Offsite planning benchmarks your organization should follow
Offsite planning benchmarks your organization should follow
BoomPop Team · 9/20/2022
If you want to make your company offsites more effective, develop a strategy that goes beyond a single retreat.
Offsites are a critical way to build connections within organizations and foster a sense of belonging. 85 percent of leaders (seniors managers, executives, and board members) believe that in-person events are essential to their company’s success. That’s because in-person events can be an incredibly useful time to collaborate, meet key business objectives, and strengthen relationships with colleagues and clients.
Planning a single event is tough. Creating an entire strategy around events—from when, where, and how they take place—can be a full-time job. While you might not have the time or experience to build out a comprehensive strategy, it’s important to think beyond the scope of a single offsite or retreat.
What is the cadence of these events? How do they align with other engagement strategies and goals? How can they reflect the unique identity and vision of your organization?
Doing your best to answer questions like these can help make sure every offsite is a purposeful part of your employee and client engagement strategies. To help you answer those questions, let’s take a look at some data from 133 BoomPop customers on the role of offsites and retreats in their organization.
How are companies planning offsites and retreats?
Let’s take a look at some questions we asked customers in order to better understand their offsite planning practices. These responses can help inform how organizers and leaders tailor their events strategy to meet industry standards.
What is the goal of your next in-person offsite or retreat?
58% - Balance of work and fun
30.5% - Mostly to relax and have fun
9.8% - Mostly focused on work
Takeaway: The majority of organizations see offsites and retreats as a dual-purpose event. They want to discuss and strategize around key business topics, but they also want to give people the opportunity to simply have fun and build better relationships.
How far out from the scheduled in-person offsite or retreat date do you typically begin booking venues?
0-1 month - 4.2%
1-2 months - 30.8%
2-4 months - 37.5%
4+ months - 24.2%
Takeaway: These responses reflect a somewhat even spread between organizers booking events between 1 and 4+ months in advance, with a small majority at 2-4 months. While venues can likely be found and booked successfully in this amount of time, beginning earlier will allow for more access to ideal (and affordable) options.
How many company-wide in-person offsites or retreats does your organization plan to do each year?
0 - 8.3%
1 - 27.5%
2 - 29.2%
3 - 8.3%
4 - 7.5%
5 - 3.3%
6+ - 15.8%
Takeaway: The frequency of offsites and retreats depends greatly on the size of a company. While a small startup may only host 1-2 company-wide retreats per year, other organizations may be hosting 1-2 for every team—meaning potentially dozens of events per year. As this data reflects, we find 2 or more events per year to be a common and often successful strategy.
What is the typical length for an in-person offsite or retreat?
45% - 3 Days
60% - 3+ Days
Takeaway: If attendees are going to travel from all over the country and the world, it’s only logical to make the most of your time together. Although single day and overnight trips can be popular for local teams, an offsite or retreat usually requires—and benefits from—a bit more time.
How do you know if an offsite or retreat was successful?
78% - Attendee Surveys
Takeaway: The gold standard of offsite and retreat feedback is the attendee survey, but these events can also have a long term impact that might not be apparent right away. Seeing how eager participants are for the next event can be telling—especially determining what they want more or less of on the agenda.
Create your own offsite strategy
With this info and a little help from our planning experts, you can get up and running on your very own events strategy.
Featured resources
8 Steps for Planning Your Company Retreat
A resource for new organizers on creating fun, productive, and successful corporate events.
