Somewhat related to the topic, but not necessarily the article:
I often see week long company retreats in far away lands listed as a positive/selling point on many company recruiting pages.
For many in their 20s, or single, it probably sounds great.
But there is definitely an unspoken pressure element to the whole thing for a certain class of individual.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I imagine if you have a family these retreats can actually be a negative. Perhaps they aren't mandatory, but surely it's not wise politically to miss them.
I feel like those with families might not want to spend a week away from the family in <insert-far-away-land>. For a variety of reasons.
Maybe some companies do a better job of catering for everyone/thinking about this. Perhaps it's not a problem.
But it just seems to me like at least some of them are another one of those "keep the company young" ageism tactics - whether on purpose or not.
Our startup[1] is 100% distributed and has in-person meet-ups roughly every 4 months. About half our team (including me) have kids and, to your point, when one of us travels it definitely puts an added burden on our partners back at home.
So we recognize this fact and try to mitigate it in a few ways:
- We structure the offsite week so that Mon - Thu is meetings and Fri is a fun day. This means attendees can leave on Thu night or Fri morning if they'd rather re-join their families sooner.
- We actively encourage our team to prioritize their families above their work and make it clear that attendance is preferred but optional. One of our colleagues just had a baby 2 weeks ago and no one would expect him to attend.
- We do what we can to make our meetups remote-friendly. If someone can join remotely, we use a Meeting Owl[2] to give them a better remote experience. It's not perfect, nor is it Cisco Telepresence, but it seems a lot better than everyone present jumping on a Zoom.
- We try to work around colleagues when possible. We recently held the meet up in my home town when my wife was in her third trimester and really needed me home!
For the rest of the year, we enjoy the benefits of being remote, among which flexibility is ranked high.
You're not the only one. I used to travel around Europe regularly with work and enjoyed most of it.
I've now got a 7 year old and twin 2 year olds. They're a handful and a half, even on a good day. They're my family, much as I like most of them my coworkers are not. My wife really struggles with the kids at times and we don't have much of a support network to lean on. She called me just yesterday from the other side of town because one of the two year olds was refusing to get into his car seat. I ended up driving there to help her.
I basically turn down anything that requires an overnight stay now. I get away with it but it definitely trades on what political capital I have.
> but surely it's not wise politically to miss them
This is something I have come to really despise about working in tech. It doesn't matter if it's office beers, or the board games group, or retreats, etc... It's something that I feel is almost inappropriate in regards to my personal time which is fleeting the older I get.
> "keep the company young" ageism tactics
Anecdotally, I've found it's less ageism and more building a "club" of who's in/out. If you're someone who wants to keep colleagues at arms length (ie: strictly business) it turns into a huge problem, and it will definitely come up in your 1-on-1's.
It plays out like this: "We're noticing you're missing team events - why is that? Is everything alright? We'd like people to be team players!"
To which I always want to respond: "Well Bob, at the end of the day we're all replaceable to those up the chain and I know it's 100% in my worst interest to blend my personal life and my work life. I don't want to drink with you, I don't want to share my personal opinions, and I am not here to 'make friends'. I want to keep work at work, and home at home."
I would never say the above because that's grounds for an instant conflict, ie: "I'm not here for the koolaid, I'm here for the paycheck". Best way I've found to address it is to outright lie and say you suffer from social anxiety.
Not directly in answer to your comments, but if you work for a remote company then meeting up 2 or 3 times a year for a week is part of the trade-off. The rest of the year you're at home for the partner/kids/pets.
I've traveled quite a few times for business since having kids. My brother-in-law travels even more than I do for business.
Business travel is both a personal preference and part of the bigger career direction tradeoffs that must be weighed when choosing an employer.
"I have a family" isn't something to hide behind when your job includes a small amount of travel. It's something that can be accommodated and planned for.
They're horrible, but it's a tradeoff for full time remote I suppose. Myvwife despises them since she's stuck on fulltime childcare, I can't imagine how single parents do it.
The biggest issue is that it often is a week if pointless koolaid drinking, with a huge carbon footprint at that.
I've just been away on a non work retreat for 5 days and it was a big ask.
I can't imagine doing something similar for work. Are they paying you all the time you are away (after all, you are basically "at work" the whole 24 hours).
It just seems another way to squeeze more house out of people.
I've done these and I have a family. If you are sick, expecting, or have other obligations, it is unfortunate if you can't make it. It was fantastic to get to know a lot of folks who are typically just avatars on a screen or a face in a meeting.
Even before I had a family, the last thing I wanted to do was spend a week somewhere else with people from work. If I want to go somewhere magical, I'll save my money, plan the trip with people I know and like, and go - likely to have a far better and memorable trip with an agenda
(or not) we set for ourselves.
Now that I have a family, the prospect would be a big fat "No" for me, unless we're all encouraged to bring our families.
We usually do a short retreat once per year. It starts around 9 am on a Friday, when we drive with a bus to our destination (usually 2 or 3h drive), and we come back on Saturday about 3 pm. All of that is "fun time"/team building. Of course that's a bit lamer than the topic, but since many of us have kids (I don't) they have a more realistic chance of attending. And for most them usually works out (but were quite small with ~50ppl).
My SO's employer went to Mallorca to party for a week when the company was smaller (200ppl?). I like our approach much more.
I see your point. A retreat need not always be in far off places or for 1 week. Infact, I think, most of the startup teams can achieve what they want in 2 or 3 days max.
In our case, there are team members who can't attend the retreat and we are fine with it. There is no evaluation/judgment happening. But we encourage them to be there to learn and understand faster
SendGrid famously had our annual full-company trips to Mexico. We kept this going for (I think) 7 years. Eventually, it became impossible to get everyone to the same place around the same time.
The goals were team building (esp. with folks you don't see every day) and company alignment. As we got larger, it was harder and harder to get to know everyone; however, the first couple of years, you came back knowing just about everyone in the company. This was great and helped interacting with people over chat and in meetings. As we continued to get larger, you just couldn't meet everyone, but you could strategically find folks from teams you work with from other locations. Getting aligned on the company direction for the upcoming year always stayed really solid. The trips were more and more jam-packed with meetings each year. Whole day meetings are hard, but it was nice to unwind with coworkers for a few hours each night.
At one of my previous off sites someone had a 4x4 atv roll on them. Spent a month+ at a hospital before he could travel home and then had months more of recovery.
edit: Remember companies, always make sure there's insurance covering the event and activities.
On an offsite for a startup, we went canoeing on a river. That can be really dangerous. My canoe flipped and sank. So I stupidly dived down to retrieve it and succeeded in putting my life at risk. You can get trapped under water in a river quite easily. I did but I was strong enough to get myself untrapped. I'd rather just program, thank you.
>If there is one rule, then it had to be the ‘safety net’ rule. It just means that everyone is safe to speak their minds during the retreat. There will be many sessions on feedback about product, company, people etc. If team members are worried about repercussions, then retreats wouldn’t work at all.
Sounds great in theory, but what do you do when someone starts sharing sexist or biased opinions. Or starts to personally degrade another employee or team?
For a responsible company, there are always repercussions, it is disingenuous to lead employees to believe otherwise.
There is strong moderation by an internal party or external consultant. If someone makes sexist, biased or racial opinions, why does it matter whether it is offsite or not?
We live in a world of freedom, but that doesn't mean you can abuse someone. It is the same in offsite too. You have safety, but not to be a jerk
To each their own, but company retreats are a gift that employees give to their employer, in the form of time. Keeping it light and encouraging team building makes sense. Hackathons seem aggressive, IMHO.
About hackathon -> people have different motivations. I have seen devs who find nirvana when coding. But for them, coding on the same product every day is bad. So they want to do something new, something that they love and wanna build for a long time.
So, if there are hackathons (or whatever you call it) where they build something that is not their regular stuff, they will get recharged.
About startup being a family -->
I'm sure I can find 100 articles talking about why startups == family. All of us have different opinions on pretty much everything.
When I call my company as a family, I agree that we don't live upto ALL the values of a family. However, I want my team to feel that they are safe and each of us is looking out for the rest. It tells them that we are a people-first company.
It's sad that this kind of retreat is considered a perk, they're more like punishment to me. What's the point of joining a company, remote-first or not, if I then have to spend several full successive days with the same persons I see and speak to every day? They're not my family, and I consider this kind of "bonding" highly inappropriate.
I feel the same, business is business. I sell you my time and buy your money, or I buy someone else's time and sell them money. We can be polite and chit chat about non political stuff, but I'm not interested beyond that in a work environment.
There was a time when it felt inappropriate to share news beyond the immediate family. Then came social media. With all its shortcomings, social media has still managed to do some good things for the world.
Times change - if you feel safe in an org, you'd want to hang out, open up and share. The sad thing is - most of the orgs won't give us that environment.
This is my humble attempt to build an org where I love to work and share
=> A company retreat is a better way to connect with your colleagues outside your official environment which helps your teammates to express themselves which helps the whole team, which is what you call as a company to prepare for the next small/big changes the company would be planning ahead.
Why?
=> It creates that bonding within your team and changes the perspective towards their project/work on a positive note.
=> For eg, if you are changing your strategy or developing a new product/idea, (works very well for ideation I hop), a company retreat would be really useful to make sure that all are on board and aligned towards the goal.
=> It improves the morale, better bonding, communication skills and especially the considerations & cooperations.
How?
=> Letting your ego's go would be a nice way to plan it out. Collective decisions and plan it out :)
Am I the only one who thought retreats are just a method for the company to force employees to work unpaid OT, cause well, where are they gonna go? Everyone's in some far away destination disconnected from friends/family so you may as well work for a week straight.
Have you been to one? In my experience it's discouraged to do actual work so that you can focus on the goals at hand. Also in my experience, a decent company will hold it during business hours/week. Or at least overlap that time.
It looks like you didn't have a great company hosting you. I have never heard of unpaid OT during a retreat.
I run this small company and I take a lot of effort to find the right budget to give a good experience for my team. If I give a bad experience during the 3-4 days, then why would they come back recharged to the office?
Organizing a retreat takes significant time and money from the company. If someone is using that just to force a few team members to work unpaid, they really don't see the bigger picture. Get out of the place asap :)
Company Retreat is a great way for people working remotely to connect with their teammates from other parts of the world and for the founders to get everyone on the same page. It may not be so interesting if everyone works in the same office daily.
I agree.. being a "work from anywhere" company we have adopted an annual offsite as a key ingredient in establishing the culture we are looking to inculcate in the company.
We have folks in 5 different time zones and once a year the team meets for a week-long offsite. Agenda is managed and executed by an external agency. Includes work as usual + lunch & learns + collaborative dinner experiences.
In addition to our employees, key partners, consultants also participate.
Liked how the team decided to play devil's advocate to their existing way of working. More often than not, one tends to lose focus on why they are doing it and if it makes sense.
Equally important is creating a sense of security where everyone voices opinions without fear of judgement.
Pleasantly surprised that despite working remotely, the team managed to split responsibilities for retreat amongst them instead of making it a one-person show!
Interesting thread. Early in the startup phase, retreat could be a venue to openly address any strategic directional or operational misalignment, bring an external coach to help the executive team share their personal challenges in a relaxed environment. Because a lot of time, personal skill development or scaling up from a founder to CEO, or Engineering to an executive can be terrifying to a lot of people if you are doing it for the first time in a startup.
An startup office mayn't be able to address that challenges, retreats would be a way to address, while building the team comradeship building saying we all in this together, let's get our personal growth story aligned to comapny goals, let's hit them both would set a tone for company culture. If retreats well thoughts and used as a immersive exercise can pay itself forward in a lot of good ways.
There are ofcourse pros and cons of doing anything, time would be essence. Got to see if pros outweighs cons in a long run and make a go at it.
My startup ( Datahut) did the same a few months ago and it definitely helped the founders improve our relationship with the team members. Personally, for me it helped build a stronger relationship with those who don't directly work under me. The change is clearly visible before and after the retreat.
Spending quality time with your team is the focus here. If your extended tea break sessions, 2-3 times every week, serves this purpose then be it. If all of your key team members, including the founders are working remotely, then a week long focused retreat like this serves the purpose. This will also give the founders an opportunity to get away from the daily whirlwind, zoom out and have a fresh look at the why, how and what of the startup. If you have co-founders/key team members, who cannot make time for a week long retreat because of the family commitment, then they can be accommodated in the form of short focused sessions split in a week.
A company retreat is essential for any business, whether remote or not is what I think. Some times you get so held up with daily operations that you don’t see where the world is going or what exactly you are doing. It need not be a week long program or a an expensive one it’s all about how everyone sees it and that really depends on the company culture.
Very interesting read. Also it would be interesting to see how the company takes this initiative further when it grows. I remember my 300 member consulting firm flying the employees to Spain from Stuttgart for the 20 year anniversary. Keep up the good spirit .
-> Startups need to stop pretending their employees are “friends” or “family”.
Startups can strive hard to build a company that looks out for the person on their left and right. Yes, it won't be perfect. Yes, it will get difficult when it grows. But those are not good enough reasons not to try.
--> Disposable cogs
All of us don't see it that way. We have to part ways with our team members, but the key is to do it gracefully, in a humane way. Here is a video that I recorded about it -> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rarjunpillai_founderhabits-te...
In US, coz of the fear of getting sued, companies are forced to blindfold, inhumanely fire people and get them out of the office in 5 mins. Around the world, companies don't fire team members like in US. There are enough places where there are conversations, notice period, performance improvement plans and then letting go.
-> I’ve never seen one of these be done where it wasn’t a) a party or b) eye rolling corporate propaganda.
You have been to only 1 or 2 types of retreats. Our retreat didn't have a party. I have attended over 10, none of them had 'parties'. Did we have a good time? yes. But not the dance floor parties with all sorts of stuff inside you.
Give it a chance that there could be a good side of it :)
whycombagator|6 years ago
I often see week long company retreats in far away lands listed as a positive/selling point on many company recruiting pages.
For many in their 20s, or single, it probably sounds great.
But there is definitely an unspoken pressure element to the whole thing for a certain class of individual.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I imagine if you have a family these retreats can actually be a negative. Perhaps they aren't mandatory, but surely it's not wise politically to miss them.
I feel like those with families might not want to spend a week away from the family in <insert-far-away-land>. For a variety of reasons.
Maybe some companies do a better job of catering for everyone/thinking about this. Perhaps it's not a problem.
But it just seems to me like at least some of them are another one of those "keep the company young" ageism tactics - whether on purpose or not.
joshpadnick|6 years ago
So we recognize this fact and try to mitigate it in a few ways:
- We structure the offsite week so that Mon - Thu is meetings and Fri is a fun day. This means attendees can leave on Thu night or Fri morning if they'd rather re-join their families sooner.
- We actively encourage our team to prioritize their families above their work and make it clear that attendance is preferred but optional. One of our colleagues just had a baby 2 weeks ago and no one would expect him to attend.
- We do what we can to make our meetups remote-friendly. If someone can join remotely, we use a Meeting Owl[2] to give them a better remote experience. It's not perfect, nor is it Cisco Telepresence, but it seems a lot better than everyone present jumping on a Zoom.
- We try to work around colleagues when possible. We recently held the meet up in my home town when my wife was in her third trimester and really needed me home!
For the rest of the year, we enjoy the benefits of being remote, among which flexibility is ranked high.
[1] https://gruntwork.io
[2] https://www.owllabs.com/meeting-owl
cs02rm0|6 years ago
I've now got a 7 year old and twin 2 year olds. They're a handful and a half, even on a good day. They're my family, much as I like most of them my coworkers are not. My wife really struggles with the kids at times and we don't have much of a support network to lean on. She called me just yesterday from the other side of town because one of the two year olds was refusing to get into his car seat. I ended up driving there to help her.
I basically turn down anything that requires an overnight stay now. I get away with it but it definitely trades on what political capital I have.
folkhack|6 years ago
This is something I have come to really despise about working in tech. It doesn't matter if it's office beers, or the board games group, or retreats, etc... It's something that I feel is almost inappropriate in regards to my personal time which is fleeting the older I get.
> "keep the company young" ageism tactics
Anecdotally, I've found it's less ageism and more building a "club" of who's in/out. If you're someone who wants to keep colleagues at arms length (ie: strictly business) it turns into a huge problem, and it will definitely come up in your 1-on-1's.
It plays out like this: "We're noticing you're missing team events - why is that? Is everything alright? We'd like people to be team players!"
To which I always want to respond: "Well Bob, at the end of the day we're all replaceable to those up the chain and I know it's 100% in my worst interest to blend my personal life and my work life. I don't want to drink with you, I don't want to share my personal opinions, and I am not here to 'make friends'. I want to keep work at work, and home at home."
I would never say the above because that's grounds for an instant conflict, ie: "I'm not here for the koolaid, I'm here for the paycheck". Best way I've found to address it is to outright lie and say you suffer from social anxiety.
rwmj|6 years ago
gwbas1c|6 years ago
Business travel is both a personal preference and part of the bigger career direction tradeoffs that must be weighed when choosing an employer.
"I have a family" isn't something to hide behind when your job includes a small amount of travel. It's something that can be accommodated and planned for.
CalRobert|6 years ago
The biggest issue is that it often is a week if pointless koolaid drinking, with a huge carbon footprint at that.
stuaxo|6 years ago
I can't imagine doing something similar for work. Are they paying you all the time you are away (after all, you are basically "at work" the whole 24 hours).
It just seems another way to squeeze more house out of people.
sethammons|6 years ago
enobrev|6 years ago
Now that I have a family, the prospect would be a big fat "No" for me, unless we're all encouraged to bring our families.
archi42|6 years ago
My SO's employer went to Mallorca to party for a week when the company was smaller (200ppl?). I like our approach much more.
rarjunpillai|6 years ago
In our case, there are team members who can't attend the retreat and we are fine with it. There is no evaluation/judgment happening. But we encourage them to be there to learn and understand faster
chronic268g|6 years ago
There is no obligation (ethically, or legally) for companies to accommodate everyone.
Certain groups, yes. But not everyone.
Vote with your feet.
sethammons|6 years ago
The goals were team building (esp. with folks you don't see every day) and company alignment. As we got larger, it was harder and harder to get to know everyone; however, the first couple of years, you came back knowing just about everyone in the company. This was great and helped interacting with people over chat and in meetings. As we continued to get larger, you just couldn't meet everyone, but you could strategically find folks from teams you work with from other locations. Getting aligned on the company direction for the upcoming year always stayed really solid. The trips were more and more jam-packed with meetings each year. Whole day meetings are hard, but it was nice to unwind with coworkers for a few hours each night.
Good times.
nrook|6 years ago
While this did lead to a significantly increased esprit de corps at the office, the risks are such that I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.
marcinzm|6 years ago
edit: Remember companies, always make sure there's insurance covering the event and activities.
CalChris|6 years ago
On an offsite for a startup, we went canoeing on a river. That can be really dangerous. My canoe flipped and sank. So I stupidly dived down to retrieve it and succeeded in putting my life at risk. You can get trapped under water in a river quite easily. I did but I was strong enough to get myself untrapped. I'd rather just program, thank you.
stuaxo|6 years ago
bogomipz|6 years ago
GaryNumanVevo|6 years ago
psv1|6 years ago
This would be a big no for me.
rarjunpillai|6 years ago
aeternus|6 years ago
Sounds great in theory, but what do you do when someone starts sharing sexist or biased opinions. Or starts to personally degrade another employee or team?
For a responsible company, there are always repercussions, it is disingenuous to lead employees to believe otherwise.
Jamwinner|6 years ago
rarjunpillai|6 years ago
We live in a world of freedom, but that doesn't mean you can abuse someone. It is the same in offsite too. You have safety, but not to be a jerk
iblaine|6 years ago
> Want to be part of our Insent family?
Also -> https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Y6Au8W...
rarjunpillai|6 years ago
So, if there are hackathons (or whatever you call it) where they build something that is not their regular stuff, they will get recharged.
About startup being a family --> I'm sure I can find 100 articles talking about why startups == family. All of us have different opinions on pretty much everything.
When I call my company as a family, I agree that we don't live upto ALL the values of a family. However, I want my team to feel that they are safe and each of us is looking out for the rest. It tells them that we are a people-first company.
quicksilver03|6 years ago
lotsofpulp|6 years ago
rarjunpillai|6 years ago
Times change - if you feel safe in an org, you'd want to hang out, open up and share. The sad thing is - most of the orgs won't give us that environment.
This is my humble attempt to build an org where I love to work and share
achyuthan89|6 years ago
What?
=> A company retreat is a better way to connect with your colleagues outside your official environment which helps your teammates to express themselves which helps the whole team, which is what you call as a company to prepare for the next small/big changes the company would be planning ahead.
Why?
reidjs|6 years ago
BowBun|6 years ago
rarjunpillai|6 years ago
I run this small company and I take a lot of effort to find the right budget to give a good experience for my team. If I give a bad experience during the 3-4 days, then why would they come back recharged to the office?
Organizing a retreat takes significant time and money from the company. If someone is using that just to force a few team members to work unpaid, they really don't see the bigger picture. Get out of the place asap :)
MeetSC|6 years ago
anant_sharma|6 years ago
We have folks in 5 different time zones and once a year the team meets for a week-long offsite. Agenda is managed and executed by an external agency. Includes work as usual + lunch & learns + collaborative dinner experiences.
In addition to our employees, key partners, consultants also participate.
SekhAparna|6 years ago
rarjunpillai|6 years ago
Zooming out is super critical, whether in startup or life
thenus|6 years ago
An startup office mayn't be able to address that challenges, retreats would be a way to address, while building the team comradeship building saying we all in this together, let's get our personal growth story aligned to comapny goals, let's hit them both would set a tone for company culture. If retreats well thoughts and used as a immersive exercise can pay itself forward in a lot of good ways.
There are ofcourse pros and cons of doing anything, time would be essence. Got to see if pros outweighs cons in a long run and make a go at it.
octeon|6 years ago
datahut|6 years ago
rarjunpillai|6 years ago
prabilmj|6 years ago
arjunmenonk1|6 years ago
sandeepasok|6 years ago
GaryNumanVevo|6 years ago
sandeepasok|6 years ago
[deleted]
ecf|6 years ago
Startups need to stop pretending their employees are “friends” or “family”.
They are disposable cogs that will be replaced the very same day if they happened to pass away, for example.
I’ve never seen one of these be done where it wasn’t a) a party or b) eye rolling corporate propaganda.
In my case, I saw my engineering manager inhale co2 cartridges...
rarjunpillai|6 years ago
-> Startups need to stop pretending their employees are “friends” or “family”. Startups can strive hard to build a company that looks out for the person on their left and right. Yes, it won't be perfect. Yes, it will get difficult when it grows. But those are not good enough reasons not to try.
--> Disposable cogs All of us don't see it that way. We have to part ways with our team members, but the key is to do it gracefully, in a humane way. Here is a video that I recorded about it -> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rarjunpillai_founderhabits-te...
In US, coz of the fear of getting sued, companies are forced to blindfold, inhumanely fire people and get them out of the office in 5 mins. Around the world, companies don't fire team members like in US. There are enough places where there are conversations, notice period, performance improvement plans and then letting go.
-> I’ve never seen one of these be done where it wasn’t a) a party or b) eye rolling corporate propaganda. You have been to only 1 or 2 types of retreats. Our retreat didn't have a party. I have attended over 10, none of them had 'parties'. Did we have a good time? yes. But not the dance floor parties with all sorts of stuff inside you.
Give it a chance that there could be a good side of it :)