What’s the Cost of Getting Your Team Day Wrong?

Poorly planned team days don’t just waste time—they damage trust. Here’s what to do instead.

The Real Risk of a ‘Just Okay’ Team Day

Away days are meant to inspire, reconnect and reset. But when they fall short, the damage runs deeper than just a wasted afternoon.

For NHS and higher education teams already stretched by hybrid schedules, restructures, and service pressures, a misjudged team day can do more than disappoint—it can cost trust, morale, and momentum.

At Strengthify, we’ve seen what works—and what doesn’t. Here’s what to avoid, what it really costs to get it wrong, and how a strengths-based approach can create sustainable results instead.

1. What Poor Team Days Actually Cost

Team days often happen with the best of intentions. But when they’re unfocused, irrelevant, or generic, the price is high—and not just financially.

• The Cost in Time and Energy
• Think of the logistics: scheduling across rotas, cancelling clinics, rearranging meetings. That’s hours of valuable work time. If the session fails to spark real engagement, teams return to the same issues—only more sceptical next time.
  

• The Cost in Trust and Morale
• A weak session can worsen morale by sending a message: “We don’t know what you need—or we’re not listening.” Team members feel overlooked or misunderstood, and cynicism can increase.

• The Cost in Culture
• A poor team day isn’t neutral—it actively shapes culture. It teaches teams that time together doesn’t deliver value, that surface-level fixes are acceptable, and that follow-through is optional.

Learn how to reset this dynamic in How a Team Workshop Can Help Reset, Reconnect and Prevent Burnout.

2. Why Cookie-Cutter Sessions Don’t Cut It

Generic team-building activities (especially those lifted from corporate settings) don’t translate well to NHS wards or HE departments—particularly in hybrid or distributed teams.

These formats often fail because they:

• Lack contextual relevance to the team’s real challenges

• Focus on ‘fun’ at the expense of purpose

• Ignore behavioural drivers like recognition, psychological safety, and strengths alignment

For hybrid or cross-site teams, these sessions can feel especially disconnected—missing the nuance of what builds trust remotely or asynchronously.

According to our Public Sector Engagement Insights Report, strengths-based team alignment was linked to increased collaboration speed, improved wellbeing, and reduced attrition.

3. The ROI of Getting It Right

When team development is designed well, the benefits go beyond the day. With Strengthify’s strengths-based approach, outcomes include:

• Clearer communication
  Teams learn how to speak a common language around strengths and preferences—especially vital in fast-paced, interdisciplinary environments.
• Behavioural insight
  Using positive psychology, we reveal the real levers of motivation, inclusion, and resilience—rooted in how people already work best.
• Lasting follow-through
  We don’t just deliver a good day. We help teams build momentum with structured follow-ups, manager coaching, and culture-embedding tools.

Want to know what’s included? Explore our Discovery Workshops, Management Development Programme and Team Workshops designed specifically for NHS and HE professionals.

4. Success Story: Avoiding Conflict and Building Confidence

A university administrative services team had previously attempted several internal away days—each met with disengagement and rising tension.

They approached Strengthify unsure of what was next—but certain that another “communication session” wouldn’t cut it.

Here’s what changed:

• We delivered a Discovery Workshop centred on team strengths and real challenges.
• Managers joined our development programme to sustain the learning and align behaviours with strengths-based leadership.
• A follow-up session gave space to address a long-simmering conflict—this time with insight and shared vocabulary.

Results:

• Staff reported higher confidence in speaking up.
• Feedback highlighted better peer-to-peer collaboration.
• A retention-risk colleague re-engaged and took on a new mentoring role.

The difference wasn’t just the content—it was the clarity, safety, and real-world relevance of the experience.

Read more in Is Your Team Workshop a Tick-Box or a Turning Point?

5. The Strengthify Framework: From Insight to Impact

Whether your team’s issue is cohesion, burnout, hybrid fatigue or leadership gaps, our approach follows a simple but powerful framework:

1. Discovery Workshops
Surface individual and team strengths. Foster insight, trust, and psychological safety.

2. Management Development Programme
Equip leaders with the tools and mindset to sustain culture shifts—practically and positively.

3. Team Sessions and Follow-Up
Revisit, refine, and embed the learning with structured support.

It’s development that doesn’t end when the workshop does.

Learn more about our full pathway here.

A Day Well-Spent—or a Day Set Back?

A poor away day costs more than you think. But a well-designed one? That’s an investment that pays off in trust, collaboration, and shared momentum.

When you get it right:

• You build culture, not just calendar space.
• You create breakthroughs, not burnout.
• And you show your team they matter—not just as roles, but as people.

Let’s make the most of the time your team is already giving. We’re here to help you turn it into something that lasts.

Talk to Strengthify about designing a strengths-based away day that actually delivers.