What makes a good away day?

With remote working becoming a norm for many teams, and both organisations and individuals facing increased pressures, away days have become an essential opportunity for people to connect, learn and grow together. However, understanding what your team needs, and shaping a gathering that builds understanding and energy, rather than depleting it, can be a complex art. 

With combined 30+ years of experience of attending and facilitating team away days we wanted to share our advice around what you should consider when creating and holding spaces like this. 

Do a small number of things well, not all the things

A group working on a creative activity

We tend to find those organising away days want to get as much as they can out of it - strategise, plan, train, team build, bond, have fun together, celebrate. But these intentions can be at odds with each other and combining them can risk cancelling out their value. 

First, these kinds of days can be very intense - early starts; packed schedules with loads of transitions between different activities and mindsets; manic emailing in-between sessions; and poor sleep on either side. This “shock and awe” approach to team away days can make them exhausting for everyone and pretty much unmanageable for team members that are neurodivergent, disabled or for those feeling unsure of their role within a team.

Secondly, some of these combinations really struggle to co-exist. If learning is an aim, through presentations and workshops, strategy and planning, training and coaching or anything else that involves taking on new information (including about yourself and each other), then the brain has to have time, rest and bandwidth to process it. If an intense day of learning is followed, for example, by a boozy night and a poor sleep, it cancels out a big chunk of that new learning because you’ve not given yourself the best chance of retaining that information.

Change up the environment and the approaches, not the focus.

That said, there is a difference between jumping from workshopping your team values and then going into a financial presentation, versus doing a set of different activities that all build towards deepening your understanding of your team values OR a set of activities that build collective understanding and responsibility for the financial sustainability of an organisation. A variety of activities working towards the same overarching goal is more inclusive of different people’s needs and aligns with our natural rhythms as human beings.

Different people need to have different lengths of time and exercises to be able to process and contribute. It’s why the facilitation technique of 1-2-4-all is highly powerful. Some people will need space for solo reflection before speaking, while others can only form their thoughts in conversation with others. This structure gives everyone a little bit of what they need in order to contribute to the collective, and generates opportunities for people to build on one another’s thinking at a variety of paces. 

There is also only a certain amount of time that the human brain can engage in an activity. Most people’s attention span is only about 20 minutes long, and for people with ADHD or those who are distracted as a result of personal pressures it will likely be even less. So making regular space for breaks, hosting breakout discussions in different rooms or settings, and switching between conversational activities, creative activities such as drawing, or physical activities such as breathwork or walking, can maintain momentum and give options for different types of people to contribute in ways that work for them. 

Set the space and expectations collaboratively 

Someone talking through a creative activity

One way you can ensure that everyone brings their best selves to the day is if people have been actively invited to contribute their needs and ideas to help shape the day. Sharing an agenda ahead of time and asking people to flag if they have any concerns means the people facilitating the day can know if it’s likely that someone is going to struggle to engage with a particular activity and respond to that possibility with consideration and care. It also might identify opportunities to frame or approach the conversations in ways you and the facilitators hadn’t considered - and that might resonate with more people within the group. 

And regardless of how well a team knows each other we always recommend starting any away day with an opening exercise that encourages people to share openly what they are mindful of and what they would value about their time together. This creates an explicit opportunity for people to vocalise what is important to them - whether it is reminding people to use their correct pronouns, acknowledging any unusual circumstances that might be making someone nervous about contributing, or highlighting something that is really motivating for them and that they hope they get a chance to discuss with others. This type of conversation creates a shared responsibility between the group to respond to each other's needs, and also opens up opportunities for connection between participants. 

It is also important within this to acknowledge and call out any power dynamics that could be at play. As facilitators we will often point out that as people hosting the day people can often presume they have to ‘go along’ with our plan, and instead we invite people to actively self-manage and provide us feedback in the breaks if there is anything that could help them contribute more effectively. 

A flexible facilitator that can hold their own

While it is possible for a member of the team to facilitate your away day, regardless of their facilitation skills it will be a very complex task for them to be able to maintain balance and objectivity, and disrupt unhealthy team dynamics when needed within that setting. An external facilitator will bring a different energy to your team and ensure everyone has space to shape the content and outputs from the day in a more equitable way. Plus having someone who is explicitly responsible for holding the process and timings for the day can enable the team to relax into their conversations because they know they are being held. 

That said, an external facilitator who doesn’t understand the nuance of your team can also be detrimental to the experience if they don’t have good approaches for building rapport quickly. It is why we as facilitators often bring our own unique identities and stories explicitly into conversation with teams - if they understand us as humans they will be able to make more connections for why we approach things in the way we do and feel more confident to challenge or question us when needed. 

A good facilitation practice that can deepen engagement and build trust between an external facilitator and the team is if a facilitator is able to explain why they are asking people to do an activity. For instance, rather than jumping straight into a warm up/icebreaker that makes people feel nervous or uncertain, a good facilitator will slow down and explain why the specific warm up they’ve chosen is going to help the team with the work they need to do together that day.  In addition, if you can afford it, having co-facilitators often means they can work together to adapt and respond to the environment they are in, make space for what is arising from the conversations and hold each other through moments where a change of pace or approach might be required. 

A place that energises and inspires

We’ve seen teams host away days in spaces that completely contradict their values (such as golf courses) or in spaces that are exhilarating and awe-inspiring for some but exclusionary for others (such as religious venues or adventure centres). The location you choose, what feelings that evokes for your team, and how the content interplays with the space you have available can be something that completely transforms the potential of your away day. 

A team lunch outside in nature

One of our hopes with setting up &Breathe in Wirksworth is that it is a cosy space for smaller teams who want affordable options for gathering with easy access to nature. Our seating options are designed to provide ways for the team to work in smaller groups, or for individuals to take a breather in our quiet nook when they need to. You are surrounded by artwork and books that have been chosen to inspire creative thinking and curiosity, and artefacts from community gatherings such as our ‘queer crafternoons’ which create a sense of safety and belonging. Our catering - vegetarian and sourced from local small businesses - reflects our values, and with the nearest green space two minutes walk away and incredible views from just up the hill our place gives people easy access to nature which can help ground people or expand their thinking.

Read more about our space and facilitation, pop along to one of our free co-working days to see the space in person, or book a call with us to explore what you are hoping to achieve.