NYCFC energizes and connects 150+ employees for a companywide meeting day with teambuilding.com

Because New York City Football Club (NYCFC) has a hybrid workforce of over one hundred employees, team members have few opportunities to meet with other departments, and in some cases, have limited face time with direct teammates.

Diana Islamova, Executive Assistant to the CEO and Special Projects Lead at NYCFC shares:

"It's important for us to get together every once in a while mainly because our company is spread out between a couple of different locations. We'd like to make sure everyone gets an opportunity to meet and hang out with people they might not see very often. It is also a great way to introduce our new hires to company culture."

NYCFC's annual meeting day offered a rare opportunity for organization-wide team bonding. Finding an activity with the right impact was essential, because the group would have to wait another year for the next chance.

The planning committee wanted a unique activity that would genuinely energize and be enjoyable to employees.

The hours leading up to the experience would be full of presentations and focused working sessions. With such an information-rich event, leaders suspected that attendees might need a recharging boost to be able to bond with coworkers.

The corporate employees at NYCFC love a team vs team challenge. Planners suspected that working together to win would be the perfect way to bring their people together and spark conversations across department lines.

The NYCFC events committee searched online for competitive team building events, and teambuilding.com was one of the top results. The Instant Booking Portal made it easy to sort and compare all "Friendly Competition" experiences.

Being a sports organization, Field Day was a logical choice. As soon as the event planning committee read the agenda for the event, they knew that the fast-paced, hands-on mini games would get their groups moving and instantly interacting.

For example:

• One teammate wears a viking hat, while the team throws rings onto the horns.
• Groups use exercise bands to stack buckets into tall towers.
• Players compete in a massive rock-paper-scissors championship.

NYCFC liked that Field Day would bring out their coworkers' competitive energy and team spirit, without being too serious or needing any special athletic skills. Also, the experience was sure to break down barriers between teammates who had never met before or might not interact on a regular basis.

Successfully running a companywide event means managing many moving parts. Event organizers already had a long list of other tasks to ensure an amazing meeting day, and were eager for a third-party to take on the work of preparing and executing a flawless connection-building activity.

The event-planning team wanted a provider that could:

• Travel to their venue
• Fit within their schedule
• Accommodate a large group

Christina King, VP of Human Resources at NYCFC says:

"For us, it was trying to find an activity for our staff to participate in that was competitive, fun, easy, and also being able to bring [facilitators] onsite to a unique venue that we wanted to host them at such as Citi Field."

Within hours of NYCFC requesting a quote, their Client Advisor Cyrena reached out to start curating an experience that would run smoothly and fit the organization's specific needs.

The convenience of having a teambuilding.com host team travel to them meant NYCFC could skip the expense and logistics of moving 150+ team members to a secondary location. Also, the group could transition from informational sessions instantly into team building activities without losing time, momentum, or focus.

NYCFC had a packed agenda. The event-planning team was grateful that teambuilding.com hosts were able to arrive during a specific window between sessions and set up in stealth-mode while other meetings were ongoing.

"It was great to have people come in and to not really have to worry about the orchestration of the activities. They were very smooth, very efficient, even when we had a tight timeline to stick to. They came in ahead of schedule." — Christina King, VP of Human Resources

Client Advisor Cyrena even coordinated with the teambuilding.com Creative, Host, and Operations teams to develop a special indoor version of Field Day that would be conducive to the space and group size.

It can be hard to find an activity that both HR and employees love. Some team building activities are so structured that teammates have a hard time relaxing and being their authentic selves. Others are so loose that folks may enjoy them, but there is minimal lasting impact in terms of coworker relationships.

By partnering with teambuilding.com, NYCFC was able to achieve both goals – in just 90 minutes.

NYCFC employees' enthusiasm was evident as cross-departmental colleagues donned matching bandanas, cheered each other on, and ran frantically to catch rings on their horned helmets. The room buzzed with conversation as teammates casually bantered and shouted strategies while smiling.

The leadership team also loved that the games subtly helped participants demonstrate teamwork skills like communication and problem-solving.

Here's what NYCFC team members had to say about their experience:

"The event was amazing! I loved the team building aspect of it. I think it was a great idea to split teams up and be with different people across our departments. It was a really good time — I felt really into it, and it really got my spirits up." — Kwame King, Social Media Producer

"We had some great team leaders, we had some great leaders in place explaining to us the rules on how to do everything, and a great host as well. I really enjoyed the experience … I think I was able to build on the camaraderie I was already able to build with coworkers in the past and new coworkers. I think it was a great opportunity to introduce myself and build rapport through multiple mini games we played all throughout the floor." — Peter Gardner, Business Development

"We have a great company culture here and I think these effects from today will definitely last us until we do this again next year." — Anthony Salvia, Live Events Coordinator