A Staff Retreat —is it Right for You?

In a 1990's edition of the comic strip Dilbert, the Pointy-Haired Boss announces he's going off to a 4-star hotel for a two week management retreat. Needless to say, his staff isn't impressed. The strip hints at the underlying feelings many people have about corporate retreats: expensive wastes of time where executives practice silly exercises like trust falls and rope challenges, all the while gorging themselves on exotic foods in some tropical paradise.

It doesn't have to be that way.

Properly planned and executed, a staff retreat can provide a wonderful vehicle to re-energize yourself or your team, encourage cooperation across different departments and strengthen internal bonds.

So push those preconceived notions aside. Take a look at your company's objectives and create an open, positive environment where you and your staff feel comfortable. The ideas and insights you come up with may surprise you.

To make a staff (or personal) retreat work, you have to plan, and that means coming up with a specific idea of what you want to achieve with it.

What do you want to work on?

Sustained performance? Motivation? New insights for the coming year? Decide what you want each member of your staff to leave with and what changes you want to see within them and the team as a whole.

Once you know why you want a retreat, list everything you want to accomplish, and then narrow it down to the most critical topics. The best retreats are intense affairs, requiring considerable thinking and emotional investment, and they will work best if you have specific list of themes you want to emphasize.

Next, you'll want to figure out a budget.

There are obvious expenses such as travel and accommodations but also possible short-term loss of revenues from the retreat itself. There's also the hours spent planning the retreat and shifting focus from thinking 'in' the business to 'on' the business.

With a budget in mind, you can look into locations. In 2008, AIG executives infamously spent over $400,000 on a lavish corporate retreat at St. Regis Resort and Spa in Monarch Beach, California. Chances are you don't have that kind of money to throw around, but that doesn't mean you need to camp out in the wilderness eating only roots and berries. A staff retreat can be as simple as renting the boardroom of a library on a pleasant summer afternoon or picking a quiet corner of the city park.

The key is to get away from the office and generate a creative environment where ideas and discussion can flow.

Whatever style of retreat you pick, you can reap long-term benefits if you properly plan and manage it. Imagine a unified staff, passionate about the vision you have for your company. That passion can't help but filter down to your customers and facilitate a considerable boost to your business.