Corporate Events Blog

The credit crunch has had a far reaching effect across almost all sectors of the business world. This has left employers facing a difficult problem: How do you maintain the morale and loyalty of your workforce whilst also keeping costs to a minimum and also satisfying the ‘green police’ who look over all aspects of corporate spending and frown when extra costs on things like travel are expended?

Is it worth it?

In almost all areas of life, it is remarkable how much difference a little perk or benefit can result in a much greater return of loyalty than the item actually cost to give.

When times are hard however it is all too easy to cut back on these little extras without realising the knock on effect it could be having.

Holding back on the perks means that employees can expect little reward for their hard work and diligence.

Interestingly, there are many companies also using the excuse of the credit crunch to cut back on perks but not necessarily to save money. Banks have been well known to cut perks to give employees the impression the company is under financial pressure. The theory is that this leads the employee to work harder to ensure that their salary is more secure.

With a little creativity however a company can beat the credit crunch and still enjoy the perks they were used to.

What are the options?

Traditionally companies have shied away from expensive but short lived events such as;

• Days out at Ascot, Wimbledon, Henley Regatta, Premiership Football
• Corporate golf days / motorsports
• Executive yacht charter

all of which carry a certain exclusivity but offer very little in the way of team building opportunities or event ‘bonding’.

Because of the dramatic change in the tourism market, new opportunities for longer, more effective corporate events have sprung up with hotel and chalet operators across the European continent especially in France, Switzerland and Italy.

Luxury accommodation has become affordable due to the demand having shrunk. This has enabled operators like Ten80 Events to offer week long fully serviced 5 star trips for a fraction of what it would have cost before the credit crunch hit.

“Our customers are increasingly aware that the standards have risen and the costs fallen and the availability of offers is like nothing they have experienced before” says Alistair Slinn of Ten80 Events.

Companies are also taking advantage of the opportunity to run a corporate event during the winter months thereby avoiding competition with the increased domestic travel experienced during the summer months.

Visit Ten80 Events to find out more about French corporate events and organising a company conference. Ten80 Events is one of the fastest growing corporate event and team building companies in the Alps.

Whoever says that Sunday is the day of rest obviously wasn’t in Cham this weekend.  Yes the heavens aligned over Chamonix to give us one of the best days skiing of the season so far.  The skies were clear; the snow was ridiculously fluffy and untracked and the mountains were quiet.  We decided to head to Flegere nice and early to bag front row seats and it was well worth setting the alarm at an ungodly hour.

We started off around the Index and then moved to Floria ending the day in Brevent, where people had obviously been having as much fun as we had.  As we snowboarded and cartwheeled our way around the mountains, the Freeriders Competition participants put us all to shame on the Hotel Face in Brevent (check out the best of the action here http://www.freerideworldtour.com/en/)

Poor February had a lot to live up to with January going an ending with such a bang, but if the start of the month is anything to go by it’s doing very well with great snow and sunny skies, this season just keeps getting better and better.