It goes without saying, but the world is a much different place than it was a few years back. Face to face interactions amongst team member for many of us have ceased or greatly decreased, being replaced by Zoom, Webex and Teams. While we should be thankful for these technologies, there are few substitutes for being in a room together.

Some organizations have put an emphasis on returning to the office, but Referential is 100% remote. That’s one of the reasons why, when the Referential team held our annual all-hands last week, we had such a great time!

The team convened in Utah for a full week of team building exercises, games, and presentations.

Each day began with client work, providing our award winning approach to the global organizations we service. The topics cover everything from client successes & difficulties, partners and/or platform technologies, historical overviews of Referential services, and more.

Each Referential team member was responsible for developing and moderating at least two presentations. Not all were directly related to clients; Rob and Kristian, for example, held an interactive workshop to determine what our personality types are. EFTJ’s represent 20% of Referential employees, for those curious.

In addition to the presentations mentioned, we also held competitions! On day one, it was the Annual Referential Dad-Joke-Off. Kristian took home the esteemed award. The “Best Worst” joke: “Who was the fattest knight at the round table?  Sir Cumference... because he ate too much pi.”

On day two, we had all Referential employees do their “best” British accents in front of judges consisting of Helen, David and Emily, and sourced popular British phrases from UK-based employees.

The final afternoon was spent doing our own version of The Amazing Race! There were four separate challenges, each with a unique puzzle or competition. Upon completion of each challenge, teams earned a clue to help them navigate to the next stop around Bear Lake.

The winning team was of course rewarded with bragging rights, which were provided in droves.

We don’t often get to be together, as Referential is 100% remote, so the time spent as a group truly is something we all value and look forward to. Onward to planning All-Hands ‘24!

Does your team work remotely? How do you all handle team-building, whether remote or with field offices?