How offsites can transform your business
Enjoy better focus, productivity and satisfaction
Offsites save you money
We build trust faster and more effectively in person.
But before you dig out the RTO mandate, the latest research shows that intermittent ‘bursts’ of in-person work result in greater collective intelligence than being together all the time.
That means, for a team of 150 people, you can…
Save £720k per year on office space
Reinvest £150k per year into quarterly offsites
Save £700k per year in disengagement & retention costs
Save £10k per year in offsite planning time through WorkTripp
Saving over £1m every year.
The competitive advantage
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Atlassian
Atlassian’s Team Anywhere helped host 1,600 team gatherings last year, with an ave. 16 attendees at each. Their approach to distributed work has cut office costs in half, boosted their talent pipeline, and improved focus and connection.
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Tremendous
Tremendous is a boot-strapped fintech with an 8-figure ARR. Offsites are integral to its culture & success - it hasn’t had an employee leave voluntarily for over a year. Each team holds a strategic offsite twice a year, with a yearly retreat for the whole company - now about 100 employees.
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Zapier
Zapier has a team of 800 across 40 countries. They get together in-person twice each year, in groups of 7 to 185. The company is worth over $5bn.
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World Economic Forum
Still need convincing? The success of distributed work coupled with regular offsites made it into 2024’s WEF Top 5 Work Trends to watch, in collaboration with Harvard Busines Review.
The big picture
Scientific research reinforces why this approach to team development is important.
Stanford University
“The best outcomes are when we modulate being alone and being together.”
In a recent Stanford experiment, in-person teams generated about 15% more ideas than virtual teams. The researchers found that, for creative collaboration, sometimes you can’t beat a face-to-face meeting. And Jeremy Utley at the Stanford D School says "The best outcomes are when we modulate being alone and being together."
MIT
“Conversations outside of formal meetings are the most important factor that contributes to team success.”
…according to researchers at MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory. This is why surgical teams always chat about what they did at the weekend. Building cross-team bonds leads to greater psychological safety and exceptional performance.
McKinsey
“Invest in leadership-development experiences that are emotional, sensory, and create aha moments.”
McKinsey points out that most teams don’t do enough to work on their psychological safety. They call for teams to “Invest in leadership-development experiences that are emotional, sensory, and create aha moments. Learning experiences that are immersive and engaging are remembered more clearly and for a longer time.”
Stanford, Aristotle, Steve Jobs…
Being active unlocks innovation
Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Aristotle all walked to aid thinking and, indeed, Stanford research established that a person's creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when walking. We love remote work, but we think that getting everyone together in memorable environments can really shape team buy-in and unlock new innovation.