Co-working retreats are invaluable for remote-first businesses in the era of home or hybrid working. 

These communal gatherings combine flexibility, functionality, and fun to foster collaboration, enhance creativity and build camaraderie and have proved a huge hit with our group. 

With a rapidly expanding team spread over multiple continents, these retreats give us a week to address key points for both the present and the future. However, they also provide us with an opportunity to reflect, learn collectively and explore new approaches. 

These quarterly trips are as varied in their location as they are in their content, with special efforts made to find interesting environments that stimulate the creativity within the group. 

“I think they’re extremely important and people really enjoy them,” Co-Founder Dr. Erhan Ermis said of the retreats. “You get different perspectives because you get to interact with people from other teams that you might not interact with as much in day-to-day work so that bonding aspect is hugely important. 

“They’re very important for us as a business when thinking about the future, too. It’s not just about being more effective on a few acute problems, it’s about building on what we have and developing better solutions that can be taken away and built on at the end of the week. 

“The retreats help to establish the culture of the whole company.” 

Chiara Anzovino, our Head of Consultant Placements, added: “Our quarterly co-working retreats are the cement that binds everything together. They really make you appreciate what a special group we have here.” 

Schedules are filled with small group sessions to advance targeted project work and larger gatherings to discuss the company’s position and generate as many new ideas as possible for future initiatives, capitalising on our team’s variety of skill sets. 

Cross-functional teams are a core part of Hyphen’s overall business model and are just as effective when it comes to building our future. 

“When you see the variety and number of sessions on the agenda, it hammers home how much everyone does and the range of skill sets,” said Sean Douglass, our Communications Specialist. “Every session I’ve been in has given me something to think about, hearing someone else look at the same issue from a different angle. It can only be a good thing if everyone is learning from each other.” 

Since the start of 2022, the team has visited Austria, Hungary, Finland, Belgium, Greece, Poland, Turkey, Czechia and Italy for retreats. Another nation will join that list when we head off for our second co-working retreat of 2024. 

Each retreat offers a distinct local flavour and provides a different environment for the team to bond, with our team putting a tremendous amount of work into preparing the retreats and helping everyone engage with each other. 

“Meeting the team in person definitely made me feel more settled in,” said Operations Support Associate Christina Kae, who has already taken a prominent organising role. “Seeing everyone in Rome was very special, helping everyone get to know the city I call home – I think everyone had a great time and I really enjoyed that experience of exploring with them.” 

Eliza Korzeniewska, who is our Operations Support Coordinator and has been another of the chief retreat organisers, added: “I would really love to get a tour from every Hyphen team member in their home city and see their highlights – that way you get to know people more deeply and see the broader context that they come from.”