Worklogic’s Marketing Coordinator, https://worklogic.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/R0A0425-scaled-1.jpg Lizza, reports back from our recent work retreat in beautiful Milawa, Victoria.
Last week, the Worklogic team gathered in beautiful Milawa, Victoria to enjoy a laughter-filled, food-centric work retreat. It is not often that Worklogic’s Sydney and Melbourne staff get an opportunity to be in the same space, especially during a global pandemic, and the team relished the opportunity to bounce of each other, in real life.
I have never been to a work retreat before and wasn’t really sure what to expect. Work conferences don’t always provide inspiration or stimulation and they can often be a draining experience.
Affectionately known as ‘Retreat 3.0’ (because it was rescheduled 3 times due to world events), this retreat had a restorative focus. ‘We made it through’ was one of the themes of the retreat. It was a chance for the team to celebrate getting through a particularly challenging year.
Day 1
After a delicious and ginormous cooked breakfast, the staff gathered in the conference room for a team building exercise. Two truths and a lie is a fun exercise to kickstart the morning, especially in a room full of workplace investigators. The team were asked to make three statements about themselves, one that is not true. This provided a heap of laughs, but it was also a great way to find out some interesting facts about my fellow colleagues.
This was followed by a report about the standing of the company and how they fared during the height of the pandemic. I’m happy to say that Worklogic fared well despite the year and I was pleasantly surprised to be provided with such transparency.
If the retreat had a central theme, it would be around values. Worklogic’s values are at the driving force of the company and examining those values, to see what best represents Worklogic is important for the team. Jodie Fox lead the session around what values best represent the organisation and it lead to some very detailed and thoughtful discussions.
I really appreciated just how much Worklogic values the talent in the team and by opening up this discussion, they are able to mine that talent for ideas and refocus what the key values of the organisation are.
After lunch, Jason Clark introduced a new performance measurement approach as a way to provide clear and precise feedback to the team after investigation or coaching. This gave the staff the opportunity to voice any issues or ideas around feedback, feedback on feedback, if you will.
Post- afternoon tea, Worklogic’s newest Sydney team member, Samantha DeVos lead a vibrant discussion about the perceptions and prototypes around sexual assault and unconscious bias that investigators should avoid. This is such a timely and important topic and the experiences and impressions that the team have around this topic were fascinating and valuable.
Day 2
After we dealt with our food coma, we gathered in the conference room for the commencement of second day. Associate Director, Angela Seach lead a session around personal values. We were given a list of values and we were asked to choose our top ten and then we were tasked with removing those choices until only one remained. Then in pairs we discussed our choices but were instructed not to interrupt when our partner was talking. It was so valuable to see how values crossover and how much we have in common.
After morning tea, we had free time to explore the area and drop into the wineries, cheese factories and mustard merchants, stocking up before we headed home. Yum!
The town of Milawa was chosen because Worklogic has a commitment to supporting fire-affected areas. We had a wonderful time at Lancemore, Milawa and we would like to thank the staff for being so attentive during our stay.
If you are interested in workplace retreats, Worklogic director, Grevis Beard wrote a fantastic blog on how to put on a successful work retreat, which you can check out here.
