3 ms·

> weekend or week-long dev retreats are ideal When you do retreats do keep in mind that not everyone will want to spend a week or weekend away from their famil

by dheera 6y ago

> weekend or week-long dev retreats are ideal When you do retreats do keep in mind that not everyone will want to spend a week or weekend away from their family, and that retreats with a bunch of people who can be social nonstop for 12 hours can also be the worst nightmare for introverts. Keep it optional, make sure it's clear that it's optional, make sure junior employees don't feel pressured :)

ghaff 6y ago
There's pretty much no such thing as optional if there's a team off-site unless it's "I can't" for some reason rather than "I don't want to." Multi-day off-sites are sometimes necessary but weekend is a no go.
- dheera 6y ago
  But does your "off-site" really need to be off-site? If you're a fully remote company, sure, it makes sense, but for a company with an actual local office, taking the team to Hawaii for 3 days just to have meetings that could have been had at conference rooms at your usual office isn't always appreciated by every member of your team, especially the ones who have {health conditions, children, pets, side gigs, ...}
claudiulodro 6y ago
I think it works fine as long as you're up-front about it when hiring e.g. > We get the whole company together once a year for seven days so that Automatticians can create bonds that influence them all year long. So far we’ve done Grand Meetups in San Francisco, California; La Paz, Mexico; Oracle, Arizona; Breckenridge, Colorado; Mont-Sainte-Anne, Québec; Seaside, Florida; Budapest, Hungary; San Diego, California; Santa Cruz, California; Park City, Utah; Whistler, Canada; and Orlando, Florida. > In addition to our all-company Grand Meetup, teams meet for five to seven days to brainstorm team-level strategy and bond in locales ranging from Boulder to Buenos Aires, Las Vegas to Lisbon, Montréal to Mexico City, and Vienna to Vietnam. If you join our merry band, expect to travel three to four weeks per year. > As a distributed company we also know how to connect with each other from afar, and consider day-to-day social communication at least as important as breaking bread in person. https://automattic.com/how-we-work/ https://automattic.com/how-we-work/

by dheera 6y ago

ghaff 6y ago

There's pretty much no such thing as optional if there's a team off-site unless it's "I can't" for some reason rather than "I don't want to." Multi-day off-sites are sometimes necessary but weekend is a no go.

dheera 6y ago
But does your "off-site" really need to be off-site? If you're a fully remote company, sure, it makes sense, but for a company with an actual local office, taking the team to Hawaii for 3 days just to have meetings that could have been had at conference rooms at your usual office isn't always appreciated by every member of your team, especially the ones who have {health conditions, children, pets, side gigs, ...}

claudiulodro 6y ago

I think it works fine as long as you're up-front about it when hiring e.g. > We get the whole company together once a year for seven days so that Automatticians can create bonds that influence them all year long. So far we’ve done Grand Meetups in San Francisco, California; La Paz, Mexico; Oracle, Arizona; Breckenridge, Colorado; Mont-Sainte-Anne, Québec; Seaside, Florida; Budapest, Hungary; San Diego, California; Santa Cruz, California; Park City, Utah; Whistler, Canada; and Orlando, Florida. > In addition to our all-company Grand Meetup, teams meet for five to seven days to brainstorm team-level strategy and bond in locales ranging from Boulder to Buenos Aires, Las Vegas to Lisbon, Montréal to Mexico City, and Vienna to Vietnam. If you join our merry band, expect to travel three to four weeks per year. > As a distributed company we also know how to connect with each other from afar, and consider day-to-day social communication at least as important as breaking bread in person. https://automattic.com/how-we-work/ https://automattic.com/how-we-work/