How To Make A Killer Impression During Your Company Offsite
You’re probably cringing at the title already.
In my eight years of dodging corporate-speak, nothing has mowed down a room full of employees on a Monday morning faster than the maxim “our company is a family” during an all-hands meeting.
But if you spend 8 to 16 hours a day with a group of people, whether over the internet or in the office, that maxim might apply more than you think. In the age of hustle fast, network faster, the real key to success in your job — whom you know and how well you know them — gets unfairly buried under acrimonious labels like bootlicking (and other gustatory abasements).
Offsites provide new employees with their first real-world contact with their counterparts and collaborators outside the pressured confines of business as usual.
Whether it’s your first job or the latest one, the tips below can help you understand how to use your first offsite to set the tone for the rest of the year.
Decode the agenda
Every offsite happens at a specific time and place for good reason. Reading into the details can give you a ton of information about the hidden dynamics in the business. Is it slated for March this year when it happened in September last year? Maybe leadership needs to ease the team into an aggressive target. Is someone missing from the invite list or RSVP? You might want to look out for leadership changes or team restructuring.
Sort out logistics
Get your tickets, transport and stay booked as soon as possible. Every cash-strapped business head winces inwardly when their subordinates pay premiums on tickets and room rates. Reducing your superior’s need to follow up with you takes you off their radar, even if it doesn’t earn you brownie points.
If you’re travelling internationally, don’t wait for the company travel desk to supply you with all the information on where you’re going and what you need. They’re a small team and swamped with requests. Do a simple Google search on visa requirements, local currency and payment methods, food and transport. Reduce your dependence on the organizers and keep them looped into your planning.
Prepare
Whether you expect to present or not, having a few talking points mapped out to each participant in the offsite can help you drive your work agendas with them even when you’re not talking shop. In a relaxed environment, people are more receptive to your problems and questions than during a workday when closing their to-do list is their top priority.
Listen
Reciprocity is a powerful weapon. When you do something for someone without being asked, you open up hearts and calendars to you. Every employee, at every level, has a pain point or pressing problem that the people they usually work with are unable or unwilling to solve for them. Be on the lookout for complaints. These could be as simple as a passing comment during a smoke break. If you solve this for them or connect them with someone who can, you endear yourself to them.
Shut up
A workplace is 90% people and 10% infrastructure. You might be in the middle of a rainforest resort with your colleagues, but that doesn’t excuse you from displaying workplace-appropriate behaviours. Rule of thumb: every moment there, avoid the 7 Christian sins of lust, gluttony, greed, pride, wrath and sloth. Keep your presence noticeable without being obtrusive.
Show up
Organizing activities for dozens of people is painful at the best of times. Now imagine doing that for anyone other than your family while juggling work, and you have the level of sacrifice that goes into team-building at one of these events. Respect the effort and show up consistently, even for the optional activities. Don’t let those thank you notes at the end of the offsite sound disingenuous.
Follow up
Create a simple summary of topics discussed at the end of each day. In the days after the offsite, try to dispense the action items while keeping your stakeholders in the loop. Create value for the offsite so the organizers find value in keeping the tradition going. If a $30,000 offsite generates $300,000 in value for the business, the company is less likely to deprioritize the entertainment budget next year.
Should you follow these guiding principles honed over years of offsites, you can expect to make a positive impression and a positive impact on the people with whom you share your bus.
Have a great offsite!
