Our Top 3 Remote Meetup Tips

Last month, the Elevate Labs team embarked on a week-long in-person meetup in Miami. Disclaimer: We’re a fully-remote company that invests heavily in the employee experience and highly values cross-functional relationships, so our annual meetups are a big deal. Curating an amazing experience for nearly 40 people traveling from around the world is quite the endeavor, and we could write a novel with our thoughts around visa strategy, meal planning, and more. But for the sake of brevity, we’ll stick to our top three remote meetup tips.

1. Location, Location, Location

With Covid safety still on our radar, we narrowed our search to places that sport balmy weather in May, so we could host as many outdoor meals and activities as possible. We were also cognizant of travel times for our teammates coming from Europe and South America, so we opted for the East Coast, which was relatively central for everyone.

Once we landed on Miami, we targeted beachfront hotels. We have a lot of ocean lovers on the team, so we knew that being able to walk to the beach in between sessions would be a hit—and a welcomed mental reset. We were pleasantly surprised to find reasonable prices and prime accommodations at the Kimpton Surfcomber in South Beach, likely because our event avoided weekends. This meant we were walking distance to multiple shops and restaurants, and only a short drive to excursions like Wynward Walls and boat tours, which made logistics significantly easier.

2. Group Strategically

Working remotely means that casual hallway or lunchtime encounters are hard to come by. So we wanted to be thoughtful about how we structured the week to allow folks face time with those they work most closely with, as well as those they wouldn’t normally interact with. We provided dedicated time for teams to meet: once for a work-related session and once for a social excursion. To foster cross-functional relationships, we strategically assigned groups for our planned social activity—a zany scavenger hunt around South Beach—and set aside one dinner for preset small groups at various local restaurants. Other than that, all meals and sessions were open seating.

In our post-meetup survey, all respondents agreed that they felt more bonded to other folks at the company than before, with over 85% strongly agreeing with the statement. So we feel confident that our relationship-building strategy worked.

3. Make Space for Free Time

As a remote company, we’re hyper-aware that time together in person is precious, so it’s tempting to schedule every minute of a meetup. However, we fought the urge to overschedule and intentionally designated a large block of free time one afternoon. This proved to be an excellent plan, as it infused a sense of freedom and exploration into the week. Some chose to hang out at the beach, others explored the city, and a few decided to take surfing lessons. 

In reflecting after the meetup, we realized some of our morning sessions only had short stretch breaks between presentations. This was a missed opportunity to allow folks to casually discuss thoughts or ideas that had sparked. Next year, we plan to strategically leverage free time between sessions to provide space for those “watercooler” chats to more readily emerge.

So there you have it, our top three remote meetup tips—plus one bonus learning! If you’re a fellow People Ops person and would like to talk shop about meetup planning, shoot me an email at olivia.johnson@elevatelabs.com. And if you’d like to join us for our next meetup, check out our open roles!