Well folks, I’ve just had my first
experience in organising an event!
On the 23rd of September,
I was charged with holding an employee relations event, which was the Global
Goals: Health and Wellbeing Workout. This event consisted of a cardio workout
for the staff members within Interhill Headquarters, and was inspired and held
in conjunction with the Global Goals
#3, which was Health
and Wellbeing. In this event, we
encouraged our staff to adopt a healthier and more active lifestyle in their
daily lives.
There were, of course, quite a few
challenges and lessons learned in the organising of this event. I’ll just jump
straight to them.
Challenges:
1. Talking to people
outside of the organisation
-
I had to talk to
ACE Fitness Gym, in Miri, and somehow confirm with them that we would be using
their gym and attending a cardio class for FREE. It took persuasion and a
formal proposal letter but we managed to assure them that the amount of
publicity they would receive from the media coverage of our event would be more
than enough.
2. I had to convince
employees to attend.
You
would think this wouldn’t be a challenge…but you would be wrong. Employee
cooperation is a hard thing to come by, and I had to market this event to many
employees simply to get a handful of people to attend the event, that was
designed entirely for them. No one tells you how complicated and redundant this
can seem, but really it is a necessary evil because without events like these,
employees feel less included in the company.
Lessons learned:
1. Be confident in yourself, and others will be
confident in you. For those people within ACE Fitness Gym, I wasn’t ‘the
intern’, I was a public relations officer, not because I misrepresented myself
but because I behaved in a way that showed that I wasn’t scared to be frank
with them and to do my duty for the organisation without being pushed around by
my ‘elders’.
2. Be friendly! The whole reason for the event was
for employee relations, and though I am only temporary asset to the group, I
still felt as though I was a part of them. Employees want to feel like they are
accepted within their organisation, not simply utilized. Therefore we helped to
bridge the gap between departments and employees with this event, where we all
got together and practiced healthier lifestyle habits together.
