Company Retreat: An Experience Report
Company outings, management weekends and skiing days are now standard for any committed company. Now a new form of employee meeting is spilling over from the Anglo-Saxon world into the local latitudes: The Company Retreat. School trip for adults or real added value? A Swiss company gathered its first experiences.
Spend a week in a secluded finca, isolated from day-to-day business, defining product developments and rethinking corporate values? Sounds tempting. The Company Retreat makes it possible. Well-known from the USA and considered good by industry leaders such as Buffer, Swiss companies such as Ofri and Renuo to.
Focus of the Company Retreat depending on company
"In our Company Retreat, we plan product development for the next six months and devote ourselves to topics that don't get the attention they deserve in the hectic day-to-day business," explains Benny Hertach, Managing Director of Ofri. He and his team have been conducting company retreats for three years. A schedule and predefined goals help ensure that the team doesn't lose focus.
Samuel Steiner, Managing Director of Renuo AG, his IT agency's Company Retreat: "I'm focusing on education and inspiration." The goal of the week, he said, is for team members to learn from each other. Each employee prepares a learning block for his or her colleagues.
Increase identification with the company
Two years ago, the Ofri team developed the company values during the Company Retreat in Lisbon. "The fact that we defined them together in a quiet moment is worth its weight in gold," explains Hertach. The values help him with recruiting. Before hiring a new employee, Hertach checks whether the candidate matches the values. Since he has consistently followed them, he says, no new employee has ever left the company. "For me, that is clearly a result of the Company Retreat," Hertach affirms. Steiner adds, "I observed how the Company Retreat boosts motivation and increases company identification."
Company Retreat promotes a sense of togetherness
The managing directors of Ofri and Renuo rent a large Airbnb for their company retreats. "This naturally leads to informal discussions that strengthen the sense of togetherness," explains Steiner. But both companies also deliberately plan leisure activities. "In particular, I recommend remote teams spend enough time together on social activities," says Hertach. He has been leading his team location-independently for six years. Remote work has many advantages, but the lack of social contact is clearly a disadvantage. "You have to be careful that the working relationship doesn't become too sterile," Hertach admits. For every five days of Company Retreat, he therefore schedules a leisure day. The Ofri team hiked together in Malta and Switzerland, paddled in the waves of the Mediterranean, and attended a conference in Zurich.
Source: Ofri Internet Ltd.
