Here’s how to bring offsite energy back to the office
Picture this: you are at your week-long company offsite that is absolutely hitting the mark. The conversations are flowing, new ideas are being generated, and you’re connecting with your colleagues on a human level. It’s the most synergy you’ve felt within the company in a long time.
Then, you go back to your daily routine.
Two things can happen. The less favorable is that everyone goes back to the office and their regular work, maybe excited about things they uncovered from the offsite at first, but it eventually fades out and it was like the offsite didn’t even happen. Or, workers can go back and leadership can continue to invite in energy that was similar to the offsite, extending that impact.
But how does an executive team, including HR, ensure that happens?
That is one of Atlassian’s No. 1 goals. And the software firm’s data backs it up. Team gatherings and offsites lead to a 27% increase in feelings of connection and this boost lasts four to five months. That’s why the company aims to come together in person about three times a year so that once those feelings begin to fade, which they call “connection decay,” there is another invitation to spark them again. Instead of choosing a random timeline of offsite meetings, it is completely data-driven.
“It’s especially important for people that are new to working together,” said Dr. Molly Sands, Atlassian’s head of their Team Anywhere Lab. “Anytime you have folks that are just joining your organization, it has a really high impact to get them together with their team, their manager and the folks that they will directly be working with.”
These team gatherings are part of Atlassian’s Intentional Togetherness Gathering (ITG) program, which invites employees to one of its 11 global offices over three to five days. Since Atlassian launched the ITG program in August 2022, it has hosted over 1,600 team gatherings with an average of 16 attendees each. They have earned a 96% satisfaction rating from participants.
To understand employee satisfaction, the Team Anywhere Lab conducted surveys the months before and after team members attended a gathering, checking in on connectedness, team objectives and idea development. The data found a statistically significant impact on important elements of collaboration.
“The biggest misconception we see is that people are thinking they need to get together a few times a week when really what we’re seeing is that you need to get together a few times a year,” said Sands. “We see big boosts in connection from that in-person time just a few days together, but those tend to last for at least a few months.”
Surveys and questionnaires can be key to seeing how successful an offsite really was, but there are also things you can do to keep the energy going back in the office. For example, Nikki Innocent, a career coach, suggests finding times to spark the same level of collaboration and connectedness where you can. That might look like building a collective agreement during an offsite that you revisit later.
“It’s the crackling energy that an offsite has the potential to bring,” said Innocent. “Every time you go back to that document, you’re inviting that energetic space into the moment you’re in. Having those anchor points that you can refer back to is really helpful.”
She said that a successful offsite should include a long-term plan from the start. “There’s a reason that you’re doing what you’re doing,” said Innocent. That’s why inviting the perspectives shared at an offsite back in, even if the environment is different, is helpful.
“It’s really about the behavior patterning and rebuilding that same sense of trust with every kind of bump that comes down the road,” said Innocent. “That’s a huge reason why we come together.”
Trust is a big piece of the puzzle.
Phil Shawe, CEO of TransPerfect who just did offsites in Barcelona and Amsterdam, and specifically designed the copmany’s San Juan office to facilitate offsites, said when you build trust at an offsite, it often seamlessly goes back to the workplace.
“That’s the magic of successful team-building activities, it automatically returns to the office,” said Shawe. “Teams that know each other, accept their individual strengths and weaknesses, and trust each other, tend to perform better. Culture is a key ingredient of success, and team-building activities can be a valuable tool in establishing management’s culture and vision.”
He admitted that the success of offsites, or even traditional training, can be difficult to tangibly measure with a number or objective criteria. Instead, success can be measured anecdotally.
“It is usually a subject evaluation of, ‘How well does the team work together?’” said Shawe. “When something goes wrong, do they point the finger at each other and try to assign blame, or step up to the challenge and work together to come through for the client and for the company? All things being equal, people tend to work better with those who they respect, understand, know and trust. If your team-building efforts have accomplished this, they have hit the mark.”
Similarly, Hannah McLean, executive assistant to the CEO at fintech company Highnote, wrapped up a company offsite about six months ago.
McLean stressed that planners should know from day one what they want as their return because it “dictates everything else you’re going to do.” She said it’s better to know that in advance so that there are clearly outlined goals which will shape pulse surveys post-offsite.
But different goals might come up during the offsite too and that’s OK. One exercise that Highnote does at the end of every offsite is nailing down what they want to start, stop and continue doing when they return to work. “It allows the team to hold each other accountable to it later on,” said McLean.
They are still in touch with employees to see how much the offsite has impacted their productivity.
“In general, offsites are an investment so you want to make sure you are getting some ROI,” said McLean. “You want to make sure it’s not just a big team party. Having these follow-up questionnaires on how people are feeling, making sure we are doing what we said we would do, allow you to continue to invest in offsites because you’re getting that ROI.”