Co-Working and Excursions Abroad: Doist’s Spring Corporate Retreat in Seville, Spain

Doist has been fully remote since day one of their company, but that has not stopped them from finding ways to bring together their team! Focused on progressive work environments, they have strong employee retention rates—more than 95%. In addition, with the help of a company like Retreat, remote teams can still enjoy team experiences worldwide.

One of our team members, Shun Yamada, recently sat down and discussed the Seville retreat from March 28th to April 1st to gain insight into Doist's experience. In addition, Chase Warrington, the Head of Remote at Doist, shared with us the specifics behind their experience, how it was, and what they felt was most impactful about their experience in the beautiful city of Seville.

With the help of Retreat, they could bring their remote team together in a city full of adventure, excursions, and fun activities to complete together—after their co-working sessions were conducted, of course! After a successful off-site experience, Mr. Warrington is looking forward to coordinating more impactful remote team events to help his team become more productive.

Shun: Tell us about what you did during your retreat at Seville this spring.

Chase: We have people arrive on Monday, and then they're there Monday. So, they arrive Monday night, and Tuesday and Wednesday are workdays plus some fun in the afternoon. Then, Thursday and Friday, people would go home. We also had the City Walk activity, which the team enjoyed!

Shun: How different was your company's corporate culture before and after this experience? Was there a big difference?

Chase: I mean, each team is a little bit different. We had nine various retreats, and all of them were very different. Some focused on work; some did not work. Some were more routine, so it is different per team. But, it was nice to get everyone together, and I think it helped everyone work together better!

Shun: What do you think about the structure of the retreat? Did we happen to help with the accuracy and the planning side of the logistics for this trip?

Chase: It saves me a lot of time planning the Seville trip. I feel like I did almost nothing, and you took care of everything! We used the hotel you found, one of the co-working locations. All of it was great, and lots of great restaurants and activities. Not having to figure it out all on my own was very valuable for me; thank you so much for your help.

Shun: What was the best activity overall?

Chase: I did not go, but I have feedback from the teams who went to the retreat. I can't say what they thought was the best off the top of my head, but I know they enjoyed the retreat and its organization.

Shun: What was the most challenging part of running a retreat, and what were some problems that you had to solve?

Chase: The most challenging part of planning right now is COVID. Bringing people from ten different countries to one country was challenging, with COVID restrictions constantly changing. It was a pain. Hopefully, that will pass. But the second thing is setting COVID to the side and then figuring out where it's like the hardcore logistics of getting people to plan their flights, we have everyone book their own, but we also give them guidelines. Then the coordination of transportation, and all that. I don't think it's rocket science, but it's not easy. I think that's the most challenging bit. The work sessions were optimized for remote work, so when we get together, it doesn't feel…sometimes it feels to me a bit unproductive, so that's part of why we made the retreat to go and enjoy the place and to get everyone together.