We try to get the team to meetup in person 2 times a year where we fly everyone to the same destination. Each trip is around a week including flights. There are two types of trips: retreats and onsites.

We highly recommend everyone attending but it’s optional where people if you can’t make it for any personal reason, you can stay home and have a “normal” work day.

Retreats (Spring)

Our team is tackling an ambitious mission that requires everyone to work hard year round, and we want to make sure we can also dedicate some in-person time to bond in a meaningful way. This is a tradition we’re hoping to keep as we grow the team where we offer everyone to join a team retreat. Note that we’ll likely learn new things with every trip and we’ll make adjustments accordingly.

This is an optional trip too. We recognize that traveling can be hard for some people depending on personal situations. If you get stressed by traveling or feel it’s best to stay home for any personal situation, we encourage you to skip the retreat and treat it as a regular work week!

Goals

• Team bonding: We know that in-person energy hits different than virtual meetings, and this is an opportunity to spend quality time with each other. The most important thing is that we can be together— we’ll have a good opportunities for team bonding at any destination.
• Finch continues to operate smoothly for users while we are traveling. Our users still depend on Finch while we are out of office, and it’s important that our product, communities, Zendesk tickets, and any other logistical things are still running smoothly. Some of the trip’s time may have work sessions for this reason.
• Activities are pretty accommodating: We aim to give some variety of activities that are accessible! And we will do our best to make it work for different people, but please note that at our team size it’s unrealistic that every activity can always suit the whole team. We will try to be mindful of what events are set for everyone in the trip vs which events are better suited to be optional.
• Meets the budget: We think it’s worth bringing our team together and we are always mindful to plan a trip that feels financially responsible.
• Everyone can readjust back to the usual work schedule afterward. We know travel can be tiring and it’ll be important to have some buffer time between the trip and returning to a regular work schedule. We design trips with this in mind to help folks readjust back home.

Onsites (Fall)

Team gets together to co-work in person! Being able to help each other out and join in on nearby conversations can be a good opportunity to strengthen relationships. We usually try to host different workshops and/or a hackathon

Flights

Flights will be fully covered. During All Hands we will communicate a recommended budget for flight tickets. Please choose a flight to reimburse (see ‣). We’ll also have a table to put your arrival and departing flight details to make it easier to coordinate between different parties.