The ROI of a Company Retreat

Company retreats can play a pivotal role in maintaining and improving the motivation of your employees, cohesion of your team, and overall company culture. While that all sounds great, if you’re like most company decision-makers, you want to know the actual return-on-investment (ROI) from your company retreat.

On the one hand, you know you need to do something to bring your remote and new employees together with the seasoned members of your crew. On the other hand, you need a tangible way to measure the results you get from your retreat.

Now for the good news. It’s not only possible to get a great ROI on your company retreat, it’s also possible to measure these results and get some hard numbers that justify the expense to your shareholders, accounting department, and anyone else who might raise their eyebrows about spending money a company retreat.

Let’s dive in to the key ways to think about and measure the ROI of your company retreat and then discuss the best ways to maximize the return you get for every dollar you spend on the whole extravaganza.

How Do You Define the ROI of a Company Retreat?

Because the value of a company retreat is more intangible than traditional pure financial investments, defining the ROI can be tricky. For a normal investment, you can simply calculate the direct increase in income associated with a given expenditure.

That is to say, if you invest $5 into making something – a better golf ball, for example – and you can then turn around and sell it for $12, then your ROI equals $7, which is more than doubling your money.

Of course, a company retreat in 2023 will cost you money, but after the retreat is over, will you definitely be able to say that any uptick in revenue came solely from the events for your hybrid remote team? (“Events” in this case means the corporate retreats you’ve taken your team on.)

In light of this, it’s good to look at ROI in terms of what the US Chamber of Commerce Institute for Organization Management calls “value on investment” or VOI.

That is, what value does the retreat bring to your business?

The following are a few ‘intangible’ benefits that still have a direct impact on your bottom line:

• Did your team forge better relationships with new employees?
• Did the retreat help them renew their focus, leading to better productivity?
• Were they able to participate in company production ideation sessions?
• Did the culture-building element improve retention and reduce costly employee turnover?

Since there are likely many variables in play over the course of a year, it may be difficult to parse out the specific impact of a company retreat, however it is still possible to look at trends, which help determine the potential VOI.

Consider looking at turnover metrics before and after implementing corporate retreats.

You can also do anonymous employee surveys to get a gauge on how they are feeling about the company and their overall job satisfaction.

Finally, look at work output before and after the retreat. Does the quality or quantity of work produced increase after you go on your company retreat?

These are all numbers and data points worth tracking down, even if complete attribution isn’t feasible.

Try to look for both the tangibles and intangibles that will come from your corporate retreats when you’re measuring your ROIs.

How You Can Increase the ROI for Your Company Retreat?

Now that you have two ways of looking at the ROI for your corporate retreat, you’re ready to do some planning and set some goals for the retreat.

Company Retreat ROI Tips: Increase the Value on Investment

In this section, we look at some of the ways to increase the VOI of your company retreat. It’s meant to help your new employees and your remote workers create relationships with people they don’t or haven’t worked with regularly. It’s also designed to help you create some more measurable outcomes for your company retreat that aren’t dollar-related. Consider the following options for improving the value of your investment:

Create opportunities for mixing in breakout sessions

Typically, when people spend time together at a company retreat, they gravitate toward spending most of their time with the people they know. One way to ensure that everyone is mixing with others is to mix up the seating charts for your breakout sessions. Set a goal for these sessions, like everyone will meet five new people by the end of the workday.

Look into team-building activities

Escape rooms, competitive games, like Bocce ball, golf tournaments, mystery game nights, and other team building activities encourage your crew to get to know one another and to learn how to work together to solve problems. They also make your corporate retreat feel less corporate and more personal, which helps to build relationships between your remote workers, new employees, and seasoned team members. The corporate event venue will determine which activities are most suitable.

Get concrete feedback regarding the success of the activities.

For the best results, ask during the retreat and then do a follow-up once you’re back home. Make improvements based on the feedback you get.

Creating Tangible Outcomes for Your Corporate Retreat

Although we talked about the difficulties that can arise when you try to measure the ROI for your company retreat, that doesn’t mean you won’t achieve measurable results. Here are some tangible ways to create and measure direct financial ROI for your retreat:

Set S.M.A.R.T. goals during your retreat

S.M.A.R.T. goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Because you can measure them, you can also determine how successful the retreat was.

Here’s how. If your team sets some goals at the retreat with a measurable outcome (and they are professional goals they didn’t have before the retreat) and they go on to achieve those goals, then you can attribute the business success that follows as retreat-related ROI.

For example, let’s say that your sales team decides that it wants each salesperson to increase their sales by four sales a month. To accomplish this, you would have them reverse-engineer the sales process.

If their current closing rate is 50% and the current leads are 10 per day and their calls are five calls per day, then basically, they make a sale every 2.5 calls and they get five calls in for every 10 leads.

Therefore, they need to get another 10 leads per week and make another five calls to get one more sale each week. At the end of the month, they’ll have their four “extra” sales.

Follow up with team members after the retreat is over

Once you know what each team’s retreat goals are, you can then follow up with your team members after the retreat. Three months is a good mark. Talk to the team leads to find if they are on their way to achieving the goals they set at the retreat.

Going back to the sales example, let’s say that everyone gets another four sales per month, and the dollar amount on those sales is $500 after commission. Let’s say further that the retreat cost you $1,000 per team member. Since the retreat, each salesperson has brought in $1,500 more each month than he/ she did before the retreat, due to the goals he/she set at the retreat.

This means your ROI for the retreat for your sales team is $500 per person per month. Also, keep in mind that if each person on your sales team continues to make an additional four sales per month for the whole year, then your ROI per person for the retreat will go from $1,500 (at the three-month mark) to $6,000 (at the one-year mark).

Final Thoughts on Getting the Best ROI From Your Retreat

If your employees work in disparate offices and/ or remotely, being able to measure the ROI and VOI of your retreat can be invaluable. Not only do company retreats help your seasoned team members build relationships with your remote and new employees, they can increase your ROI in a very real way.

If you’d like to explore how a company retreat can help your company’s ROI, contact us today for a proposal!