Whether you are outsourcing the planning or handling yourself, it’s crucial to set a realistic budget for your company offsite or retreat.
Generally when it comes to budget, you’re going to find yourself in one of the following scenarios:
You have no clue how much you should expect to spend and your CEO/CFO (or designated decision-maker) wants you to come up with a quote.
You have an allocated set amount of budget for the offsite/retreat that is super unrealistic for what your company or team wants.
You have a set amount of budget for the offsite/retreat that will actually meet your preferences/needs. As you may suspect, this is the least likely of the three, unfortunately, but hey, if this is where you’re at, score!
For the purposes of this post, I’m going to walk you through how to determine your budget. For all those suffering in the second scenario, don’t worry - I’ll write some advice for how to deal with that soon.
So, to determine your budget, I recommend a two-phase process. Note, before you even start this process, you need to have headcount.
Phase 1: Determine your ideal budget.
List out everything you want your experience to include. I’m talking length of your company offsite or retreat, location, type of accommodation, number of and types of team activities, meeting space needs, facilitation needs, number of and types of meals and transportation.
Here’s an example list from a recent NYC-based client. For the sake of following my own protocol, it was for 50 people.
Length of offsite: Three days // Two nights
Location: Up to 3 hours out of the city
Accommodation: Hotel only - single occupancy
Team Activities: 2 activities → 1 active like SoulCycle & 1 creative like pottery class
Meeting space: One meeting space on day 1 and day 2
Meals: 8 meals
Breakfast - All three days - casual, continental
Lunch - All three days - casual, sit-down catered
Dinner - Day 1 and 2 - casual, sit-down
Transportation: Bus (from office to location and back)
Use taxis or service like Uber or Lyft if needed
Next, fill out Whisck’s handy budget calculator, which you can download HERE. In an ideal world, you’d take the time to research, make calls to vendors and get an average sense of cost, so that you can fill in the per person cost most accurately. If you have the time, by all means, please do this as you will get the most accurate budget quote and to boot, kick off your research.
If you don’t quite have that time and especially if your boss wants a quote to simply see if hosting an offsite is realistic or not, you can use the costs included in the excel sheet. These costs are high-end itemized costs based on past offsites and retreats that Whisck has planned, so all you have to do is fill in the number of days for the offsite/retreat and number of people. The reason they’ve used high-end costs is because it’s better to overestimate and come under than to underestimate and go over PLUS it works better for phase 2, as you’ll see in a sec.
Referring back to the example, the estimated budget for the parameters of the offsite above is $125,312.50. And onto phase 2 we go.
Phase 2: Determine your final budget quote by examining areas where you can compromise.
Note, for this phase, I’m assuming you gave your CFO or finance team a quick peek at the above estimated budget and they’re eyes popped out. If he/she/they approved it, then never mind this phase - you have your budget and you’re golden.
Now it’s time to compare your nice-to-haves and need-to-haves, and adjust your ideal preferences accordingly. What criteria could you live without? Where could you cut back slightly?
Using the example from Phase 1, doing this assessment resulted in the following adjusted list (changes noted in bold):
Length of offsite: Three days // Two nights
Location: Up to 3 hours out of the city
Accommodation: Share-house OR Hotel - single occupancy
Team Activities: 2 activities → 1 active (e.g., nature walk) & 1 creative (e.g., pottery class or cooking class to cover a meal as well)
Meeting space: One meeting space for half of day 1 and all of day 2
Meals: 8 meals
Breakfast - All three days - casual, continental
Lunch - All three days - casual, sit-down or buffet-style, catered
Dinner - Day 1 and 2 - one casual sit-down & one upscale sit-down
Transportation: Bus (Round trip)
Use taxis or service like Uber or Lyft if needed (try to make activities/meals walkable)
Apply these changes to the budget estimator and see how much the overall cost drops. With this example, by prioritizing certain preferences and making these adjustments accordingly, I was able to bring down the budget to $99,375.00, saving nearly $26,000! Especially with a big group, small adjustments can make a BIG difference.
If this updated budget still doesn’t seem feasible, you’re best off having a sit-down with the decision-maker(s) at your company to see what other adjustments can be made. Perhaps you only go away for one night or people share rooms. There are certainly additional ways to cut costs. Or on the other hand, they may decide they want to stick to the ideal criteria and are willing to extend the budget.
Ultimately, you want to do whatever it takes to make the offsite happen because the money is really worth it for the value your team will get out of sharing an experience and collaborating together outside the office. Trust me.
Court is a co-founder of Whisck, helping companies get out of the office and share memorable experiences together. Get in touch! court@whisck.com.