Offsite for a team across several time zones: a practical guide

For a fully remote team, the offsite is often the only chance to see one another. When participants come from the Americas, Europe and Asia, the real issue is not the programme but the logistics: who arrives when, after how many hours of flying, with how much energy.

GitLab sums it up: the hardest part is keeping everybody together. For its events the company lists among its criteria transport cost for a globally distributed team, ease of obtaining visas, and a hotel able to offer rooms, meeting space and catering together.

The choice of city rests on a few simple criteria.

• Hubs. Madrid-Barajas and Barcelona-El Prat are large international airports, which reduces connections for a scattered team.
• Time between airport and hotel. The Hilton Madrid Airport is about 5 minutes from Barajas and IFEMA. After a long-haul flight, that matters.
• A single site. The Hilton Madrid Airport has about 1,700 m² of meeting space, including the 450 m² Isabela room (400 people theatre style). In Barcelona, the Hilton Diagonal Mar has 433 rooms, 22 meeting rooms and a 1,001 m² ballroom.
• A central time zone. Spain is generally about six hours ahead of the US East Coast, which brings both sides of the Atlantic closer for any live sessions with remote participants.

Buffer held its February 2017 retreat in Madrid for its team of 75. Its approach: local experts for the first research, then a company-wide vote on the destination, and a team member sent ahead to check the venue.

A few rules from our operations and from the public practices of distributed teams.

• Plan a travel day before and after. Zapier structures its week as four full days framed by two travel days.
• Bring some profiles in earlier. Zapier has its founding team and international travellers come a day early, which also leaves time to prepare the venue and limits the impact on support coverage.
• Leave flexibility on flights. Buffer lets staff organise their own transport, and some arrive weeks ahead or stay on after the retreat.
• Group transfers by arrival waves. We arrange an airport welcome and shuttles by waves of arrivals, with a single point of contact.
• Plan a holding room. A space to leave luggage before rooms are ready avoids waiting.

Jet lag is handled through rhythm, not willpower.

• A light first day. Late start, informal welcome, a shared dinner rather than an eight-hour plenary.
• Demanding sessions mid-stay. Decision workshops, hackathons or "unconferences" (as at Zapier) work best once everyone has found their rhythm.
• Breaks and free time. Zapier plans an optional free day, which also helps families and recovery.
• A Spanish-hour dinner, but not forced. Late dining is the local norm; for a tired team, we propose an earlier first evening, then move the time gradually later.

Local activities (a day trip to Toledo from Madrid, a cooking class, tapas, sailing in Barcelona) also create connection without demanding concentration.

We start from the map of your teams: where participants come from, when they land, which profiles need to arrive earlier. From there we propose the city, hotel, rooms and an arrivals schedule.

We coordinate welcome, transfers, catering and activities, and remain reachable throughout the stay. If you are hesitating between Madrid and Barcelona, or wish to combine both, send us your dates and we will come back to you with availability.