Some high-profile companies have recently issued return to office mandates, which have been met with mixed reactions from employees and the general public. A decade of research suggests a performance-boosting alternative for helping employees build meaningful collaborative networks: corporate offsites. They can be a powerful strategic tool for managers, allowing them to reshape employees’ informal organizational networks to facilitate more sharing of ideas and expertise. Managers should use four strategies to get the most out of their offsites: 1) Tailor sessions based on pre-event data; 2) charge new hires with offsite objectives; 3) guide employees’ preparation; and 4) track the value of offsites.
Leaders feel stuck. They know that collaborative networks are vital for getting work done, especially in knowledge-intensive companies where expertise is widely distributed across employees. But remote and hybrid working has made it significantly harder for employees to foster meaningful connections with colleagues.
