4 Company Retreat Ideas for Remote Teams

Nomad Pass
Aug 8, 2017 · 6 min read

By Rocco Sannelli

In the past few years alone, there has been a growing need for organizations to embrace remote work like never before. The workforce as a whole is indeed moving closer to remote and distributed teams made up of a combination of full-time employees, freelance agents and independent workers.

Remote work is nothing new of course, and many large organizations have tried to make it work in the past, with mixed results. What is different today, is that the push for remote work comes directly from the workforce; better, it comes from key participants in the job market as soon as in the interview stage of a job application. These are talented individuals (developers, designers, writers, etc…) who want the freedom of choosing where to live AND work. They’re not interested in working out of large office-campuses in the middle of nowhere, and they certainly don’t want to live in (or commute into) crowded and expensive downtown areas of large metropolitan cities.

But whenever there’s a shift in the way we work together as a society and economy, the fear of something new, unknown, can paralyze organizations as they pull the break on the development and launch of such initiatives (for fear of failure, or simply for fear of change itself). Fortunately, there are several companies that have embraced remote work culture and have shared their lessons along the way. They’ve become case studies — and an inspiration — for like-minded early adopters, but also early and late majorities*.

When looking at this landscape of early adopters, several company names stand out: Basecamp, Buffer, Zapier, Toptal, InVision & Automattic to name a few. More here.

Credit: Zapier

Another thing that these companies have in common is their challenge, and opportunity, of creating team spirit and collaboration among remote workers and teams. Common challenges tend to have common solutions. Today, we will focus one solution in particular: company/startup retreats designed specifically to bring remote teams together (both physically and “spiritually”).

Here’s a list of four company retreat ideas for remote teams:

The Meetup

Credit: Startup Basecamp Inc.

The Hack-Week

In this case, the retreat takes the shape of a “hackathon”, or “hack-week”. Teams can work on projects of their choosing, or compete on a given idea/task chosen by the leadership. Prizes are awarded, and the company will ultimately commit to invest in the winning idea/s by putting resources behind it and make it a company priority.

Credit: DisruptNY2013 Hackathon, Photo by Max Morse

The “Classic” Team-building

As one can imagine, most organizations will go for a combination of the above listed approaches, mixing a conference-style retreat with a fun team-building exercise, or hosting a hackathon in the morning followed by a wine-tasting experience in the evening. Like always, there’s no such thing as one-size fits all.

The Work + Fun Retreat

Location is probably one of the aspects of the Work + Fun retreat, as nothing says “fun” more than an exciting location like Hawaii, Mexico, or Wine Country. The location will also inform the type of fun activities that employee will attend, whether it’s snorkeling, playing beach volleyball, hiking into the crater of an inactive volcano, etc…

But there’s also work. And it usually takes the shape of brainstorming sessions, mid-year business reviews, next year goal-setting, etc…

Whichever strategy works for your remote team, it is important to consider what your company’s priorities and current challenges are, as well as what is the nature of your business. If your team needs constant training due to things like changes in the regulatory environment that might impact their work, then a conference-style retreat is probably best; if innovation is your priority (or struggle) then a hackathon might help you uncover untapped potential in your workforce.

Ultimately, doing a company retreat is a big commitment regardless of the size of your team; but it’s also a lot of fun. At Nomad Pass we help startups achieve exactly that.

In fact we believe that every team (and remote teams in particular) can benefit from company retreats to recharge the batteries, connect with peers and managers, rediscover the company they work for, and look at everyday challenges with a fresh new look.

In our experience, such retreats can also be positioned as perks for certain employees/teams, and tied to their performance as a way to gamify their journey with the company beyond the traditional performance review and career path discussions.

Organizations across the board find these activities well worth it, and employees will work hard to attend such events. They will most certainly love their company even more for it.

Diffusion of Innovation Theory


Rocco Sannelli, is Director of Marketing @ OANDA. Passionate about helping companies grow and expand globally, Rocco collaborates with startups and large organizations in the Silicon Valley focusing on lead gen campaigns and content marketing strategy in the B2B SaaS space. His experience in FMCG with P&G during the early years of his career still influence his work today, bringing him back to the consumer side of things every now and then.


Nomad Pass finds you beautiful, curated locations around the world to live and work remotely from and match you with like-minded individuals, wherever you are.

If you are interested in guest blogging for us or contributing to the project, email us info@nomadpass.com we would love to hear from you!

Nomad Pass

Stories about Working Remotely, The Location Independent Movement & The Future of Work

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Company & team retreats easy, fun and productive. Inspire and motivate your team in beautiful locations. More:https://nomadpass.com/startupretreats

Nomad Pass

Stories about Working Remotely, The Location Independent Movement & The Future of Work

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