Executive Retreats

Executive Retreats

There are a million reasons you can come up with to not go on executive retreats, but have you thought about the perks and benefits? Especially for remote teams, retreats present a rare opportunity for group members to come together in person for work and relaxation.

I reached out on Twitter to see what founders and companies had to say about the benefits of taking an executive retreat. Here were the major takeaways they had from positive retreat experiences, some of which they’d written about in-depth over on their company blogs.

1. Don’t stress over day-to-day tasks and big-picture thinking.

Wildbit, a software development company, does an annual seven-night retreat to bring its team together in one relaxed space.

With employees that work remotely around the world during the year, they’ve found that retreats help the team push pause on the stress of completing daily tasks so they can step out of the details and think big-picture for the future.

2. Take time to learn about each other’s personalities.

For analytics companies like Baremetrics with a growing team that’s scattered across countries and states, video chats work fine most days.

However, once a year, they like to get together as a group for some face time where they can really learn about each other’s personalities. “Doing a retreat lets us spend a lot of time together to learn about what makes each other tick,” they wrote on the company blog.

3. Executive Retreats: Explore somewhere new together.

Companies like Zapier that specialize in integrations for software like company retreats because, well, they’re fun.

Bringing the team together in an interesting environment creates an opportunity to explore a new place together, and organically opens the door to learn more about each other along the way. “It’s much easier to have casual conversations this way,” Wade Foster explained in a recap of the retreat.

4. Executive Retreats: Make important decisions.

Sometimes it’s better to have an in-person gathering to hash out important, company-wide decisions–and retreats are one way to do that. Customer.io found that being able to talk through the many angles of a difficult decision was helpful, and so they now save this activity for in-person retreats.

5. Show love and appreciation.

Vacations and getaways because, well, they’re nice. And for companies like LessEverything, taking a group retreat is a way to show employees they’re loved and appreciated.

Executive Retreats with no formal agenda, can offer a chance just to hang out as a group, laugh, and talk to teach other. These events are a way to show value to employees and to just generally have a good time.

These are all things to keep in mind as you consider your next company retreat. Whether it’s a much-needed team-building time or help with a major decision, getting together in person can have a positive impact on your employees and on your business.

By Kaleigh Moore Contributor, Inc.com @kaleighf