Bucking the office routine with an off-site event promotes a fresh perspective, encourages participation, and generates excitement. Corporate retreats are a novel way to build teamwork and deliver essential information to employees in an engaging atmosphere.
When planned and executed properly, these events can also allow coworkers to connect in more personal and meaningful ways. Employees may form bonds that strengthen teams and drive long-term productivity.
If you want to get the most value from your next corporate retreat, approach the event mindfully. List your goals and make sure that the location, agenda, and activities will all work together to lead to positive results. To get started, follow these five helpful tips for planning a successful New England corporate retreat.
- Outline Goals for the Retreat
- Scout Suitable Locations
- Allow Time for Planning
- Create a Balanced Agenda
- Solicit Feedback
Outline Goals for the Retreat
Although corporate retreats are work events, they are rarely focused entirely on professional development.
Your retreat should certainly include professional enrichment activities, such as trainings, workshops, industry updates, panels, or speeches from leadership. However, you can also use the event as a chance to boost morale, improve communication and teamwork, and encourage collaboration among employees.
Consider long-term objectives like increased employee engagement, productivity, and profitability. Outlining goals ahead of a retreat allows you to create strategies that align with your company’s values.
Scout Suitable Locations
A retreat, by definition, is meant to be a relaxing escape. Keep this in mind when choosing a location for your event. Look for an idyllic setting, such as York Harbor, Maine, that’s distinct from a typical work environment.
Find a venue that caters to corporate events with versatile accommodations. The Stage Neck Inn, for example, offers meeting rooms for various group sizes with a range of configurations for diverse purposes, like a boardroom, classroom, or theater-style setup. The best venues provide ways to partition spaces for breakout sessions, as well as an experienced staff to facilitate a successful event.
Lodgings are an important part of any multiday retreat, and a venue that includes guest rooms is ideal. A facility that offers catering with tailored menus for your group can save you time and money over hiring outside vendors.
Allow Time for Planning
A corporate retreat is a complicated event with significant logistical challenges. Planning well in advance will give you plenty of time to calculate headcount and book your preferred venue, lodgings, transportation services, and vendors.
Like a wedding, corporate retreat planning is best begun a year in advance, especially if your retreat will occur during peak seasons like the summer months or holiday weekends. If you want to host an off-season event, you could get away with a shorter timeline, but the minimum planning period should be six months.
Create a Balanced Agenda
Professional activities, such as trainings, meetings, and breakout sessions, will form the backbone of your agenda. However, retreats are meant to be fun and relaxing, so you must also set aside time for team-building activities, meals, informal mixers, and downtime.
Provide a complete itinerary for attendees before the retreat, and make expectations for attendance at different events clear. Consider assembling a guidebook with optional local activities, dining, and attractions for attendees to check out during their downtime.
Solicit Feedback
Corporate events can be expensive, and you may need to show a return on investment. At the very least, you want to know whether you’ve accomplished the stated goals for your event.
Wrap up the retreat with a survey to determine what attendees got from the event. Use it to assess their level of engagement and enjoyment.
For example, you might ask for their takeaways from training sessions or panels. Find out how well they connected with colleagues and ask for their thoughts about the team and the company, both going into the event and coming out of it. This feedback can help justify the expense and provide insights for future event planning.
Plan for an Effective and Memorable Event
Cookie-cutter events are not an effective use of your company’s resources. By taking the time to plan an event tailored to your company, culture, and goals, you have the best chance of achieving outcomes that move your business forward.
With thoughtful planning, a balanced agenda, and help from hospitality professionals, your corporate event should have a lasting impact on attendees.
Meetings at Stage Neck Inn are distinguished by spacious and flexible ocean view rooms where 5 to 150 can easily gather in elegant comfort. Encompassing over 3,128 square feet, each of our flexible event spaces offers a unique blend of classic style and modern convenience.
Our proximity to Boston and New York City ensures no shortage of commercial clients requiring elegant meeting spaces, while our waterfront location provides spectacular ocean-view meeting rooms. Infuse your most important events with a focused, sophisticated vibe. Plan your next corporate retreat or business meeting in the heart of York Harbor, Maine and explore all the area has to offer while enjoying unparalleled service. Give us a call, or send us an email to discuss details of your next corporate event.