Bringing the Virtual Team Together for the First Time: Paradigm’s Nashville Summer Retreat

When Paradigm, a legal software company, was looking ahead to their corporate retreat this year, they turned to Telesite for help. Paradigm is focused on shifting perspectives and revealing the possibilities for their clients.

One of our team members, Shun Yamada, recently sat down with Emily Shapiro, the Director of Culture. Emily shared their experiences in Nashville firsthand from July 18-20th, when they conducted their company retreat. With Telesite, they brought their team together for the first time since the pandemic. After a successful off-site event, they plan to continue to do so again in the future once a year.

Shun: What do you think was the most challenging part of planning?

Shapir: Finding a location was the most challenging part of planning. It was partially the availability. There wasn't much available in the summer, especially for the places we wanted. We wanted to be in mountainous areas like Salt Lake City. But there were no suitable venues, as you know, available in the summer. Everyone is doing retreats right now, so it was tough to find a place. I don't know if you remember, but I had convinced her [Mary, coworker] that Nashville would be great. She ended up being very happy about it. But it was hard to get her to envision something different than she initially thought it would be.

Shun: In the end, do you believe it was the right move to postpone it?

Emily: It was the right move to postpone because I don't know where we would have ended up if we did it. I think just being flexible like that around dates is essential.

Shun: How different was the corporate culture for your employees before and after the retreat?

Emily: The goal of the retreat was to get everyone closer together. Two-thirds of our company had never met in person, which is problematic. You're just getting people to build relationships between people, breaking down communication walls, and team building. We did it. Ultimately, our workshop taught people how to think more deeply and solve problems together. We wanted to learn to become more comfortable with critical thinking and solving issues as a team. The ultimate goal was to get people focused on business and to think about where we are going and our relationships, and we did that.

Shun: Maybe it's a good opportunity because you don't thoroughly distribute or have another way to bring people together, right? The retreat was an excellent way for you guys to get together and collaborate in a new way, right?

Emily: We have quarterly smaller versions of what we did in renewal and half-day sessions every quarter, but we don't have something like this. We have much more condensed sessions, so this was great for bringing people together. We could get more bonding and team collaboration in a huge way.

Shun: Do you connect with other populations, teams, or maybe other experiences?

Emily: I don't do any HR work and worked my way through experiences to get into this role. I don't have too much of a network, so the event was great for me to get to know people and for others to get to know me and my work style as Director of Culture.

Shun: What do you think about next year? Are you thinking of another off-site corporate retreat?

Emily: Definitely. That was the plan before COVID-19. We wanted one yearly; that was the plan when I started in 2019. We aim to do this yearly to unite the team and help them bond and collaborate