Does your team portray the same level of motivation as was the case during pre-COVID times?
Struggling with maintaining employee relations and onboarding new members?
These are just two of the many questions faced by business owners worldwide as we face the pandemic. Companies are trying new ways to boost the performance and motivation of teams, to maintain revenue growth goals despite the present situation.
If you are also struggling to manage your team and are experimenting with new ways almost every other day, this article might just give you what you are looking for.
In this article, Thomas Mazimann answers some fundamental questions related to remote working.
Before we jump into the solution as proposed by Thomas, let's get to know a bit about him:
Thomas Mazimann is a well-established business development expert and founder who has spent decades implementing state of the art growth marketing frameworks inspired by the Lean Startup Methodology that allowed him to define benchmark revenue growth for some of the largest companies in the world. One of Thomas' greatest achievements was to apply this lean methodology to marketing. That helped him achieve double digit growth in the different companies he was involved with. Working for the greatest ventures such as Red Bull or Voxeet, Thomas gained invaluable business experience that allowed him to found his own venture Predict.ai.
Armed with massive experience and extensive connections, Thomas has been leading the launch of Predict.ai's flagship product - TeamOut!
He is also the founder of TeamOut!
TeamOut is a SaaS platform that provides remote teams with the opportunity to meet offline.
TeamOut has gained popularity with numerous companies for a fantastic concept that helps them boost the morale of their employees and productivity at the same time - team retreats.
We will discuss more about the retreats in the article, but let's explore the motivation behind the venture.
Biggest challenges faced by companies in the present scenario
The best way to understand the structure of TeamOut and the thought process of Thomas is by understanding the current challenges.
There are 3 main challenges that almost every remote working team is facing:
● Employees feel less engaged because of an absence of an opportunity to interact with each other. Employees get a big boost to their morale while interacting with their colleagues and sharing the wins and losses.
● Another big effect can be seen in employee relations. Employee interactions during lunches and meet outs incite a feeling of a community that pushes them to perform better. This feeling is missing in online working environments.
● Another big challenge is onboarding and motivating new employees. The Manager cannot give the employees a tour of the office space or invite them to events, which makes a big difference!
Thomas' inspiration for TeamOut
Along with the realization of the above challenges, there is another big reason that prompted Thomas to build TeamOut.
Thomas started working for Redbull at the age of 17, which was one of the most exciting times of his life. He went on a weekend trip every quarter with his manager to celebrate the achievements.
These were not just random trips, but he was flown into Switzerland on helicopters to be coached by the best skiing experts of Redbull. These trips ushered motivation in him to work for the company as a family!
What are Team Retreats?
There is a two-word answer to all the challenges we have discussed above - team retreats!
Team retreats are activities planned by the company to help bring employees together and give them the much-needed sense of bonding and a big motivational boost.
These are organized in a hotel or Airbnb and usually last for about 3-5 days. Most of the companies organizing team retreats have been doing so twice a year.
Team retreats are full of numerous team bonding and collaboration activities along with discussing the company's objectives. Team building activities and getting to visit a beautiful place give the employees a much-needed break from monotonous schedules.
How are team retreats helping companies?
Team retreats have a direct relation to increased productivity, profitability, and increased collaboration among teams.
Every successful company reaches a benchmark because of the combined efforts of teams.
Collaboration can be enhanced only when fellow team members can openly interact and share their views. Thomas has even experienced the same in TeamOut. TeamOut conducts a team retreat every month, and the latest one was about an activity to discuss the features of a product.
Every team worked together for 3 days, and the input of every team member was shared during a discussion session. While engineers shared the technical feasibility of the features, sales teams talked about insights of consumer problems from their calls. This helped each team member get a better understanding of the objectives and roles of everyone.
How does TeamOut take care of specific interests?
Every member of your team would have specific interests, and these would even vary for job roles. To effectively answer this challenge, the software contains an AI feature that can help you select the best-suited retreats based on numerous factors.
Managers can easily find options resonating with the team's needs and share the options to select the best ones.
Talking about the Future
Remote working is here to stay, and the biggest challenge for every team in remote working will be team collaboration.
TeamOut is seeing double-digit growth on the demand generation and sales side. As the shadow of Covid-19 pandemic seems to be fading away and the majority of employees are vaccinated, everyone gets ready to go back to their workplaces and to meet their colleagues again. We never know what tomorrow brings, however. Some companies may decide to prolong remote work for economic reasons or simply act according to the rule "better safe than sorry". In the face of the unknown wise management takes all possibilities into account and prepares for functioning in both modes, office and remote.
TeamOut is here to redefine the way companies motivate their employees, and the future will knit a lot of exciting stories of companies that grew because of amazing company cultures.
