Corporate Retreats
Corporate retreats? Do people still go on those? Boy, do they; it’s nearly a 32 billion dollar industry. And you’re on this page, so unless by some miracle of coincidence you’re here by accident, it’s fair to say you have at least a passing interest in them.
Corporate retreats—sometimes known by the drier, perhaps less inviting term “company offsite”—are a great way to bring the team together beyond the obligatory holiday parties (which can still be a nice reprieve from work).
Somewhat of a busman’s holiday, i.e., doing work on vacation, these occasions still represent a break from the norm, the Sisyphean rock that is going from home to your desk to lunch to back to work to home. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Corporate retreats, or company offsites, go beyond “boosting morale,” “encouraging team bonding,” “facilitating problem solving,” “sparking innovation,” or any other selection from the grab bag of corporate buzzwords that are as abstract as they are unquantifiable.
Yes, corporate retreats (company offsites) can bring team members together and lead to tangible results for the business (more on that below), but they still adhere to human nature.
We speak of humans’ attention span—that precious, finite thing that is as fickle as it is fleeting. Ipso facto, capturing and sustaining your team’s attention is so crucial. Facts and figures make great support in making a point, but they’re not terribly gripping when it comes to maintaining attention.
You know what does keep people’s attention? Someone who is engaging and humorous. Like a professional comedian. Something that is funny is the opposite of something that is tedious. And hiring a comedian for your next corporate retreat is a great way to harness your team’s attention while achieving other objectives (more on this… well, you know).
“We get what you’re saying, but we don’t want to undermine our serious points with a clown.”
Having a comedian at the helm—or taking part in the corporate retreat—won’t detract from your mission; they’ll enhance it. Consider the “pratfall effect,” wherein highly competent people are actually considered more believable after making a blatant blunder, which makes them more likable and relatable. So no, you don’t need leaders to be flawless for effective messaging.
Sure, that’s just about making mistakes, but we can also look at how humor in the workplace can help build trust and connection (cough, “bonding”), keep employees engaged, lead to better employee retention, and—yes—it “makes leaders more approachable,” among humor’s many merits in the work sphere (as noted in an article in the Rochester Business Journal).
Let’s talk more about what these company offsites/corporate retreats can do for your business.
The Benefits of Corporate Retreats
If you’re running a business, you want your team to get along, of course, but “team dynamics” may seem like second fiddle to productivity. This is shortsighted. It absolutely makes sense to look at the health of your corporate infrastructure and your position in the marketplace in terms of productivity, growth, etc. But you can’t have the cart without the horses. And if the horses feel like going in different directions, the cart goes nowhere fast.
Corporate retreats are a great boon to team connections—improving the day-to-day communication that is essential for a well-oiled machine. This can be especially important after a period of rapid growth, when the company sees a generous influx of new employees joining the organization. How essential are communication and collaboration? According to Salesforce, nearly 90% of executives say inefficient collaboration and communication were major reasons for businesses failing.
Maybe those team-building activities you’re picturing aren’t so ridiculous after all.
Moreover, the modern workforce is an increasingly digital affair, with partially remote and even fully remote teams working from all over the globe (according to one study, a little over one in every five leaders admit to being entirely ineffective in leading virtual teams; for more startling quantitative info, see this article from Flair HR).
Yes, corporate retreats do lead to increased productivity (and reduce employee absenteeism and turnover). Further, according to a study by the American Psychological Association, nearly 90% of employees felt better equipped to solve problems after taking part in a team-building retreat—according to the blog by business advisor Brett Baughman.
And these benefits are all before you add a professional comedian to the mix to further bolster the proceedings.
But how do we put a corporate retreat together, you may be asking?
How to Plan Group Retreats
There are countless sites that can walk you through the planning process for group retreats, but we’ll give you a brief overview here.
- Your offsite plan needs a budget, first and foremost.
- You’ll need to settle on an offsite location. Fortunately, regardless of where your team is situated, there’s more than likely to be team-building retreats near you, whether you work in the Big Easy or the Big Apple. Likewise, The Comedian Company has comedians available in nearly every American city.
- Letting the venue know the date will also be required.
- Finally, to have a “successful offsite” and maximize the benefits, you’ll need to set clear goals. It helps if you also ask your team what objectives they want to work on.
There are more details to contend with, but this should provide you a good idea of what you’ll need to do, and with these steps in mind, you’re ready to start planning.
Well, almost. To keep everyone’s elusive attention spans on target, it’ll help greatly to also have a professional comedian on hand.
How to Hire a Comedian for Your Company Offsite
Hiring a comedian for your company’s offsite mirrors the planning involved in booking the retreat.
A budget needs to be established, and the retreat location needs to be provided. It helps to set clear goals, and the date is crucial.
Where the process differs slightly is in picking the type of comedian you want. At The Comedian Company, we have thousands of entertainers, from celebrity comedians to Jewish or Christian comedians, or you can choose from our deep roster of LGBTQ+ comedians.
Once you give us these necessary details, we’ll start sending you clips of comedians we think would be a great culture fit.
Book a Comedian for Your Next Corporate Retreat!
At The Comedian Company, we’ve been entertaining corporate clients such as Google, The Home Depot, Kellogg’s, and others for decades, with hundreds of five-star reviews to attest to the quality of our entertainers.
To get started, fill out this form, give us a call at (586) 218-8745, or just send us an email at info@comediancompany.com.
We’d love to see your company thrive, and if we can do our small part, all the better. So why not reach out today? Together, we can win the war on short attention spans.