3 keys to creating an agenda for your next team offsite

Planning

Jun 2

Planning

3 keys to creating an agenda for your next team offsite

BoomPop Team · 6/2/2022

Make the most of your next company offsite by setting clear goals and building real connections with your team.

Hosting a company offsite or retreat is a great way to build morale, strengthen workplace culture, and ignite stronger connections. These events can offer far more than a new backdrop for the same old workday; with a strategic vision and mindset, your next offsite can become a valuable and memorable experience for your team.

Not sure where to start with creating that vision? Here are a few tactics to put you on the right track.

Identify goals for your team event

It’s important for leaders to pin down why they’re hosting a team offsite. More and more companies are beginning to see team building as an investment, and there are certainly plenty of great reasons to host an offsite—but is the ideal outcome of your event to provide space for innovation and decision-making, an opportunity to have fun, or something else?

Other goals could simply be to give teammates time to connect, gain clarity on a major project, provide a chance to unwind before a particularly hectic time of the year, introduce new team members, or some combination of any of these. What’s important is to identify these objectives, discuss them with your team to make sure everyone’s on the same page, and then begin to shape your agenda around them.

For example, working on projects or making major decisions might mean you need more dedicated work hours and space to accommodate discussion, whereas a more social event would mean more unstructured time and group activities. Sorting out your goals beforehand will make your planning choices easier every step of the way.

Prioritize a balanced agenda

Once you’ve set clear goals with your team, you can start building an agenda. That can include coworking time, team activities, social events, workshops, and more—all depending on what the ultimate vision for your event is.

That said, it’s important not to get tunnel vision when it comes to how you fill your agenda. Though you might have a very specific goal, creating some level of variation is essential to keeping things engaging and dynamic. A successful company offsite should have at least some combination of business and fun, even if more heavily weighted one way or the other.

Organizers should also avoid the instinct to overstuff an event with back-to-back activities or working sessions. Remember that these events can be tiring for your team, so plan in shorter blocks of time, allow for breaks between major activities, and offer choices for more or less participation when you can. Team offsites should leave your staff feeling recharged, not exhausted.

Customize your offsite to fit your team’s needs

Especially with many companies today having teams that are at least partly remote, it’s important to consider the different challenges that may arise from hosting an in-person company offsite.

Travel, new environments, and meeting people in person for the first time can all be stressful, so it’s important to try your best to make the experience as seamless and easy as possible. One of the easiest ways to shape your agenda in a way that works for your team is to simply ask what they’re interested in doing. Employee surveys are a great way to check in with staff and can take some of the guesswork out of your decision making.

Plan your offsite

Planning and coordinating a company offsite and setting your agenda can be a huge, complex undertaking. If you’re still unsure of where to start, BoomPop offsite planning makes the process simpler from start to finish.

Explore planning resources.