My team over at Employ America just finished our first all-staff IRL of the year, and while I feel inordinately exhausted, I’m also full of warm fuzzy feels. A great combo!
So I figured I’d reflect a bit on what we’ve found makes for a good all-staff retreat/get-together/meeting/summit/IRL, and maybe some tips for those planning some upcoming gatherings.
All-Staff retreats are really tiring even though it’s not even real work. I mean, OK OK OK, it’s some of the most “real” work of all (most organizations are well-served by taking time out to step back and think about things in the big picture, of course). But it certainly doesn’t seem like watching presentations and talking extemporaneously about values should feel more taxing than day-to-day work. But it really can, so it’s important to factor that in. I’ve seen great recommendations around having “introvert space” at retreats, for instance; just an area where people can go to chill out for a couple minutes. Even social time can be tough for some people (because when you’re at work, you’re always “on” even if you’re bowling). The lesson? Don’t try to pack the schedule too much. Give people time to relax and socialize.
You’ll definitely start running behind schedule immediately. Presentations will run long because people ask questions (which is very good!) and want to discuss the info they’re taking in (also great!). You don’t want to cut those discussions short, but it’s hard not to feel antsy when you’re entering the third hour of your supposedly-one-hour presentation. Add in buffer time. Assume meals will take 2 hours. Assume that people will be really engaged and asking questions and starting discussions. And try not to stress about it so much; sometimes, you just have to bump something off the schedule, and that’s fine.
Social time is important. There’s lots of literature out there in the HR world about psychological safety at work, which revolves around creating an environment where people feel good about raising concerns and sharing ideas, without fear of negative consequences. Part of that is about building a level of trust among your team; we want to have enough experience interacting with each other that we feel assured that our input is welcome. Honestly, something close to a 50/50 split between work and social time is optimal, in my experience; people will tend to talk about work during these times anyway, but in a lower-stakes way. And, of course, getting to know each other helps us all feel like we’re valued as full, authentic people at work (rather than report-writing machines). That time pays off for the organization, but it’s also just fun! We learned that Jillian is apparently an absolute natural at duckpin bowling, and that a “midden” is an old term for a trash heap (don’t pretend you already knew).
Respect people’s lives. Our retreats are always a bit shorter than I’d really like, but when you’re bringing people in from around the country, you’re messing with people’s lives and schedules. They’ve got kids, they’ve got pets, they’ve got food in the fridge and TV shows to watch. Even if people aren’t traveling, retreats often come with longer hours than a regular workday, if you’ve got evening activities or Team Dinners planned, and that can be disruptive. Our staff is truly wonderful and flexible and are happy to come out to spend time together, but I know that that’s what they’d tell me even if it weren’t the case. The burden is on us to not ask too much of those we have professional power over!
Don’t push people too hard. An important lesson I learned this time around: let people sleep in a little! Yes, all-staffs can be exhausting, but travel itself is also exhausting, especially if you’re coming in from a different time zone and fighting thru jet lag. In the future, I think each retreat day will start at noon with a team lunch; people can catch up on sleep even if they were up a bit late the night before, and maybe have an hour or two in the morning to catch up on email or take care of whatever day-to-day work they might be neglecting.
Schedule some unstructured co-working time. The final day of our IRL was just optional co-working in a rented conference room from 10am to 5pm. It was really nice to not just have some time to do “real” work during the retreat, but to do it in a proximity that we don’t usually get to as a full-remote office. Instead of trying to chat Skanda about our interview process for hiring summer interns, I could just turn to my left and talk! I also got to overhear Sam and Josh talking about some upcoming projects they’re working on together, and it’s nice to get a glimpse into what everyone else is doing.
Peerspace is a good website for booking conference rooms. Great experience all-around.
I’m sure I’ll have many more lessons as we debrief the experience as a team in the coming days, but overall, I’m pretty happy with how things went. I’m fortunate to work with such wonderful people, and I’m hopeful that I helped create an experience that was fun, productive, useful, and engaging for everyone. A great start to a new decade!