Recap of our 4th Company Surf Office

The first surf office was an idea of one of our colleagues, who wanted to work remotely. We thought this idea was great, and instead of letting him go alone, we asked him to plan the first surf office for our whole company. Already the first experience, although of course there was room for improvement, was great and we decided to repeat it in the next years.

Of course, it takes a lot of organisation:

• We need to organise a hotel where we can stay
• We need an office space where we can work during the week (and where especially the internet is good!)
• We require additional space, like workshop and meeting rooms
• We have to plan and organise the trip
• We need to agree on a date on which all of our colleagues can participate (which is of course not that easy)
• We have to find a place with good leisure possibilities, like surfing…

In the last years, we optimised the planning process and have also a fixed plan for our week, this time in Malaga:

• We arrive on a Saturday so everybody has the possiblity to enjoy the place, go the beach, do shopping….
• From Monday until Wednesday we work on our customer projects. In advance, of course we inform our customers that we will work remotely. And those days are pretty normal, only the surrounding and the atmosphere are different. Although of course the teambuilding already starts…
• On Thursday is our company day: we work on the further evolvement of our company, discuss our values, some strategic topics and do improvement sessions where we all work together on complex topics regarding our company
• On Friday is the team day. Here, we completely focus on teambuilding, on getting to know each other better, on having fun together… and the whole team spends also the evening together
• On Saturday we go back again, motivated and most of the time very tired 😉

The company pays the flight, the hotel including breakfast and once cocktails and dinner fort he whole team. For the rest everybody is responsible by themselves, just like in Germany.

Defintely, it costs money, definitely there is a huge organisation effort. Nevertheless, we are content and want to proceed as we completely achieved our goals. So you ask yourself: what are our goals, what are our thoughts behind it?

We want to stay flexible

First of all we want to be and stay flexible. We think good work is not depending on the office and on the known surroundings. We see that it is inspiring to go out, see different places, widen our mind– we always come back with tons of new ideas. Additionally, we want to inspire our colleagues to also work remotely, if they want and when it’s compatible with their projects. We, as a company want to stay open that’s why we make it possible to work remotely.

We want us to evolve and our compnay

In addition to the flexibility, it is also about evolvement. When you are not in the office and not fixed to the daily routines, you start talking with your colleagues even more about your projects, about your current challenges and get additonal feedback and further opinions, which help you to evolve. Also, we dedicate one whole day for our company topics, like for example “How can we improve our Fridays? or “How can we integrate internal topics like sales and marketing to our routines?”. And it is definitely different when you discuss such topics in the surf office and not in your office. All colleagues are open, the solutions are more innovative and the discussions of course proceed in the evening. So the results are awesome.

We want to grow as a team

Finally, the most important topic is the team building. As we spend the whole week together, and dedicate one day for a particular team buillding, we grow as a team. Every evening people going in different constellations for dinner, shopping, or to the museum. We start to understand each other so much better, which helps us so much in our daily interdisciplinairy work back in Germany.

Is everything just great?

Of course not. First of all, we are thinking about sustainability a lot – the whole company going to Malaga by plane is not so great for our ecological footprint. That’s why we started discussing to go by train or bus next year to a closer location. And also our colleagues spend one week without their partners, what is also not perfect for everybody.

Still in total we definitely recommend a surf office, we recommend to spend time together, to change habits, to get to know each other better and to spend a fantastic week at the sea or in a great city.

If you have any thoughts or also questions, just let us know!