This past March, we spent an evening at Viola Floral's studio in Santa Monica with a room full of women we admire. Some of them run companies. The rest are the business leaders who keep those companies running.
We called it a client appreciation night. It doubled as our way of marking Women's History Month by honoring the women doing the work inside growing businesses right now.
Viola Floral published a recap of the evening on their blog. Here's our side of the story, and why a night of flowers belongs in a people operations practice.
Why we hosted it
The women in that room spend their days taking care of other people. They write the policies, run payroll, sit through the hard conversations and plan everyone else's celebrations. Hardly anyone plans one for them. We wanted to change that for one night.
We had a second reason too. Our work at We Set the Table is about the structure underneath a team: clear roles and expectations that live somewhere other than the founder's head. That structure matters. People still need moments that give them a reason to show up for each other, and shared experiences create those moments.
The space
Viola Floral's studio sits on Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica, inside a former art gallery. It's open and full of natural light. Nothing about it feels like a hotel ballroom or a rented conference room.
The venue sets the tone before anyone says a word. Fluorescent lights and name tags signal "work the room." A space like this one signals "stay a while," and our guests did.
The bouquet bar
The centerpiece of the night was Viola Floral's signature bouquet bar. The founder, Jelena Trifunovic gave a hands-on workshop - Guests chose from a spread of seasonal blooms and built their own arrangements while the Viola team walked them through it.
We picked this format on purpose. A hands-on activity gives people something to do with their hands and something to talk about besides job titles. Conversation starts on its own, and nobody has to force it.
What a bouquet bar has to do with HR
Every founder we work with wants a team that trusts each other. Trust builds when people spend time together away from deadlines. A good handbook protects that trust once it exists.
That's why event planning sits inside our services next to HR audits and performance reviews. You build a strong team from the inside with clear roles and real onboarding. You keep it strong by giving people experiences they share. Most growing companies skip the second part. The team gets bigger, the calendar fills up and the only time everyone is in one room is the all-hands. If that sounds like your company, you're overdue for a different kind of gathering.
Thank you
Thank you to the Viola Floral team for hosting us and designing the bouquet bar experience. Thank you to Jelena Trifunovic for writing up the evening.
And thank you to every woman who joined us. You spend all year taking care of your teams. We hope that night felt like someone took care of you.
Planning your year-end team event?
Holiday parties and year-end appreciation events book up fast. If you want help choosing a venue and building a budget for something your team will remember, email us at info@wesetthetable.com.
If this year showed you that your team needs more than a party, ask us about an HR audit. We'll show you where the structure is missing and what to fix first.
