Parent's day at the office is a team builder

Nation's Business, May, 1997 by Roberta Maynard

Nothing builds teamwork or generates enthusiasm among employees like knowing their parents are coming to see their work. Those were unexpected benefits when such an event was proposed and conducted by employees at The Edison Group, the graphic-design division of Martin/Williams, Inc., a Minneapolis advertising agency.

Over lunch one day, the tightly knit group of 12 workers--all about 30--noted that many of their parents didn't understand just whet their sons and daughters do for a living. So the employees asked Tom Dupont, the group's managing director, if they could invite their parents to the office to show them firsthand.

They settled on a Friday, and Dupont gave the workers a budget of a few hundred dollars to buy lunch for themselves and their parents. The group designed and sent out humorous invitations.

Parents came from throughout Minnesota and neighboring states. The agenda included a presentation showing the kind of work done by the group, a tour of the agency, and a lighthearted exercise in which the parents described their own hobbies and activities. Later, everyone viewed a display of samples of each employee's work

The day "was a great morale builder and a team budder," says Dupont "It became important to everyone. You know, people are going to talk about [that day] for a long time, instead of the usual watercooler gossip. And I got some of the nicest thank-you notes from their families."

Dupont concedes that at first he found it a little hard to accept that no work would get done from 11 to 4:30 that day. But the event went so well that he has approved another one for the summer. '"What we have learned is that work and life blend. People don't go to work and leave all their troubles behind.... You've got to be able to step up and say, 'Let's be nonproductive today.'"

For such an event to succeed, Dupont says, it must be a proposal from employees rather than a dictate from company managers; it must have the employees' enthusiastic participation; and it must be fun.