In the hybrid workplace era, the role of team away days is evolving.
It’s no longer a “nice-to-have”. Away days should be opportunities to address real gaps in collaboration, development, and leadership.
Here are our top tips to get them right in 2025...
What’s changing
Hybrid work has redefined how teams collaborate and connect.
Whilst we are all trying to make in-person office days more purposeful, the collaboration is typically task-oriented – brainstorming sessions, project updates, or strategy development.
This means that away days should be taking on a new role – a chance to pinpoint team needs and focus on team cohesion in a broader sense.
Option 1: Build skills for the future
Imagine a day totally focused on investing in the performance and careers of your team.
Numerous research reports from Covid-19 onwards show that employees feel they aren’t reaching their full potential at work due to a lack of development opportunities. This risks high turnover and stagnant performance.
2025 could see you equip your team with the tools they need to succeed in a rapidly changing workplace.
To spark ideas, here are some examples of the sessions we run at away days:
We also run away days where we cover all of these in a mega skills-development sprint.
Option 2: Build leaders at all levels
Only 40% of leaders report that their company has high-quality leaders (DDI, 2023).
Imagine strong leadership at all levels of your team.
The modern workplace demands this, and a focus on leadership upskilling can:
Enhance decision-making across your team
Empower individuals to take ownership of their roles
Foster a culture of accountability and innovation
Away days are a great opportunity to focus on leadership.
Our modern leadership training day has been built for post-Covid teams, uniting colleagues around the theme of taking ownership and leading at all levels. Perhaps it could be an area of focus for your team this year?
Option 3: Complete candidness about the challenge ahead
When operating in an unpredictable world, clarity of the task at hand is crucial.
Away days can be a good opportunity to lay out the challenges ahead.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been at many away days where the real issues aren’t discussed, but replaced with superficial conversations to fill the agenda.
Ask yourself these questions:
What’s the biggest problem we have to solve?
How do I communicate that problem in a transparent and measured way?
How can we, as a team, identify the real contributing factors that will address the problem?
The above can also be framed positively – using ‘opportunities’ as the narrative, depending on your situation.
Enable people to leave feeling like they’ve been trusted with the truth, empowered to do something about it, and united in confidence to succeed.
Option 4: Run a hackathon – build the future, fast
We often facilitate team workshops and hackathons to help teams work through what they are actually going to do to solve the biggest challenges.
Having an away day dedicated to making progress on a single issue will give you peace of mind that your team feel empowered to contribute, and satisfied that it has been time well spent.
Don’t underestimate the power of rallying the troops and putting their skills to use.
Option 5: Intentional light relief
Work is hard. Relentless, in some cases.
Call this out, and deliver an away day that shows you understand and care.
As per the introduction, knowing what your team needs is the starting point – and that need might be some time and space to reconnect with themselves and each other.
Here are some things we’ve done for clients that might provide inspiration for your next away day:
Personal development workshops, focused on career development, soft skills, and personal performance
TEDx-style topical keynotes – fun, engaging, and informative talks to spark ideas. We often bring multiple speakers to your venue across a range of themes
Thematic immersion – a keynote on a chosen theme, followed by group discussion and light-touch brainstorming
So, whether it’s future skills development, leadership, time to reflect on the challenge at hand, a hackathon, or some well-deserved light relief, be intentional about why and how you will bring your team together this year.
Explore all our team training options and away days. --------------- About us We build leaders and high-performing teams for the changing world of work. Explore our training. Get the latest leadership, workplace and career news and support in our free, monthly Leader's Briefing.