EP071 - How to plan a remote team retreat with Milana Martinovic at Onsite Hub
About the episode
This episode focuses on the changing industry of remote retreats. Learn how to organize a retreat for your remote team, what to look for, and how to ensure everyone has an amazing experience. Milana Martinovic has worked in the hospitality industry for the last decade and shares her insights with our audience.
About the guest
Milana is the founder and General Manager of Onsite Hub - an agency specializing in company retreats for distributed teams.
Onsite Hub provides retreat planning services in the best locations across Europe and Central America. Unlike other classic and boutique event agencies, Onsite Hub focuses on streamlining operations and its offer, thereby being able to provide the best experience at a competitive cost.
Milana has been part of scaling Operations for remote startups for 12 years. Most recently leading a team of 10 event planners executing over 120 retreats in one year, Milana understands the role of operational excellence and cutting through the clutter of complex projects such as remote company retreats.
Connect with Milana on LinkedIn.
About the host
My name is Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. My mission is to help and inspire a community of remote leaders who can bring more autonomy, transparency, and leverage to their businesses, ultimately empowering their colleagues to be happier, more independent, and more self-conscious.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Want to become a guest on the show? Contact me here.
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Welcome everyone. Welcome on The Leadership Anywhere podcast. Today's topic is all about change. As with most of the topics that we have here, shall we say but one of the most Prone to change industries within the remote workspace is the retreat business. There are many reasons why it is a constantly changing environment due to the fact that the industry in itself is changing the retreats now that companies are offering for remote teams as a team building option or like just onsite meeting. They are also changing because the customers are changing. And I have someone here who can talk about this constant change and how it has changed in the last, I don't know, five years or more. The original COO of the surf office, and now building her own remote retreat company on site hub. Welcome Milana Martinovic on this show.
Hi, Peter. Welcome. Thanks for having me.
Appreciate your time for coming here. And I think this will be an interesting conversation. So let's start off with I already did some small intro on you, but I think it's more important that you introduce yourself. Where are you coming from? Where are you dialing from right now? And how did you end up working remotely and also in the remote retreat space?
Sure. Hi everyone again, as you heard, my name is Milana. Originally from Croatia, but that hasn't been the case for most of my life. I lived for a very long time in Prague, Czech Republic. I also lived in Berlin, in Dublin, moved around everywhere. I have loved travel from a very early age and have been, yeah, unsettled most of my life. So I guess that kind of led me to remote work. My remote work path started 13 years ago with Airbnb which was a very exciting time. I was one of the first European employees part of the first batch of the European employees and with Airbnb, and it was. It was amazing. Yeah. It was a time of figuring it out, like there were none of the remote practices, the HR practices that you have right now. So everything was they were like, we need people who are in European time zone. Let's go find them. And we were like, yes, hire us. And how do we do this? We have no idea. Let's figure it out. We were like, having our own companies and then invoicing and being like, whatever it was a wonderful mess. And then when the company obviously grew and became very successful they were like, okay, compliance is not going to take this anymore. We need to rein it in. So they opened a European headquarter in Dublin, asked all of us to move there, gave us a wonderful grace period of six months. And we're like, Hey, come here, test it out. If you don't like it, we will still give you like all of the benefits, and compensation and everything. And I did go to Dublin because I loved Airbnb. I loved the team and everything, but having tasted remote work. I knew from day one that there is absolutely no office funky and swanky and with like free massages or whatever you can throw at me. And they were competing very hard with the Googles and the Twitters and the everyone else. And no way, I knew that office life was definitely not for me. Left Airbnb and have been part of a remote first companies, mostly startups because that was the reality of that world pre pandemic. Ever since I've worked mostly in operations roles which led me to, yeah, led me to the operations part, combined with the love for travel and exploring new places. I was also, I also worked in tourism in my younger years. I organized a film festival on a Croatian island. So a lot of the building blocks Came together with surf office and my role on my time there of building a very successful company retreat agency from scratch. And one of the front runners in that arena at all. Yeah, and now we're here with this expanding market and expanding universe of remote companies, hybrid companies that value the need to get to work remotely and to provide all of the benefits for their workforce that remote work brings. But also know that every once in a while, you still need to see your colleagues in real life and spend that face time together. And just create relationships and bonds.
It's an amazing journey, by the way. Seriously, like 13 years ago at Airbnb, I actually wondered that is that Airbnb that old? And yeah, they were really starting out that, that time. Exactly yeah. Yeah and I'm also familiar with SurfOffice, and as you said, it was a frontrunner. And it was utterly different how companies favored or organized remote retreats back then, like five to ten years ago. I'm not 100 percent even sure that any company organized a remote retreat ten years ago, through an agency, by the way, or any kind of solution provider like SurfOffice. But five years ago, it was definitely a thing, but mostly for startup companies. I think with small teams, like 10, 20 people or so, that has changed with the pandemic and also after the pandemic how do you see that change? Because that's fundamental, I think for your industry and also for the remote work industry as well.
Absolutely. It's a massive change. What used to be a very niche market the clients used to be as you said, in terms of numbers, smaller companies, but also in terms of mindset companies that, we understood each other because we were in the same, mindset. They were companies that were inherently remote because, three founders came together and then they had to hire some Ukrainian programmers and then someone in Spain to do their marketing or whatever. And, people were scrappy and they were, finding scrappy to hire amazing people. And that's how this whole movement started.
You're talking about pretty much my first one or two remote jobs ever. Like literally that was the case. So development in Eastern Europe or Russia and marketing in central or Southern Europe account management and sales usually in the U S or in Western Europe, pretty much that was the layout for not just for my jobs but also for any other people jobs.
Yeah. Yeah. And these types of companies, they just figured out that, Hey, let's get together. They figured out that they wanted to see each other every once in a while. And then as they grew, getting together a team of seven people is fairly easy. You go to Airbnb, you rent a villa, you book it for a week and that's it. It's not difficult to book restaurants for seven people, and stuff like that. When you grow to 15, 20, it gets a little bit more complex, but still it's manageable. When you grow over 20, it's already starting to be a different ballgame. And that's how with the development and the growth of those startups, like this market started growing because, they started realizing they needed some help and not just the help, but also like from our side from the agency side we started realizing that there's a lot of expertise and a lot of value that we can offer in standardizing things. Because not reinventing the wheel every single time that you organize a retreat, because also like in the tourist agency or event agency space. Event agencies are not a new thing. They've been around for agencies. Exactly. Yeah but the difference is that tourist or event agencies, the old way that they would operate was, okay, fine, let's sit down, let's customize everything, like we will organize your executive team balloon flight over the Alps with champagne and but like charge you have to leave for it as well. And, we know that executive teams and boardrooms and, of huge corporations have been doing this for a very long time. They would go away and do their strategic planning and exotic Chamonix type of places.
Heard about that.
Yeah, but hasn't been very accessible. To like regular folk, right? And like they wouldn't take the entire company because it was those boutique agencies would charge a very large fee. That was part of my role as an operations executive was how do we figure out a way to make this accessible to our clients because our clients are small, often bootstrapped or like with minimal investment startups, they don't have infinite budgets. But there's still a need to do this and the market is growing, so let's try and figure out how we can do that. And obviously by optimizing your ops and by bringing your costs down, by selecting the right types of partners, by then also negotiating and optimizing their ops, you can bring all of those prices down and expand your market. So that is the biggest difference and the biggest change that has happened. And then, obviously the pandemic happened, we all know, we all can remember that everything stopped, all of travel, all of tourism stopped. It was quite a bit of a dire moment, but I was always optimistic because I kept on saying to the team, to everyone once this is over we are going to explode because the old way of working is done. It's over with. Remote is gonna, definitely take off and our market is just going to expand. And that's exactly what happened. And what's been happening though, for the last two years has just been incredible. Obviously a lot of, also a lot of new companies and a lot of new startups happen, develop during the pandemic. So that's also great. I don't know. Sometimes it feels everyone was like stuck at home and they just had ideas popping out of their heads and they're like, let's do this and let's do that. So they were very efficient and productive. The old clients also grew up, grew in size, became more, bigger operationally, financially, everything. But there's this whole new aspect of clients, new clients that are coming from the old school corporate world that have, ditched the office and are now, saying, yeah, let's not pay for an office, but let's allocate that budget to a yearly quarterly, semi annually, whatever, get together departmental get togethers, because everyone is just realizing that There's no way they're going to get their people back to an office. The, all of the back to the office advocates are just, I mean I guess they're like lying to themselves, because it's not going to happen. All of the employees that have tasted the freedom of remote work, most of them don't want to go back. Any company with any common sense will have to take on and hence, our market is in a very exciting times right now. It is growing rapidly. It's exciting not just for us from the agency standpoint, but also from the client standpoint, because as more service providers are bound to be coming up, there's going to be an exciting area of partners that you can work with. And some are going to focus on this, like being operationally excellent and being able to bring costs down. Some others are going to focus on I don't know, crazy adventures or whatever, and try to grab that part of the market. Some others are going to focus on, I don't know, maybe only retreats on cruise ships or, whatever. So I'm positive that the market is going to, it's just starting to evolve and expand and it's going to be an exciting and interesting thing to see.
Totally. And it's As you said, in the last year, I think I saw at least five different retreat companies with totally different offers. And yes, there is the adventurous type. There is the we are only doing it in Bali or like other tropical island things. And there are some like the big ones we are renting a villa and also promoting any kind of workshops and stuff like that around. I think there are two other changes that we should discuss. One is the way I see it, the traditional hospitality industry is also adapting to this new whatever it is. Yeah. I'm not sure that there are any like straight edge hospitality folks listening to this show, but there is this like my MICE and then like business related options within the hotels and the hospital industry where they organize conferences. And what I see already is that most of these conferences, yes, they obviously provide the event and whatever. But these hospitality companies, they also provide them like a retreat option, because what I saw in most of the startups that I've worked for is that yes, they had retreats sometimes. But one of the best ways to meet with each other it's through traveling to conferences and that was a big thing. And what happened usually there is that, yes, we went there during, one of the department, I wouldn't say departments, like groups of the teams within the startup, like a marketing team and sales. And we stayed one day before the conference and one day after the conference, and it was also part of a team building exercise, why we also worked on the conference. I think that's also another angle that is growing and will be growing, but definitely the hospitality industry, the classic one is taking some moves as well within this.
Absolutely. And they have to if they want to stay relevant in the game because you can't say, just like here's a room and here are some chairs and that's it because that is not enough anymore. We see it in individual travel happening that individual travelers, because, either be Digital nomads or people that just want to extend their vacation by a week and, work remotely are looking for, setups, ergonomic chairs and desks and reliable Wi Fi and all of the stuff like that. So there are hospitality companies that are starting to get it, and they are starting to get that it's not just a conference, like a conference is a completely different product, a conference, we all know what a conference is, there's someone speaking, there's a, an auditorium of people listening that, panels and stuff like that. This is different. This is, First of all, the biggest difference, it lasts longer. It's not one or two days, but these are teams getting together usually during the work week to be productive and to work alongside one another. Yes, they need a room, but that room needs to be equipped. It needs to have enough outlets for everyone to power their laptops. It needs to have not just any crappy hotel Wi Fi. It needs to have ideally dedicated only to that group. That's not going to be breaking up, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It needs enough chairs and it's not, it needs like flip charts and everything that you would find in a regular office setting. It needs to have that. We're still struggling sometimes hotels will be like, yes, we have a conference room. And then you see, it's literally just a room with a table and chairs. And you're like what about a screen? And they're like, yes, you can rent a television for 700 euros a day. And you're like, no, you, first of all, you can't sell a conference room if it doesn't have. Something to project on something to write on something to, what are you imagining these people are just going to be sitting around and looking at each other. Yeah, are like, the ones like, they have those. Maybe it's a coaching session. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah, but like those horrible photos when they put like an apple and a bottle of water on the table and it's like their promo photos and you're just like, Oh my God, this is so last century. But anyway, luckily, there are a lot of venues that are getting up to speed with the trends, and there is what's most exciting and most interesting like a whole segment of The hospitality industry that's emerging, which is venues designed specifically for this purpose. When they're, being built, they are taking all of this into consideration, they're considering like one big conference room for all of the attendees, a couple of smaller breakout spaces, optic fiber internet, but also rooms that are equipped because if people are going to be, sitting inside of the rooms and Yeah. All of this stuff, which like those types of venues are incredibly easy to sell. Like they sell themselves and that's the future, but also there's a lot of possibilities for the traditional hotels, especially like the big chains, because again Up to 20, 30 people you can find a finca, you can find a hacienda, you can find a something somewhere, in the south of Europe for everyone to get together. You can, play with the yoga resort style, types of venues etc. Up to 50 people, you can buy out a whole boutique hotel or something and still make it work, turn the restaurant into the workspace, make it work. But, when you grow more than that, you just have to go to a traditional style, large scale hotel. And that's where there is a huge opportunity for everyone.
Sure, and I think one of the other changes that we should discuss is the, so everyone thinks and and that's like short sightedness. I think is that this whole remote retreat thing is is 100 percent hospitality. Which is true, of course, it's most of the time it's and the majority of the workflow, the operations and the things that you sell there, it's obviously it's closer to the hospitality and tourism industry. But it doesn't count to the fact that why actually companies are doing that. Yes, they are doing it because of, they want to meet with each other. But most of these events lasting about a week or two, depending on obviously on the company. But they also do a lot of learning and development during these events. So it's workshops, trainings collaboration that cannot happen or happens differently when they work remotely. And I think retreat planning companies are starting to realize that they also need to offer, or at least tie in some other elements to this offer, like offering like workshops, facilitation, coaching, whatever it is, depending on, obviously it's more flexible, of course, then like a location that you have it's more a la carte menu, shall we say, but it's something that is it's going into that industry, like mixing with the learning and development industry a little bit more.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I would also say, yeah, learning and development and also like the consultancy services and that whole part. That is honestly the reason why I decided to, branch out and to start onsite hub is because As I said, the market is expanding. It's absolutely not a zero sum game. There is space for everyone and all of the different players and all of the different takes on retreats and retreat planning. So I wanted to absolutely involve that part. So not be just logistics yeah, we'll organize your transfers and your hotel and your everything. But add that second layer of added value. So at Onsite Hub, what the first question that we ask customers in the sales process is what is the purpose of your getting together? Yeah, what's the goal? What's the goal? Yeah, not like how many people are you? What's your budget? Where do you want to go? But what is the goal? Exactly. First of all, what is the goal? Because your goal is going to influence all of The rest your goal is going to influence whether we will suggest you going to the mountains to a very secluded place where you will get focus and productivity or if going to a busy beach location where you'll have a lot of fun and a lot of, activity options, but companies knowing what the goal of that Week or a couple of days or whatever Is the most important thing because that will then design the agenda that will then influence the type of location that will influence the setup the choice of team building activities and the restaurants that even you know, you go to it influences everything and Absolutely, like then when we know what is the goal of the get together We can then tie in those Added value services like okay, here's a facilitator or here's a coach that is super experienced in you know Whatever leadership development or team cohesion Or remote work practices tools documentation whatever that you want to achieve in this time together We can you know, then build up on that. It's also an exciting time in. that like facilitator consulting, coaching industry, because there are, it's been at least I feel it's been quite stagnant for a while. I have myself, at Airbnb and other companies gone through those types of leadership seminars and, management, whatever. And I was mostly always same old. But now it's growing and it's evolving and People are turning it on its heads and they're like all of these different types of tools that come into play and it's just really amazing and it can get very creative.
But you know why, by the way full honesty here it's because during the pandemic, everyone just realized that, okay, this kind of like working from home and stuff like that. It can work but now that we actually need to either return to the office or make a decision that we won't return to the office, how can we make it work for the longterm? And they experienced a lot of problems and hiccups and stuff like that, of course. There is not much I don't know value, the knowledge in that space. Everyone's throwing ideas around, but not really much standardization or protocol or templates or whatever so everyone is a little bit clueless and and that. Shallow water for fishing. It's always easier for consultants and coaches to actually tell them what to do. That's why all of these services are on a high rise now, I think that part. By the way, within one or two years, it will become less saturated and it will become a little bit more standardized because ultimately at the end of the day I'm sure that as a CEO, you think that your company is super important and unique, but from an operational standpoint, it's not. So usually it can be standardized. There can be an operating system that is applicable for most of the people. But still until then, and during then, and even after then, I think it's important to include these kind of service providers into retreats, because they are, people at a retreat, they are hyper focused they are open to hear pretty much anything. And they want to learn and experience. It's totally different than, sitting at home and doing a virtual cook show or whatever they do. It's a totally different experience. Share some secrets if you don't mind. Because I'm wondering and probably some of the listeners are also wondering that I think there is a fine line between super standardized get off the shelf kind of like service, like for example, an Airbnb where you just, find your place and that's it. And drag and drop from an a la carte menu what you want to do in a remote retreat. And there is a, another line, another side of the game where you book a consultation with an agency. And you go through I don't know, a series of questions, figure out your goal. It's much more like a handholding, much more like a white glove service. Why do you think that clients are still in need of these white gloves handholding services? Why cannot people just drag and drop different solutions for a remote retreat.
Because there is well, just like with anything else, the experience and the expertise that comes into play. Probably also with, as time goes by. And as you said, as things get more standardized, just like a very basic example of the documentation tools for remote companies, like you have the ClickUps, you have the Notion, the Coda, the blah, blah, blah, everything, all of those tools, everyone's trying to figure it out, nobody knows what works best they're looking for best practices, but I'm sure that like in five years time, it's going to be like, here are the top five tools for if you need this, if you need that, if you need that, if you're this size, that size, and people are just going to be like, okay, I know what to choose now. So the same like similar train of thought for company retreats is, yes, you can have an a la carte menu, but how do you as an, let's take an example of, whoever it's usually like an executive assistant or the virtual office manager, if you want to call it or someone who is tasked with this. It's usually the CEO or the COO saying, we need to do this, we need to get together and then they're like, okay. You do it. And then that person is Oh my God, where do I start? And it's because it's like it's new and there's not a lot of knowledge around what works, what doesn't work, what types of setups, what types of activities. It is very beneficial to tap into that knowledge by, someone an agency or consultant or whoever who has that experience. And for example, From my experience, having led a team that has executed hundreds of company retreats and seen hundreds of companies get together, you start seeing patterns, obviously, you start seeing patterns in what works best for groups up to a certain size which activities to absolutely avoid, if you are over or under a certain size what works in what types of different setups, what works on the beach, what works in the mountains, what works in a city, what works for a specific goal that they are trying to achieve. So for Experienced retreat planners. It's very easy when they have that introductory consultation call to understand to identify these patterns and to be like, okay, boom, you need this. You don't need to spend months of trial and error and trying to figure it out. And then usually, when you do it for the first time from scratch yourself, it's never gonna really work out, and just like anything else, it's a learning process. Let's take that learning process equation out of the game, and, here's all of the expertise and the knowledge, and... Then it's picking and choosing, but with the added benefit of someone telling you, trust me, this is going to work best for this setup.
So they actually need the figuring out part. It's interesting how it's interesting how it's how the decision making process is different from other types of sourcing. So for example, on a marketing campaign or a marketing tool, let's say for a mid sized company or even an enterprise company, usually it's the marketing head who is deciding on the sourcing, but then the actual sourcing like billing, invoicing, and all the goodies is handed over to the sourcing manager or whatever it is. So sourcing, not just marketing, but I don't know, pens and paper. And it's different how now, because most of the time when a company team needs some lodging or any kind of hospitality it's usually from the assistants or the executive EA or, something like that. Yeah. Although it's not really that case anymore. It's more like a people operations.
Exactly. Exactly. There are some. It has to change. Exactly, because it's absolutely people ops, and it surprises me when so of course there are companies that are savvy and they know that this is people ops. And we obviously have our three ICPs, the first one is the CEO general manager, COO. that type of person then he's executive assistant. And then the third ICP is the people ops person. The thing is that the people ops person usually doesn't come into play until a certain size of the company, because what happens, these companies are growing organically teams are, hierarchies are flat, they don't see the need to hire a people ops person up to a certain level 25, 30 people, they're managing it, but it absolutely has everything to do with people ops because it's company culture, it's company values, it's career progression, it's everything, learning and development, yes. So everything that a people ops person would do, and I can tell you that. Those types, so the calls, the sales calls, but also the. Planning calls are so vastly different between, when you're dealing with a people ops person and when you're dealing with the other two ICPs.
The other two ICPs, let me guess, the other two ICPs, they are all versed into the Okay, but do you have I don't know, bacon and flip charts and how many rooms we have what's in the room and the details, some more details but the people's person is more, more interested in the goal setting and the activities, what can we do with each other.
Yeah it's, yeah, it is a little bit of each. If you're dealing with the COO, Or a CEO. It's mostly I don't want to think about it, so which is also great because it's great to work with someone who trusts that you have the expertise and then you're like allowed to also make decisions and, direct them in the best way. So it's like either, I don't want to think about it. Just make it work, and maybe give me the quotes Give me the quote or and then the questions are like why does this cost this much? But But yeah, and then like there but absolutely. Yeah, the conversations when you're talking to the people ops, people are you know, like how do we Make sure that there's inclusion for everyone. And how do we tackle things like, diversity and also allowing for everyone. It's interesting because people ops usually understands the value of downtime, which is something that the other, a CEO will. Always, most of the cases try to like, pack a lot of stuff into the agenda let's do this, let's do that, because they're hardwired like that, they're like, we're gonna, it's going to be amazing, and we're going to do a ton of things, and we're going to come out with everything.
And I'm not just gonna pay for people sitting on the beach. That's not gonna happen.
But not even, from that perspective, but just because CEOs are usually goal getters, right? And they're like, how do we just make a lot of stuff happen? And they're like hyped up. Whereas the people ops and, or like culture person is thinking about that downtime and thinking about how do we make everyone feel comfortable enough that they. Open up and then they share and that they connect with their colleagues and Create those bonds and really walk out of there thinking wow I spent a great week with my colleagues and now I know them better and that's what's going to make us More productive in the long term and that will definitely, you know lead to those all of those goals but Yeah, it's definitely not about, coming out necessarily with an outcome after the retreat, like you don't, unless it's like a super dedicated hackathon we've had those, you can do that. But mostly the outcomes are those intangible things that you only start seeing and unraveling. After, a couple of months after the retreat, because it is those bonds and the better understanding between people and Yeah. All of that more subtle stuff.
We discussed a lot about the challenges, but but more like a generic terms and like here and there if you can give like three main or five or challenges that that companies can face with organizing a remote retreat and how to overcome them, that would be lovely to for the audience.
Sure. I could give you a hundred challenges, but as I say first thing we ask our customers, what is the goal? Think about your ultimate goal. Or the mantra for this get together. Don't let the team's wishes or someone's personal preference of someone mentioning oh, it would be a great idea to go to the Austrian Alps and then get stuck on Austrian Alps because, hey, maybe, there is a different location that could work better for you. That is definitely the number one thing that we see a lot of companies get wrong is that they get stuck on a certain location or setup even before they figured out what they want to get out of it. Interesting.
And why is that, by the way? That's interesting. Why? Because one of the CEOs or our leaders are, Oh, I had a really nice time skiing in the Alps, so everyone should do that.
Yeah, that could happen. And it's not it comes from a good place, like they want everyone to have a great experience. So they're like, we should definitely go there because I went on vacation and I had a great time. But, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to work for that setup and that outcome that you have set for yourself along those lines.
Sorry, but I think one of the key statements here that I want to get out is that having a vacation. And having a retreat is two totally different things.
So yeah, absolutely vacation is A lot more different than a workation, even though these are even not workations they are company retreats. Don't expect to be relaxed after a company retreat and rejuvenated, you will not, you will be highly exhausted, but with the good type of exhaustion, because it's a lot of brain power, of course, if you're doing strategic sessions, if you're doing, learning sessions, workshops, stuff like that. But it's also highly emotionally draining because you are You know, creating all of these new like very often these are people who have never seen each other in real life and like you're getting to know a lot of new people you are, going out having great food, maybe getting drunk and, sharing stories and laughing and, like all of that stuff, which is A lot to condense in a short period of time. So they are definitely both intellectually, but also emotionally draining, but very satisfying. Yeah, so that is definitely another one of the pitfalls that people think we're going to do this and then we're going to come back and we're just continue, we're going to plug in and continue working. One of the best practices that we always give companies is give your people a buffer. Give them like if you're doing a Monday through Friday, that's like the best thing because then they have the weekend before and the weekend after to come home to decompress and process everything that's happened. Do not make them fly back on Sunday afternoon and then start work Monday morning because They are not going to know what hit them. And then you're going to have two days of missing people being productive because they're just like, Oh my God, we just came back. And, like sharing all the posts and everything.
No, it's so basic, but actually it's. It is the thing. I know it's a big one.
Yeah, I know, because they're usually like thinking, Oh, we don't want to compromise workday. So let's like do this over a long weekend or something. But actually, it's better the other way around, because you will still get actual work done, in the, if you do it Monday through Friday. And you will not, as I said, compromise the following week or whatever. The next biggest pitfall or challenge would be, is definitely timing and planning well in advance. Which is why we see companies that have, that set their dates six plus months in advance are a going to get better deals for venues, hotels and everything be going to get better, flight tickets and everything, all of that, obviously that we know, but also they are going to get higher input from their team, they're going to get higher, more people turning up because people are going to be able to make accommodations to do this a lot of us who have been in the space for a long time, like working for startups, remote startups have grown up in the last. 10 plus years and people now have families and they are or they're caretakers of whoever, whatever, pets parents their gardens, whatever. And they need to accommodate that time and space to be able to travel. So if you can give them enough heads up you will you will definitely secure a successful successful retreat. The final one as I said, there's a lot of things, but definitely one of the biggest ones is Do not overstuff your agenda. Do not try to do everything because then you will not do anything. Focus on the one central outcome. If it's strategy, then just focus on that one part of strategy that you want to get out of it. If it's team bonding, then just focus everything around the team bonding. If it's Whatever, pushing a product development, then yes, do that hackathon, or do whatever, but focus on that one thing, because and give people enough downtime because magic happens in the downtime, magic happens in those afternoons where people just find each other on the terrace, sit down, have a glass of wine, and start talking, and creativity flows, and connections are being created, And, you cannot curate everything, definitely.
Of course. These are all great tips. Thanks for sharing. I've never been that tired after most of my remote retreats that I participated in. It was super exhausting, but as you said, in a good way. And it's a really basic tip that have that buffer of one or two days between working. That's really great.
Yeah. And also, sorry, a final like fun one, short one, do not have your party on the first night. A lot of groups I'd say 50 50, but like a lot of them are like, yeah, we're, get together and party on the first night. And then, yeah, you'll get nothing done for the rest of the time there.
Maybe last night? Last night, for sure.
Although I have a personal rule, never fly with a hangover. That's like the worst thing can happen to you.
That is very true. But that's also like logistically another, now that we've opened the Pandora's box of tips, but like another great tip is advise people to book flight tickets in so like coming in, try to fly in until midday, because that will make the logistics of transferring, transferring everyone much easier. And then you will have that afternoon for to get started already. Because if you're waiting, if half of the team is flying in at 10 PM, you've basically wasted that entire day. Same for flying out. Do not have people book 6am flights like whenever I see that I'm unless there is no other option, do not do it because you will definitely have a party on the last night or even if you don't, it's going to be a wrap up, people are going to be happy they're going to stay up drinking and talking and you know saying their goodbyes. If at any way possible, try to have everyone start their journeys after 10pm.
Or after afternoon, or at least afternoon. That's afternoon. Afternoon, yeah. Yes. Totally. Thanks, thank you for sharing all your insights. If someone is ready to jump on board and organize a team retreat where people can find you and what you can offer for them.
Sure. Thank you, Peter. Likewise, it was a pleasure. Chatting with you today. So for anyone interested in organizing a really amazing, successful, productive team retreat in Europe, you can find us at onsite hub. eu. We specialize in team retreats in Europe. Where we work with the best vendors in the best locations and something that's very specific about Onsite Hub and that we're very proud of is that we work with the best local experts in every location where we organize these events. So for everyone who wants to experience Europe and experience the best that Europe has to offer, provide for a great, fun bonding team gathering for their team please check us out@onsitehub.eu. Reach out to me on LinkedIn, Milana m or follow onsite hub at on LinkedIn as well.
This is great. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for coming for here and thank you for your time.
You too, Peter. Have a great day.
