A young, celebratory team, the Adriatic coast just a stone's throw away, two villas with pools and unlimited access to (alcoholic) soft drinks: what sounds like  paradise was not much less than that.

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Flexopus was no slouch this year and called on all employees to take part in the annual workshop. This took place at the end of the summer months and aimed to bring the team together, to reward each other together for a successful financial year and, at the same time, to be as productive as ever.

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In the following blog post, you can find out whether this really worked, what lessons we learned from working this year and how the team developed after a week under two roofs.

The team

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Flexopus is constantly growing and the team is also getting bigger and more diverse year by year. People of different backgrounds, different ages and skill sets that vary from person to person join the Flexopus team and work together on the vision of the company.

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But isn't it difficult to reconcile this diversity?

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After all, there are people who love to cook, others prefer to play music, are good at chess, soccer or like swimming. Some are extroverted, others are more quiet and still others make it their mission to blast half the neighborhood with electronic music.

In our case, getting to know the individual characters of our workforce in an environment that was not only characterized in front of screens or in an office environment proved to be ideal. There was a lot of laughing, brooding, philosophizing, exchanging ideas about trivialities and everyone got along with everyone.

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The conversations that were held on the villa terrace with a cold beer in hand in the setting evening sun will be remembered by all of us for a long time. In combination with the almost noticeable reminder of terracotta floors remaining warm from the sun, they still provide a whiff of summer in slowly cooling Germany and are already increasing the anticipation of next year.

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We have noticed once again: As different as our individual heads may be, even away from everyday working life, we have so many things in common that you can exchange ideas about in a very carefree and friendly way that the Workation felt more like vacation than work this year.

The location

Admittedly, location scouting can be quite nerve-wracking for the entire workforce in advance of such an extensive undertaking. That is why, after receiving a few offers, we opted for the easy way out and simply chose the same place where we were last year for this year.

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Located in beautiful Istria, there was once again a hint of glamor in the air this year when we felt the cooled marble floors of the villas built in modern Mediterranean style under our feet for the first time. On a 2,000 m2 green area, the flat roofs decorated with terracotta tiles jutted out into the hot midday sun of Croatia and when looking at the two pools, it wasn't long before the first team members took the refreshing plunge into the turquoise-blue water.

A brief external refreshment was followed not long after by the first internal refreshment in the form of canned beer dripping from condensed water. The surrounding area was inspected and awarded the highest possible Swabian compliment: “Scho net schlecht”.

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The Mediterranean air filled with the scent of rosemary, the many hours of sunshine and the salty taste of the sea near the coast make Istria a place to which people love to return. It remains to be seen whether we will even get into location scouting for next year — because there is actually no reason to do so.

The work

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Even though the previous descriptions of the event sound a lot like a vacation, it was of course still important to us to be there for our customers and to continue to drive the company forward. Accordingly, we have largely retained our core working hours and have also dedicated ourselves to the further development of the company. For example, we were presented with new features for the platform, thought up and designed innovations in workshops and concentration phases and, of course, maintained regular operations.

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In our case, the biggest advantage of a shared location with enough space was quickly apparent: all team members can exchange ideas across departments and thus create a fertile basis for the next financial year. In everyday working life, appointments, meetings and business trips can often get in the way, but we deliberately postponed most of them during our stay in Istria.

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In our opinion, the combination of relaxation, brainstorming and fixed focus times was the perfect recipe for a balanced mix of conceptual work and a “get Shit Done” mentality. So there will be some new features again next year at our Workplace management platform Give something you can look forward to!

The pleasure

A working day at 35° can be really exhausting, even though that is, of course, a high level of whining. Fortunately, we were still well prepared and had considered all sorts of activities to relax in the cooler evening hours.

Whether cooking together (including eating between 10 pm and 11 pm), playing board games, taking long evening walks or learning how to mix a good whiskey sour — within the villas, the evening hours were filled with lots of laughter and relaxation and a welcome change from working hours during the day.

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But what would a stay in Istria be if you didn't leave your accommodation?

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We thought so too and therefore went to the beach regularly, visited the local market and let the evening sun sink into our faces at one or the other beach bar.

Regular supermarket shopping for the entire team also fell under the leisure activity category, as it is probably not too common in everyday life at home to drive 6 kilos of shrimp, 12 kilos of pasta and a significant amount of liquid food around the area in a car.

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If the days were too short, you could also work off some energy playing midnight golf or soccer tennis on the grounds of the villas or get your colleagues wet in the truest sense of the word while playing water polo in one of the pools.

The sense

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As you can easily see from this experience report, the time spent together during the workout was worth gold. This fact now takes us to the root of it all and to the explanation why we take it for granted to strengthen our community and cohesion within the team in this way.

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Let's be honest: the whole undertaking is of course associated with a significant financial outlay. In addition, there is the guarantee of employee safety during the trip, the booking of various accommodation and the obligation to meet all customer requirements 850 kilometers away.

From a purely economic point of view, it would also be a weekend in the Allgäu region, during which you plan a hike, sit together once in the evening and go home again on Sunday.

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Would we achieve the same results?

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Probably not. Although no one in the team will link the success of the work to the company's spending, the overall package of summer vacation in a foreign country, work and leisure combined with the accommodation features is unbeatable. In addition: How should it be possible to get to know your colleagues in a less professional environment than with wet swimming trunks and a drink in hand at the pool?

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The purpose of this work is simply not to look closely at spending, but rather to focus on the soft factors within our company that make team building what it should ultimately be: to create a homogeneous team that knows each other personally, values each other and is productive together.

The conclusion

If you now summarize our experiences from this year's Workation, you can pick up a few useful takeaways:

• It is always worthwhile to invest in your team
• Joint activities combined with focused working time lead to special results
• It's good to reward yourself for your work
• It creates gratitude towards the employer, which has a positive effect on performance during the year
• Employees feel valued

If you were to try to achieve the above mentioned points without a celebration such as Workation, you would have to plan a lot of benefits and extracurricular activities in everyday life, which in turn quickly leads to overcrowded schedules. Every reader is free to judge whether this is more worthwhile.

It is definitely already clear to us that the experiences of this year will be applied again in the coming year and we are all already looking forward to it.

If you would also like to be part of an exciting IT project and experience one of our jobs, you are cordially invited to submit your detailed application to info@flexopus.com to send. We're looking forward to seeing you!