A company retreat can be a relaxing respite from the grueling day-to-day grind of the workplace. Your employees will get a chance to relax and refocus their energy in a low-stress environment free of work distractions and stressors. Here are some factors to consider if you’re unsure whether or not to take your employees on a retreat.
Do Your Employees Seem to be “Burnt Out”?
A decrease in productivity, missed deadlines, or otherwise sub-quality work can all be indicators that your employees are losing enthusiasm in their work, or are “burnt out.” Burnout can cause a myriad of issues for the employee in not only their work life but also their personal life.
A retreat can help alleviate some of the work-related stress and allow your employees a chance to recharge and refocus their energy. By taking a break from the work that has made them feel burnt out, they’ll be able to minimize stress levels, and therefore perform at a much better level upon returning to work.
Everyone needs a break now and then, and if you’ve ever had a job where you felt burnt out, you know exactly how debilitating that feeling can be. Show your employees that their efforts matter, and that you value their physical and emotional health. When burn out spills into the employee’s personal life, it can cause turmoil, which will ultimately find its way back into the workplace. Minimize these feelings by providing a relaxing retreat for your team.
Do Your Employees Have Difficulty Working Together?
Let’s face it; we live in a digitalized world where in-person interactions have taken a back seat to the ease and convenience of digital communication and social media. Texting is one of the main forms of communication that humans engage in as of last year. That means most people would rather text than have an in-person conversation.
If you don’t find this statistic a bit disturbing, consider in the workplace how solely digital communication can affect team building and employee bonds. Humans are social animals, but we certainly haven’t evolved to simply communicate via a screen. Face to face interaction creates a sense of trust and community. If you never see the person that you’re talking to, how can you be sure they’re being genuine, especially when body language is so important to establishing trust and having meaningful communication? You simply can’t.
A retreat allows employees to interact with each other on a more personal level, reinforcing that sense of community and common goals that is so essential to team building. To build trust among employees is to ensure that teams are effective and efficient, meeting deadlines and trusting one another to do their part.
Is Your Employee Turnover Rate Too High?
If you’re struggling to keep employees, it could be related to any number of factors, including stressful work environment, lack of advancement opportunities, pay scale, or lack of appreciation from the administration. What do all of these things have in common? The desire to feel valued.
Employees want to feel like they matter within a company, that their efforts are impactful and have some meaning in the grand scheme of the brand. If your company’s turnover rate is too high, it may be time to take some extra measures to ensure that your employees feel valued.
A Hudson Valley retreat is an excellent way to treat your employees to some downtime and show them that you do, in fact, value their efforts and them as people. The beautiful hudson valley will help to set a mood of rest and relaxation, granting employees a chance to be at ease with their work and remind them of their importance to the company.
Do Your Employees Struggle to be Open About Their Concerns?
You can’t provide a solution to an issue if you don’t know what that issue is in the first place. Employees who don’t feel valued or experience the burn out sensation with their work are likely to be withdrawn as well, keeping concerns or important information about their work to themselves.
In a low-stress environment like a retreat, employees will be more likely to be open about how they feel about things like work conditions, pay, and their workload. It’s important to remember that this is extremely valuable feedback and should not be taken lightly. Your employees are the experts on their positions, and any concerns they bring up should be considered and addressed as soon as everyone returns to work.
It is important to always listen to concerns not only to make your employee’s jobs as efficient as possible but to make them feel as though you actually care about what they have to say. This, of course, is connected to the previous point about making employees feel valued. The more you listen, truly listen to concerns, the more confidence your employees will have in coming to you with future problems.
Conclusion
While deciding to take your employees on a company retreat may be a difficult one in terms of pricing and time, if you’ve found that your employees match any of the circumstances we’ve described, it might be time to consider one. You’ll be able to increase teamwork, production, and the openness of the people you work with. This can only serve to benefit both the employee base and the company as a whole.
Image Credits: Heather Shevlin
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