How To Plan In-Person Retreats When You're A Remote-First Workplace

"my agency made a decisive choice not to look back. Even as return-to-office mandates came rolling in a few years later, we realized our team was productive and happy working remotely. There was no reason to change what was going well. After all, our clients were located around the world; why couldn't the same be true of our employees? This mindset allowed us to hire and retain some of the top talent in the healthcare PR and marketing space, regardless of Zip code."

"It also, however, required a strategic and concerted effort to adapt our already strong team culture, while building and designing a new version of that culture that could be sustained remotely. Meeting at the watercooler, impromptu lunches and office celebrations simply do not translate the same way across Zoom. And as silly as it might seem, those are meaningful and impactful team-building and bonding experiences."

"While the agency world has long been known for its "churn and burn" approach to employee relations, we've always had a people-first mantra (we refer to ourselves as KNBeings, after all). We didn't want to lose sight of that priority, even if we were losing shared cubicle space. So our leadership team worked to create a new set of company values and practices to ensure our culture didn't get lost behind a computer screen."

During the Covid-19 pandemic the agency transitioned to remote work and chose to remain remote after return-to-office mandates, finding the team productive and content. Remote hiring expanded the talent pool across geographies, enabling recruitment and retention of top healthcare PR and marketing professionals regardless of zip code. Sustaining team culture required deliberate adaptation, since informal office interactions do not translate over video. Leadership preserved a people-first mantra by establishing new company values and practices, committing to regular in-person retreats alongside virtual events and activities. The agency held a recent company retreat in early Q3 and offered practical tips for planning productive, memorable retreats.

Read at Forbes