There is strong moderation by an internal party or external consultant. If someone makes sexist, biased or racial opinions, why does it matter whether it is offsite or not?
We live in a world of freedom, but that doesn't mean you can abuse someone. It is the same in offsite too. You have safety, but not to be a jerk
There was a time when it felt inappropriate to share news beyond the immediate family. Then came social media. With all its shortcomings, social media has still managed to do some good things for the world.
Times change - if you feel safe in an org, you'd want to hang out, open up and share. The sad thing is - most of the orgs won't give us that environment.
This is my humble attempt to build an org where I love to work and share
Not the original commenter, but I too would avoid participating in any event where I need to share so many personal details to other people who are neither close friends nor family.
-> Startups need to stop pretending their employees are “friends” or “family”.
Startups can strive hard to build a company that looks out for the person on their left and right. Yes, it won't be perfect. Yes, it will get difficult when it grows. But those are not good enough reasons not to try.
--> Disposable cogs
All of us don't see it that way. We have to part ways with our team members, but the key is to do it gracefully, in a humane way. Here is a video that I recorded about it -> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rarjunpillai_founderhabits-te...
In US, coz of the fear of getting sued, companies are forced to blindfold, inhumanely fire people and get them out of the office in 5 mins. Around the world, companies don't fire team members like in US. There are enough places where there are conversations, notice period, performance improvement plans and then letting go.
-> I’ve never seen one of these be done where it wasn’t a) a party or b) eye rolling corporate propaganda.
You have been to only 1 or 2 types of retreats. Our retreat didn't have a party. I have attended over 10, none of them had 'parties'. Did we have a good time? yes. But not the dance floor parties with all sorts of stuff inside you.
Give it a chance that there could be a good side of it :)
About hackathon -> people have different motivations. I have seen devs who find nirvana when coding. But for them, coding on the same product every day is bad. So they want to do something new, something that they love and wanna build for a long time.
So, if there are hackathons (or whatever you call it) where they build something that is not their regular stuff, they will get recharged.
About startup being a family -->
I'm sure I can find 100 articles talking about why startups == family. All of us have different opinions on pretty much everything.
When I call my company as a family, I agree that we don't live upto ALL the values of a family. However, I want my team to feel that they are safe and each of us is looking out for the rest. It tells them that we are a people-first company.
It looks like you didn't have a great company hosting you. I have never heard of unpaid OT during a retreat.
I run this small company and I take a lot of effort to find the right budget to give a good experience for my team. If I give a bad experience during the 3-4 days, then why would they come back recharged to the office?
Organizing a retreat takes significant time and money from the company. If someone is using that just to force a few team members to work unpaid, they really don't see the bigger picture. Get out of the place asap :)
Our customers and we have been positively surprised at - The coverage of answers (80-95%) - Accuracy (95%) - Speed of onboarding (2-4 hours)