Team Retreat Recap
You've probably seen on Instagram or maybe on our blog but we recently had our 2nd annual team retreat! We went to Scottsdale, AZ (yes, it was hot lol) and it was totally worth it. Such a fun place to visit! We stayed at this amazing Airbnb and if you're looking for a place to host a retreat, I highly recommend this one. Last year's retreat we did at Hocking Hills, which was only about an hour from the majority of my team. So I decided to do a "destination" one this year. Out of my team of 6, only 2 are out of state/not local to me. Even with all my local team members, we all work from home not in an office setting. That's why it was so important for me to have us all get together once a year, in person, to really connect and get to know each other better.
This year's was a bit longer than our last retreat (only 3 days) because it was further away from everyone, and honestly I loved it. We had one full day for myself and my account manager, to go through systems and high-level strategy for our CFO clients. If you have someone on your team in that role, I definitely recommend having a day before everyone else comes because you can plan the structure of the rest of the week or weekend. I had a loose outline of the retreat beforehand, but it was nice to be able to plan together with the training, client work, etc. we wanted to do with the team. We did some SOP document writing for some of our clients to get all of our brainstorming together. The retreat definitely had plenty of fun, but we also did do work that was easier to brainstorm and problem solve together in person. We also reviewed each of our clients' accounts so that we're going into the last part of this year knowing that everything's taken care of and ready to go for tax season. That way the end of the year isn't going to be as crazy!
Let's get into a little bit of the logistics.
If you want to plan a team retreat, you want to make sure it's a time and place everyone can get to and that it works for everyone. I start planning dates about 6-8 months in advance so everyone can mark it on their calendars. You also want to consider flights or if they'll drive there, etc. Part of why I picked Scottsdale is because I knew a lot of flights could be directly to the Phoenix for a decent price. If you've gotta pay for 7 plane tickets, you don't want them to be like $1,000 a piece! If you can, you'll also want to get everyone's flights arriving within about an hour-hour and a half of each other, that way you're not driving to and from the airport a bunch of times.
Like I mentioned, I had created a quick itinerary for the retreat but wanted to leave room for creativity. One night we ended up going to Hobby Lobby and getting shirts to paint! We explored Scottsdale, did some shopping, went on a hike, got some work done, and just really got to bond and spend time together! I can't tell you how important it is to make time for that, especially when we typically meet together on Zoom or in Slack huddles.
Having this retreat really helped to create a better atmosphere as we go into our next busy season, which is usually from like mid-October to the end of January for us (since we are finalizing 2025 budgets and getting a bunch of clients cleaned up). During those busy months there's a lot of new clients that are coming on. We have a lot of cleanups coming on. As well as reviewing our current clients as we head into tax season.
Anyway, keep on the lookout for more content! We're still waiting on some stuff back from our amazing photographer, Maiya. And we are super excited to plan next year's retreat! If you guys have any questions, let me know. And I would love to help you with anything if you are planning your first team retreat!