With the proliferation of remote work, company retreats are more popular than ever. After all, there’s something magical that happens at a company retreat, when everyone is far from the office and water cooler chat has room to break into something more meaningful.
And there are ample benefits associated with business retreats: in addition to bringing staff members together on a deeper level, your team will have more room to get creative juices flowing, it builds company culture, and breaks down department silos.
Yet, putting together a great business retreat can be complicated—not just from a logistical point of view, but from a place where you’re attempting to please different tastes and interests. But it’s not impossible.
IMAGE: PEXELS
With that in mind, here are a few tips for planning a stellar business retreat for your company:
Work With A Budget
Before you begin to research retreat options, start by putting together a budget. Working with a number in place first prevents you from wasting time contacting out-of-budget venues and booking activities that will hurt your bottom line.
Some areas to consider are accommodation, meals, activities, transportation, company swag, flight costs, and even gratuities. And of course, you should always incorporate an emergency portion to accommodate last-minute incidentals.
If this is the first retreat you’ve planned, start small. You can save money by traveling off season, seek package deals (for example, some hotels might offer discounted activities and package deals), and opt to skip major cities. It helps to work with a business travel consultant to help keep your budget and retreat options in managed order.
Collaborate On Creative Locations
Today’s company retreats are no longer simply gathering for hotel boardroom presentation and exchanging business cards in hotels; they’re opting for cabin getaways, mountain retreats, safari adventures, and much more. Breaking from the norms is becoming a more popular way for businesses to try a new mold.
In fact, choosing the right location is equally as important as the retreat itself. Because of this, it’s important to get your team involved. For companies with smaller teams, it may be possible to allow everyone to partake in the decision-making process.
You can spearhead these collaboration efforts with email polls or on-site meetings. If you have a bigger team, you might ask a person from each department to represent their department’s votes, effectively putting together a “retreat committee.”
Put Together Your Activities List
Activities keep your teammates engaged and enjoying their time together. As you put together your activities and exercises, consider your location and draw from that. If you’re at a mountain retreat, skiing, tubing, or snowboarding are all viable options. If you’re near the water, rowing, kayaking, paddleboards, and much more.
Hiking, yoga, and meditation are all great ways to re-center and stimulate the mind. Activities like cooking or art classes allow people to learn and create something that they can take back home with them. Again, you should reach out to your team to determine the type of exercises they would enjoy.
Create A Schedule That Works
Once you know what type of activities you’ll want to engage in, you can start putting together a calendar-view schedule. One of the first things you should know is that it’s important that you refrain from filling your schedule with a load of activities.
For instance, you should make a note to incorporate a certain level of unstructured free time. Otherwise, your team could easily start to feel drained. Perhaps you’ll even make certain activities optional, giving your staff the opportunity to have some autonomy on their retreat.
And of course, you want to put together time for team-building gatherings. There should be time carved into your schedule for department meetings and company-wide meetings. How you structure your meetings depends on your goals.
Ultimately, however, the purpose of these gatherings is to help encourage strategy, planning, and visualization. This way, by the time your team returns to the office, they’ll feel renewed and invigorated—prepared to take on their goals with a fresh perspective.
If you are interested in even more business-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.
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