Braindate at Internal Events: 10 Ways Employers and Employees Benefit from Peer Learning


In our piece on the use cases of Braindate, we gave you an overview of the different contexts in which you could activate a peer-learning experience for your event participants and communities.

In this article we will dive deeper into activating Braindate at internal events and how our peer learning technology can bring value that goes far beyond networking to your employees.

Before we jump in, we would like to begin by specifying what we mean when we say internal events. 

What is an internal event?

An internal event is typically organized by an organization to align and engage employees or to inform and educate stakeholders and board members. A successful internal event can reinforce a company’s culture, maintain transparency and boost morale. Examples of internal events include sales kickoff, annual meetings, strategic retreats, recruitment campaigns, training and development programs, etc.

The history of successful Braindate experiences at internal events:

90 Braindate experiences at internal events. 59 at Virtual events and 31 at Live events
Industry breakdown graphic
6800 Braindates and 19000 hours of learning conversations

How you can activate Braindate to elevate your next internal event:

In the following section, we’ve outlined just some of the ways in which both employers and employees can benefit from Braindate. These include specific examples of how current and past clients have leveraged Braindate at their internal events.

We have omitted the names of our clients to protect their privacy.

Braindate benefits for employers:

Braindate benefits for employers

1. Increase employee retention by using the Braindate platform to engage and interact with employees all year long: The flexibility of braindate conversation formats allows our clients to gather their people over highly interactive and collaborative discussions. For example, you can use group and fishbowl braindates to host team and cross-department brainstorms, mastermind sessions, hackathons, and more. These types of activities not only engage employees, but allow them to express their needs, challenges, and problem-solve by tapping into the knowledge of all their colleagues.

2. Onboard your remote employees: with remote work becoming increasingly common, it’s more important than ever to develop onboarding practices that allow remote employees to connect with each other on a human level. As part of our own onboarding process, we ask all our employees to post topics on our company Braindate platform on subjects that reflect their current interests, passions and challenges.

For example, when a new employee joins the team, they might browse the e180 Braindate platform, and discover based on a braindate topic, that they share a passion for baking with Brian from Sales. They can then connect with Brian over a topic they’re both excited about, and form an instant connection.

Our employees are able to connect with each other on a human level and build the kind of bonds that lead to successful cross team and department collaboration.

This is one of the most creative ways to induce innovative collaboration. The biggest impact was the access I had to ready-now intellects and genuine passion. Priceless.

– Employer testimoniaL

3. Shape and reinforce your company culture: one of our clients used Braindate at their internal event with the specific objective of ensuring that all employees felt aligned with the company’s vision for the future.

Moving into its next big growth phase, the company knew that having a strong internal culture would be essential to their future success. So, they activated Braindate at their flagship event to facilitate cross-department networking opportunities. Additionally, they asked their executive leadership to host braindate conversations on topics that reflected the company culture and values. By having these kinds of conversations with the company leadership, new and old employees felt more connected with their company’s values and were able to internalize the company culture.

4. Unlock internal mobility opportunities by discovering your employees’ secret skills: one of the biggest challenges faced by an organization is attracting and finding the right talent. But what if the talent already exists inside your company? The Braindate platform empowers employees to share their knowledge and expertise by giving them the ability to host conversations on topics that they care about.

For example, your HR Director, looking to recruit a designer, might head to the Braindate platform at your next internal event and discover that Alexandra from Customer Success has posted the topic: “Ask Me Anything: tools and technology for designers.” By booking Alexandra for a braindate, your HR Director may discover that Alexandra is the perfect candidate, that she’s been teaching herself design for years, and is itching to make a career change.

Your people are multi-faceted and the Braindate platform allows employers to discover interests, skills, and expertise of their employees that go beyond their current job titles.

5. Enhance your company’s leadership and skills development programs: some of our clients run  their own leadership programs and institutes to equip their employees with the knowledge and skills they need to grow as professionals and as leaders.

These clients have leveraged Braindate so that employees taking part in their leadership programs could supplement their education by exchanging knowledge on course learnings with their peers.

Braindate benefits for your employees at internal events:

Braindate benefits for your employees at internal events

1. Break barriers between employees and facilitate connections based on professional and personal topics: Braindate recognizes that your employees are more than just their job titles. So,unlike other solutions in the market, Braindate facilitates topic based networking. That means that your employees have full autonomy over the subject they’d like to discuss, and who they’d like to discuss with.

This opens up the range of conversations they might have with others at your event. For example, a participant at your event may connect with another based on a common challenge they’re facing at work OR because they’re both practitioners of mindfulness meditation.

2. Boost collaboration across your organization’s departments and teams:Employees across your company’s team and departments can use braindate topics to host discussions about current challenges they’re facing.

For example, your product team can use the fishbowl braindate format to host a large group discussion on identifying current customer needs. Employees from other teams, such as customer success or sales, can join this discussion to provide their insights on the matter. Topics such as these provide an opportunity for employees across your organization to come together and share knowledge with team members they might not otherwise interact with on a day to day basis.

3. Reverse the top-down dynamic and empower junior employees to connect with senior leadership: Many of our clients have successfully used Braindate to break the ice and facilitate meaningful conversations across the organization’s hierarchical structure.

For example, a client at their annual global partners meeting asked their company executives to host AMAs as a way to make them more approachable to other employees. These executives would post topics like: “if we haven’t had the chance to meet yet, let’s connect.” A topic like this created an informal opportunity where employees felt comfortable connecting with their leadership and even finding mentorship opportunities. And it gave company executives the chance to gather precious feedback from their employees and transmit their vision for the future.

At first when I arrived, I was a bit perplexed about what I could share, but I created a simple topic anyhow about how we transformed performance reviews. The next morning I had a braindate invitation from the CHRO of GE and we met one-on-one about my topic. That was pretty special, don’t you think?

– Employee testimonial

4. Give employees the chance to share their best practices and success stories: one of the most  powerful motivators for hosting an internal event is so that your employees can learn from each other’s experiences. Braindate gives employees at your event a powerful forum where they can do exactly that. They can use the group braindate format to share their success stories, or useful tips, tricks, best practices that they’ve learned along the way.

At an event for their franchisees, one of our clients leveraged Braindate to give their participants a platform where they could share factors that led to the success of their franchise. This sharing of stories enabled their participants to learn from each other and grow stronger as a brand and a community, together.

5. Organize special working units to collaborate on special projects: you can use Braindate at internal events to organize working sessions on projects that require cross-company collaboration.

At their yearly retreat, one of our clients organized group braindates on specific topics like DEI, sustainability, etc where they invited a mix of people from different departments to participate in the discussions. These group braindates served as working and brainstorm sessions where a diverse group of employees could come together, share their ideas, and influence the direction of projects that concerned the company as a whole.

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