When Should You Start Planning Your Corporate Retreat

Corporate retreat planning has always been a challenging endeavor for any organization. Even in past times when employees were working out of the same centralized office buildings, planning an organized retreat for dozens, hundreds, or potentially thousands of individuals was no walk in the park.

Now, even companies with centralized offices often employ vast remote workforces. This adds yet another layer of complexity to planning and executing an effective corporate retreat.

Of course, any corporate retreat begins with the planning phase. In fact, as with any large scale business endeavor, planning properly ahead of time is the secret sauce to ensure your retreat goes smoothly, achieves its objectives, and fosters the growth of your team and company culture.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the key considerations for when you should start planning and the considerations for ensuring it’s successful for team members across the board.

Things to Keep in Mind When Planning Your Corporate Retreat

Every organization is different as is each employee within the organization. To ensure the corporate retreat works for everyone who needs to attend, consider the following areas when planning your corporate event.

Employee Time Zones

Remote employees very often do not live in the same time zones. However, if you can work around this during daily operations, you should be able to accommodate this in your corporate retreat planning.

If you’re in the United states, consider a retreat in the location that splits the difference time zone wise, such as a corporate retreat location in central Standard Time.

Family Obligations

Family obligations can be a limiting factor for many employees to feel comfortable going on a corporate retreat. While the summer might seem like a pleasant time for a retreat, bear in mind that this may mean your employees are scrambling to find childcare since their kids are not in school.

Providing some childcare compensation or trying to find a time that works well within the typical family obligation schedule, such as during the fall or spring, are two options that can ease the burden for employees with families.

Business Sector Calendars

Certain business sectors have specific calendar considerations which affect the best time to schedule an event. For example if your business is in the hospitality sector, planning a company retreat during the travel season is likely a no-go.

Departments within your business also have their own work calendars, such as the accounting department, which will likely be unavailable until after April 17th or so.

If you own a retail business, then November and December will be out, given that’s the busiest time of the year for shoppers.

To get around these challenges, keep a couple of things in mind:

• You’ll have the best chance of success if you reach out to your team for their input about individual scheduling challenges
• If budget is a concern, it’s better to travel during the off-season
• What works for other companies and their corporate retreats may not work for yours
• It’s good to plan a mix of activities, both work-related and personal
• If people have to travel long distances, think about holding a 5-day retreat to give them some travel time at each end of the week that can help reset any time zone-related jet lag.

When Should You Start Planning Your Company Retreat?

Try to start planning your company retreat as far in advance as possible. particularly if you have a larger group of employees to plan for. Some companies plan their company retreats up to nine months or more in advance.

Here are some good rules of thumb to go by:

• If your company employs 100 to 200 people (or more), then it’s best to lean toward the one-year mark. So, if today is, hypothetically speaking, January 1st, 2024, then your next corporate retreat will take place on or around January 1st, 2025.
• If you have 50 to 100 people, you’ll need about six months to plan and book your retreat.
• If you have less than 50 people, three months might be enough planning time – but don’t cut any closer than that!

Long lead times allow your employees to book house and pet sitters.

If there’s no way around planning a retreat during their kids’ summer break, then they’ll need time to find someone to stay with their kids.

If you’re not planning on flying everyone to the retreat site, they’ll need time to book rental cars if they don’t want to drive their own car.

If they do drive their own car, they’ll need time for servicing and other travel-related tasks.

On a related note, it’s also important to think about when your possible venues might be open for a large group and ensure you book them while they’re still available.

Many venues have a busy season. For example, they may get a lot of weddings in the summer or company retreats in the fall.

For the best results, give them the same kind of advanced notice that you give your employees. This ensures you a spot even if you must book the venue during its busy season.

When Should You Have Your Corporate Retreat?

Although we offered some tips for the best time of year to help you plan events for your hybrid remote team, including your company retreats, only you and your team can decide when to do an in-person meet-up.

You should hold your event at a time that works best for you and your team.

Consider sending out an email survey to all employees who will be attending to determine the dates that work best for the most people.

Be sure to offer accommodations for employees that have logistical challenges with the ultimate selected date. The point of the retreat is, in part, to improve employee morale and motivation, so you don’t want that to backfire.

Corporate Retreat Tips: What Makes That Process Easier?

Get Help With Planning Your Company Retreat

Corporate retreat planning requires quite a bit of forethought and work. Some people are natural planners. If you don’t feel like you’re among them, that’s okay. You can get help with the planning.

Some corporate bosses turn to companies that specialize in retreat planning and leave them in charge of most of the planning. They’ll work in close cooperation with you and your team to get everything set up.

Book the Venue as Far in Advance as You Can

Book the venue as soon as you know the dates. Make sure it’s a place where you can dive deep into your company annual planning. This means that the facility offers easy access to

• WiFi
• AV equipment
• Breakout session areas
• Workrooms and stations
• Lodging onsite if the venue has it
• Etc.

You certainly have some advantages if you can work and “live” at the venue for the week.

There’s less travel time, and it’s easier for people to go off to their rooms or cabins and relax for a bit between sessions.

Your job becomes even easier still if the company has on-site restaurants or kitchens in the rooms or cabins for meals.

Plan on a Mix of Activities

It’s probably safe to say that a lot of different kinds of personalities work for your company. Your retreat schedule should appeal to both the introvert and extrovert.

For example, if you stay at a place like Pursell Farms, think about planning some structured team-building activities like golf or bocce onsite and some unstructured free time for people to head into nearby Birmingham or out for an extended hike or bike ride on the grounds.

For the structured events, you may want to create a seating chart that combines newer and older employees to ensure people don’t stick to their work cliques and everyone has an opportunity to meet someone new.

For the unstructured time, it might be helpful for you to create a list of places nearby where people can catch an exhibit at a local museum or try out a well-known local eatery.

Final Thoughts on Creating Your Corporate Retreat

Now that so many businesses have remote workers, it’s more important than ever to spend some time planning a company retreat in advance.

The bigger your company is, the more time you’ll need to spend in the planning stage of this activity.

It’s also important to plan the event around your employees’ different schedules.

Finally, if you want the ultimate combination of activities, lodging, accommodation, and amenities for your corporate retreat, reach out to Pursell Farms and check our availability.

We will work hand-in-hand with your team to ensure the success of your corporate retreat.