Poland played host to our biggest ever co-working week as our A-team descended on the fantastic city of Warsaw for our second team trip of the year. 

The retreat was a mix of quantity and quality, with our super-sized squad enjoying one of the very best co-working weeks to date. Aided by the fact several of our A-team already live in the city, we combined top-class leisure activities with a week of extremely productive planning sessions. 

Plotting out our future business development activities and tailoring our branding approach were high on our Warsaw wish list. However, co-working weeks have far more benefits to our business than merely helping us to co-ordinate workflows. 

As a remote-first company, we are poles apart geographically for much of the year, joined together by Hyphen but scattered all around the world. Bringing them all together makes a big difference to morale and helps us to get to know each other better. This was especially important this time given that we have brought in so many recruits this year. 

Our Strategic Business Development team is one that has enjoyed a particularly large growth spurt during 2023, with Akin Akbiyik, Dr Heinz Pley, Lilas El Moughrabi and Eleah Ketting all joining. Together, they and our existing team members will help us take our business development efforts to new heights. Their sessions in Warsaw saw them look at how we can expand and diversify into new countries and identify new types of clients with which we are keen to collaborate and seize on opportunities. 

Meanwhile, our branding overhaul also featured prominently on the week’s itinerary. With the hiring of Anahat Kaur and Marta Dos Santos, we have increased our creative capacity which has helped to make changes. In Poland, Patrick Savolainen and Anahat led a series of sessions seeking to progress our revamp further. This included an entertaining collective vision exercise that brought the whole team together, collecting inputs and looking at perceptions of Hyphen, with a view to curating a brand identity that really reflects us and what we are trying to accomplish. 

Our A-team also devoted hours of work to building the Hyphen of the Future. These sessions sought to build on some of the recent advances we have made with our custom-built tech-driven solutions, which include the likes of our timekeeping product and other projects that we are looking to develop. 

Operations and Finance also held their own sessions, with the former identifying ways to make engagements even smoother for clients and contractors by drilling down in our processes and data mapping to build even better systems. 

There were several workshops to help us look at other aspects of the business. However, there is always more to our co-working trips than just work. 

Eliza put her years of experience as a tour guide to good use by showing us all the Polish capital had to offer, wowing us as we visited sites of cultural and historical significance. We took time away from work to bond as a group and celebrate as two members of our A-team – Avinash and Olgierd – prepare for their respective upcoming weddings, while we also enjoyed some traditional Polish cuisine. (Read the travel guide below for recommendations for your own trip.) 

In short, our A-team had a wonderful week in a stunning city. We came, Warsaw, we conquered. Our team is already looking forward to the next co-working retreat, which will take place in another amazing European destination – keep your eyes peeled for the big reveal on LinkedIn in September!

  

Travel guide: the wonders of Warsaw 

Three members of our A-team hail from Poland – Olgierd, Magdalena and Eliza. That means we benefitted from having the inside track on the best places to go and things to see. Now, dear reader, we are going to share some of the hotspots with you so you can make the most of your Polish adventure. Here are our tour guide Eliza’s top tips: 

Food and drink 

• Weles has won awards for its delicious drinks and has a stunning interior, making it a must-visit – but good luck finding this speakeasy… 
• Aura is a beautiful bourbon den where one can enjoy a cocktail in peace, with the compact corner bar located in a former tenement building. 
• Zaremba Café sells coffee each morning but is also one of the most stylish and suave cocktail bars in the city, making it well worth a visit day or night. 
• El Koktel is ideal if you’re looking for somewhere cool, cosy and intimate for a sophisticated drink and some bar bites. 

• Alewino combines sensational wines, flavoursome food and stellar service in a chilled-out setting that will wow even the most discerning diner. 
• Stolica will give you a real taste of Poland, serving traditional food in the Old Town. This is not a tourist trap so eat how the locals do. 
• Bibenda is one of the city’s best restaurants and offers top-class vegetarian food but make no mistake, this place will satisfy veggies and meat lovers alike. 
• Źródło serves traditional Polish dishes but reinvented which, combined with a food-sharing concept, makes this a unique experience. 

Sightseeing 

• Enjoy a walking tour of the Old Town, which is the jewel in the crown of Poland’s capital city. 
• Take in an outdoor piano concert of Chopin music in Łazienki Park. 
• Wilanów Palace is just the place to visit if you like palaces or are interested in all things royalty-related. 
• The Polin Museum, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, contains a series of poignant heritage exhibits. 
• If you have an interest in the Second World War, visit the Warsaw Uprising Museum to learn all about a major period in Polish history.