Small Business needs Corporate Retreats Good for Productivity with Make a Comeback!
Small business owners can improve productivity by investing in a company retreat. Simply getting away from the stressful atmosphere of the workplace can do a world of good. Your employees can work only so hard before cracking. A company retreat allows them to regroup and rediscover their passion for their work. When they return, their stress levels will be lower, meaning they’ll have the energy to work as hard as necessary without sacrificing quality.
Cooperation
Retreats that include team activities build camaraderie, training you and your workers to identify and incorporate the personal strengths of individuals to achieve group goals. The cooperative skills gained at a retreat will improve the performance of your workforce by showing employees how to work together effectively. As the owner, you might feel separated from your employees and find it hard to fit in during group activities. Hiring an outside facilitator instead of running the show yourself allows you to participate on the level of your employees, according to the book “201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business,” by Jane Applegate.
Improve Morale
Low morale hurts productivity, making workers sluggish. Often, low morale is a problem of perspective. For example, after putting in long hours to complete a difficult project, your employees might have forgotten the more pleasant aspects of their jobs. Company retreats remove workers from their typical contexts, revitalizing them and inspiring them to take pride in their work again. How Do You Know Your Company Wants Help From The Outside?
Fun
When your employees stop having fun at work, they are more likely to leave, so a company retreat can improve staff retention, according to “Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up,” by Christopher Noxon. Having fun also stimulates creative thinking, which can improve productivity.
Communication
When workers relax, they communicate better, both with you and each other. Opening lines of communication build connections, spurring conversations that might not have happened otherwise, allowing employees to gain new perspectives on the business.
Considerations
Some company retreats have an agenda in addition to relaxation. For example, the relaxed atmosphere of a company retreat can foster effective brainstorming sessions for new company strategies. The key is to define a reasonable agenda that doesn’t overload the employees with work during the retreat. After all, the goal is to stimulate future productivity by helping your employees reconnect and relax. Asking them to do too much will decrease the retreat’s beneficial effects.
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Corporate Retreats Need to Make a Comeback
Instead, corporate retreats have transformed to perform a vital service for businesses. That ultimately generates more revenue without the wastefulness of past generations. Here’s why your business needs to budget for a corporate retreat in 2014.
It Builds Morale
Like spending vacation time, going on a corporate retreat allows. Your employees to renew their enthusiasm and excitement for work.
If your company prefers sunnier climates, a beachside retreat could provide the dose of Vitamin-D your employees need to recharge. Or, if a wilderness corporate retreat sounds more enticing, you and your employees can hold your retreat while admiring the great outdoors. It’s been found that connecting with nature can improve the work performance of your employees.
Mark Duvall of Old Man’s Cave Chalets is an advocate of such retreats:
“We see a lot of repeat business from our corporate clients. Getting away from the office and computers allows them to connect with one another and focus on high-level strategy, without the usual distractions.”
No matter where you go, the time away from the office will make your employees more excited and productive after returning to work.
It Genuinely Forges Bonds Between Your Employees
Your company may spend time trying to encourage your employees to build relationships with the office, but this often results in some common workplace challenges.
Attempts to make your employees be friends often feels inauthentic, and can actually damage your business. Plus, if your office has difficult employees, the efforts spent managing them can place. An expensive strain on company time and financial resources. There may also be very little your employees have in common with each other (other than who processes their direct deposits), limiting their incentive to build relationships.
When you spend time at the corporate retreat, however, your employees will participate in common activities they can talk about when normal work life resumes. This allows them to genuinely get to know each other better and develop authentic friendships based on shared experiences. This new found common ground will also increase their attachment to your company as an organization, decreasing expensive turnover rates.
It Provides Valuable Training
A highly-skilled team of employers means your business will run more efficiently and need less constant supervision from management. The retreat environment is the perfect place to develop creativity, teamwork, problem-solving and other valuable skills that result in increased productivity (and profits) for your company.
Plus, skill building. You can use the skill building training at retreats as a way to focus in-office training efforts throughout the year, or until the next retreat (that is, as long as your retreat includes more productive activities than three-legged races).
It Can Lure New Talent To The Team
Trying to court new employees, especially ones in high demand, takes more than a few free lunches. Inviting a prospective hire to your company’s retreat can quickly integrate her or him into your corporate culture. Show off your company’s assets in an environment that highlights company strengths and make choosing your company the natural decision. It also decreases the amount of time needed to help the new employee feel part of your team. Allowing them to begin effective work sooner.
To begin planning your corporate retreat, begin planning your budget and choosing one of the many attractive retreats along the country. Your corporate retreats don’t need to be the pinnacle of luxury retreats to be a smart investment for your company. 201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business.
Reference
1. Are Company Retreats Good for Productivity – //smallbusiness.chron.com/company-retreats-good-productivity-37136.html
2. Corporate Retreats Need to Make a Comeback – //www.huffingtonpost.com/john-rampton/why-corporate-retreats-ne_b_4374384.html
3. Photo Credit URL – //community.mystar12.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/People-Group-2.jpeg
