Team building checklist

Tick as you go; your progress appears in My Planner. Print one for the day and keep a copy with the run of show.

How to use it

The list is grouped in the order a GTA organizer meets the tasks. The first group is short and matters most: a team-building day with no stated objective turns into a lunch with a forced activity attached. Write the objective in one sentence, decide the measure, and set the per-head number with the CRA rule in mind: a social event open to all employees costing $150 or less per person including taxes is a non-taxable benefit, up to six events a year, and the whole amount becomes taxable once it goes over.

The people and inclusivity group is the one most organizers skip and most regret. The invitation form is where you learn who cannot eat the catering, who needs a step-free route, who would rather not be filmed and who will sit out the climbing wall. Collect it four weeks ahead, not on the day, and build the day so that sitting out is invisible. The AODA items in that group are the practical checklist from the Act’s customer service standard: step-free route, accessible washrooms, reserved and companion seating, captions or ASL on request, service animals allowed, a quiet space.

The alcohol items are deliberately precise. Most Toronto activity venues, breweries and restaurants are licensed, which means no permit is needed and their Smart Serve-certified staff do the serving. If you host in an unlicensed space and run your own bar, the Special Occasion Permit application goes in at least ten days ahead for a private event, servers ideally have Smart Serve training (recommended, not required under a permit), the liquor is bought under the permit with receipts kept on site, and the permit is posted. Deciding early whether the event is licensed or permitted removes the last-minute scramble that spoils more corporate afternoons than any other item on this list.

The after group is where the next budget is won. Two survey questions, a cost per head, an attendance figure and three good photos are enough to make the case for the next one.