There’s no denying it, there are numerous benefits to having a retreat as a remote/distributed company. The employees get to learn more about each other, have fun, sit down and work together, travel to new and exotic places... The list goes on, with an unexpected addition – retreats can be excellent opportunities to hire new staff.
For remote companies and especially startups, finding good quality applicants is one of the biggest challenges. Remote companies have a bad rap for lack of workplace culture and retreats are a unique opportunity to show your company in good light and attract new talent. Here’s how you can get even more out of your next retreat and use it as a shot to hire some new quality people and improve your employer brand.
Before you start planning your next retreat, think in advance about how to use your retreat for hiring. For many remote/distributed companies, their website content is thin (or non-existent) because they don’t have photos or videos from company get-togethers. Retreats are the perfect way to amend this.
As you set out for your next retreat, make sure to prepare in advance to take as many photos and videos as possible, especially group shots.
After all, who wouldn’t want to work in a company that is both remote and organizes retreats for their workers?
For example, our customer Mattermost set up a fantastic video from their retreat in Lisbon. The employees talked a bit about the company culture and how they spent their time during the retreat. The video content was so effective that they ended up putting it up their Careers page as a magnet for attracting new talent.
On the other hand, Close.io also created a beautiful video about their retreat and the great time they had in Lisbon – a perfect hiring magnet.
Another company that does retreats is Zapier, whose photos from retreats are one of the key elements of their Jobs page, and they make sure to flaunt them on social media as well.
Finally, you can use the opportunity and turn making a video into a team building activity. This is what Peakon did in Lisbon – they created a drone video with all their employees, who formed the company logo on the beach.
Alternatively, you can organize a local meetup to attract potential candidates. For Automattic, Surf Office organized a meetup in Lisbon, where their employees showed off how they work within a distributed company.
If you already work remotely, a local meetup is a fantastic opportunity to attract great talent. It can be very time-consuming, but it’s an effective way to represent your company to applicants with minimal investments.
