14 Top Tips for Remote Retreats

At Remotive, we love to see teams get together. We recently went on our first company retreat as a team...

Discover our Remote Companies Retreat Database, listing 150+ Retreats!

Whether you are planning a team-building activity, an offsite, a get-together, or a team meeting - we've got you covered!

I asked remote experts what their top tips are and gathered some really cool answers; check them out in the summary below.

Ami Partridge, Business Operations at P9

• Picking a city/airport that is relatively easy to get to (to help avoid taking connecting flights).
• Try not to have too many back-to-back sessions and if you do find yourself with a packed agenda, make sure to schedule timely breaks.
• Don’t be put off asking for help; there are many companies that offer help organizing company retreats.
• Sometimes the greatest bonding sessions are the simplest i.e. we once had a fantastic time singing along to tunes from each country we are from with a speaker I had bought on the trip.
• You may have some of the most switched-on, organized employees, but when it comes to traveling these traits can sometimes disappear, so always over-communicate details with travelers, hotel addresses, timings, etc...

Niels Rolland, Founder at paat.ch

• Leaving space for authenticity! Instead of having a chef for the dinner, ask 2 people to choose a recipe and make the dinner for the team. And change every day!

Jan Rosa, PM at Toggl

• Pick a location with good accessibility for all team members. We typically pick one of the European capitals.
• Have a healthy mix of work and fun. Explore the city - fun guided tours, roam around, enjoy.
• Pick a coworking with a good internet connection and tables & chairs. Especially tables & chairs, it is super hard to come across meeting rooms for group work with solid spacious desks and good chairs. Most of the meeting rooms are fancy design crap where you won't survive for more than an hour.

Yanis Mellata, Founder of Kosyoffice

• Leave lots of unstructured time. Focus on social activities & interactions rather than work. If you have any work sessions, make sure they are collaborative rather than presentation based.
  

Chase Warrington, Head of Remote at Doist

• The cool article 20:30:50 Approach To Structure Company Retreats
• Making everything optional by default. No pressure to join at all, but even once there, all activities being optional prevents FOMO, ensures everyone is engaged when present, & helps sustain energy levels.

Laïla von A., Head of Communications at Mural

• Don't overschedule your time together. Leave lots of free time for people to bond over time spent together either chatting or doing an activity together.

Melanie Crissey, PM at Netlify

• Airport welcome with pre-arranged shuttle to the location.
• Optional pre-planned activities (yoga, hikes, sight-seeing, etc.) so people don't have to plan and coordinate.
• Quality food with options for all diets.

One Last tip...

Here's something cool I read over on FirstRound Review; it sounds amazing!

It involves gratitude and personal feedback - I love it...

With 15 minutes left to go in the meeting, we sent a Typeform link to our 15-person team, with the following prompt: For each meeting participant, write a line or two in response to the following questions:

What's something you admire about this individual? What's something this person did recently that you appreciate? Why are you grateful to count this person as a teammate? Answers are anonymous.

After they're all in, the meeting owner will round up the lines for each individual and share them in a private email.