disability on one hand!
So, what’s been happening? Do companies assume the team building event won’t be suitable for employees with disabilities? Are people with disabilities uncomfortable sharing their accessibility needs? Are we not communicating our inclusivity clearly enough? Are the Government statistics wrong?!
Whatever the reasons, it was clear we needed to find out whether our events were as inclusive as we believed. And if not, how could we improve?
Are Our Team Building Events Already Inclusive?
Before the pandemic, we had assumed our events were inclusive, as that’s just always been part of our culture. But what if we were wrong? If asked, how could we demonstrate our inclusion? If we were falling short in any areas, we most certainly wanted to know!
And, if our events were already inclusive – then how and when should we be communicating this?
So, with these questions in our mind, we teamed up with the disability charity Poss’Ability in Brighton. They put our most popular team building event, Charity Bike Build through a vigorous inclusion test for us.
They tested the event from the perspective of people with:
- Physical disabilities
- Visual and auditory impairments
- Learning disabilities
We ran the session exactly as we always do. This gave Poss’Ability a real sense of what the experience is like for everyone, and where we might be falling short. This really was an amazing few hours for all of us.
One of the most human experiences I have ever had
– Peter Lindsay, Founder of o3e
It’s honestly an experience we would recommend to anyone in the events industry, building empathy, understanding and value to your event.
So, What Did We Learn?
Well, the really great news is that our assumption was right! Our Charity Bike Build event was already a very inclusive team building event, simply through its nature and our approach. Our biggest issues were;
- We didn’t talk about our inclusive approach when we marketed our events or talked to our clients
- We didn’t formally train all team members in our inclusive strategies and approaches, relying on team leaders to ‘just know”
Needless to say, we have now built inclusion into all team member training, and we pro-actively talk to all clients about their needs. We’re in the process of updating our website too, to ensure anyone browsing will be aware of how we accommodate needs at our events.
We hope that by taking these measures, more people will feel comfortable in speaking up about their needs, leading to more people getting the most out of every single event. This is not only great for individuals but for the teams and business too.
Peter Lindsay, Founder of o3e
Working with Poss’Ability, and taking all of the learnings from our test run, we’ve pulled together a fantastic inclusive events check list. This 12 point checklist is a great starting point, to help anyone running an event, to be as inclusive as possible. This check list is now part of our staff induction and training.
But we don’t want to keep this information to ourselves! Please share far and wide. Sometimes there really is the most-simplest of tweaks required, in a process to make your experience fully inclusive. Ultimately the biggest improvement you can make is awareness, through communication and staff training.
While this check-list is built around our Charity Bike Build event, it can easily be tweaked to support your own event or situation.
Inclusive Team Building – 12-Point Events Checklist
1. Be Proactive: At the point of enquiry and booking, ask if any attendees have any extra access or support needs. By having this knowledge beforehand you can discuss individual requirements.
2. Be prepared to be able to provide an extra person to support someone if needed.
3. Be very clear with communication, for example, do not refer to objects by two different names.
4. Fully describe the entire process to someone with a visual impairment so that they understand what is happening. Allow time for questions.
5. A blind or visually impaired person may need hand guidance, please always seek permission before guiding hands.
6. Be prepared to provide a hearing loop and ensure that these are clearly signposted and that activities happen within it for people who are deaf / hard of hearing.
7. Provide written instructions on tablets with screen readers for those who need it.
8. Make sure all areas are accessible, you may need to adapt your space and your equipment to make this happen. For example. Ensure that there is enough space to move around for a wheelchair user, or that tables and equipment are at the right height for everyone.
9. Use a venue that has accessible access and facilities, including an accessible toilet.
10. Allow for extra time to explain methods, if needed. Perhaps for people using a BSL interpreter.
11. Let potential customers know in advance promotional material or on the website that you can provide extra access support, how your activities are accessible and that you can provide extra time for those that may need it.
12. Ensure Staff are aware of this check list and guidelines.
Click here to download this checklist.
What Next?
Hopefully now that you have read this list, you’re nodding your head, with ‘of course!’ ‘this is obvious!’ and thinking about how you can tweak your corner of the world to be more inclusive. Perhaps you’ll share this article with your team, management or network to get others thinking.
And for us at o3e? Well, we intend to make the inclusive style of our events well known and to share our learnings far and wide. We will be updating our website and brochures to ensure our clients are aware and have already undertaken staff awareness training.
And Our Most Inclusive Event So Far?
Well this has to be our Performance Wheelchair Challenge, where teams take on very special disability inclusive team challenges, to earn wheelchair parts and build sports wheelchairs for inclusive sport’s teams! The team challenges have been specifically created to ‘level the playing field’ and build empathy across a range of abilities and disabilities and we can include those people who would prefer to be part of the event remotely. It’s worth watching this in action to see how inclusive an event can truly be!
