Virtual Retreat: How to plan and host a memorable experience?

Introduction

Holding an in-person company retreat is a great way to strengthen the bonds within the team and have fun. However, as a remote-first company, distributed in different timezones (CET to PST) Strapi chose to organize to employees, Strapiers, a Virtual Retreat!

In 2021, the People team launched not 1 but 2 virtual events! It took a lot of effort but gathering as a team to strengthen Strapiers connections and build a collective memory was priceless. Especially while being apart due to two years of a worldwide pandemic that also impacted our private and social lives.

This article will go through creating and organizing an inclusive two days virtual retreat that Strapiers enjoyed attending, as well as the lessons learned before, during, and after. We hope to inspire you!

What were we expecting the team to get out of this?

We started our process by dissecting our goals for the event.

In 2021, Strapi reached an important step, being a 50+ team. It also meant that some Strapiers never had the chance to meet and know each other in person.

1. Our first goal was to have people meet and strengthen/create team bonds.
2. It was also the perfect opportunity to celebrate an important and challenging milestone accomplished by the team with the release of the V4. Altogether, these two days were a breathing space in our daily rush and haste. We deliberately decided not to do workshops or anything related to business.

What were the main challenges?

We identified three main facets we had to be very careful with.

1. Our team is distributed from the CET to PST timezones. When we started planning, we calculated how much time we could reasonably overlap. The answer: 4 hours. That meant that if we wanted our global team to be online together simultaneously, we could only plan events for our virtual retreat for 4 hours each day. We used this as an opportunity to offer a free morning or evening that could be spent with each team/squad, the family, friends, sleeping, reading, doing sport, ... Whatever the teammate felt for.
2. Finding inclusive and diverse activities was challenging too. Some people are introverts, others need contact and prefer on-site events for example. We found a solution for some activities to be together (e.g. with a conference, blind test) and for others to propose three completely different activities simultaneously. Strapiers could pick the one they preferred with a different atmosphere.

3. Another challenge we had was to keep the pace and Momentum while avoiding Zoom fatigue. We had breaks during the event, and we framed, for example, a 100 steps challenge to encourage people to go outside, have a walk and get some fresh air. We also combined in the schedule (I know you're eager to see it ☺️) activities using our hands (cooking, origami) and exercise of breathing or more rational activities (talk about digital wellness).

What are our tips and tricks to have a memorable experience?

Some do’s that could help you!

1. We asked via a survey what Strapiers wanted to do during the 2 days months before.

Q4 Virtual Retreat survey.pdf

We also had feedback from previous virtual events to help us continue improving.

2. We invited Strapiers to lead some activities. It encourages people to be engaged and strengthen/create bonds instead of having only intervention from external speakers or the People team. As a multicultural and diverse team, it is also an excellent opportunity to share Strapiers’ cultures, hobbies, skills, etc.

3. Anticipation and organization were also crucial to having a smooth and captivating event.

   a. Before the event

• We shared the schedule with the team two weeks before the event;
• We created Zoom links for each activity;
• We prepared who would say what, at what time; b. During the event

• We shared, again and again, links to connect, and we had a timekeeper. The objective was to be effortless for participants, and they just had to care about having fun!
• We organized three activities to let Strapiers choose what they’d prefer to do. Someone from the People team was during that time jumping from one room to another to check that everything was going well.

How did we communicate internally and externally?

Naturally, communication played a considerable part in the outcome of the experience.

1. We created a slack channel dedicated to the event and shared every single day for 2 weeks some games, information about the event, teased what will happen. We wanted Strapiers to be impatient to spend these two days together!

2. We shared the agenda during those two weeks after some teasing. Here it is! (Is it the moment you were all looking for?!)

3. When there were external speakers, we did a brief before with each one of them to explain Strapi’s culture, values, inclusive communication,... We wanted to be sure that speakers will adapt to Strapi and Strapiers (some of them did it and some no...)

Was it a success?

Overall, the event was a success, and we had startling feedback from the team! We measured its NPS: 82!

It’s always challenging to find a balance between activities and needs from everyone. It requests a high level of organization, communication, and to expect the unexpected.