“With a renewed purpose, everyone was full of energy and excitement”.
Does it make business sense for companies to pull out their employees from their deadlines/priorities for a staff retreats?
In our opinion, Absolutely yes!! Whether you’re running a company of five or 500, changing pace with a retreat will re-energize your team, encourage collaboration and it’ll help bond people together.
The company retreat, some people love them while some don’t care for it. However, research has consistently shown that it boost productivity. And it’s easy to see why. If done right, they enhance your company’s culture while also building a better plan for the year ahead. Employees feel empowered and resolute to the cause.
Over the past 5 years, we have been organizing a retreat at the beginning of every fiscal year. This year, Jyaasians were headed to the beautiful Riverside Spring Resort which is located on the banks of the Trisuli river. There was something for everyone which made it an ideal destination for us. Not too far, not too close, and just the right amount of scenery, adrenaline pumping river and the calm pool.
A well-designed and well-facilitated retreat can be very effective in:
- Helping change a strategic direction
- Dealing with sources of conflict and confusion
- Improving working relationships and increase trust
- Creating a common framework and point of reference
- Helping people feel heard in issues that are important to them
Here are a few reasons on why we organize an Annual Retreat:
- A break from the day-to-day hassle of office life can greatly increase the creative process.
- During retreats, involving members in the decision-making on critical issues can result in high quality decisions with large-scale support.
- Retreats are a great way to unite different parts of an organization with a common vision and commitment.
- Retreats are an effective way to explore and promote new ways to encourage change that the leaders have foreseen, it can be change in the work culture or a change in business processes
- A well-designed retreat can go a long way to explore, align, and improve relationships, behaviors, attitudes and perceptions.
- To evaluate or correct your course. Providing people with an opportunity to play a role in deciding what needs to change (or not) is an excellent way to build support and commitment to organizational goals and priorities.
- Engaging in professional development. Speaking on topics that are both fun and informative everyone can learn something that relates to their job performance, even if indirectly.
In order to make the retreat a success, a good leader must plan a retreat and execute the plan effectively. Here are some things that do play a role while planning for the company retreat.
- Know your objectives and goals. Retreats should be designed and conducted in order to create organizational action or change, with a distinct goal in mind.
- Be realistic. Keep your agenda proportionate to the length of the retreat.
- Keep it organized. Retreats must have structure and purpose. And you must know the message you want to deliver and stay on it.
- Have fun. Retreats need not only mean that you sit inside a meeting room and discuss the future of the organization even though that’s a priority. A retreat must help relieve the pressure off the employees which the day to day work life has put upon them.
- Follow-up. This is, without a doubt, the most critical determinant on whether a retreat is deemed successful and effective. It is also the number one thing that most retreat conveners fail to do. Transparent follow up and follow through is absolutely essential.
If you have a clear purpose in mind, and if planned and executed correctly, an offsite retreat can be an incredibly effective, energizing and engaging tool for your company.
Always remember,Work hard but Party harder!
If you want to know more about us, visit us here.
