How are you going to organize an in-person meetup for your remote team?

[tbejn]

I hope that it will be safe to travel again some time in 2021. If you have a remote team, working from anywhere, are you planning a team or a company-wide meetup? What are your tips to find best travel arrangements? Researching flights from multiple locations is tiring but needed to avoid high ticket prices. Any tips welcome.

[Kaibeezy]

We had meetup scheduled in March for a dozen people scattered across the US and Europe. Location was Charlottesville, Virginia. (Sadly, we decided to cancel it.)

We decided it made more sense to prioritise “getting there near the same time” over “cheapest possible”.

Everyone made their own travel arrangements. By picking a central location, it ended up easier / cheaper for some and more complicated / expensive for others. On pound/euro/dollar-cost-average it was fine. (Company paid.)

But that was under old-normal travel logic. In the new normal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[tbejn]

I hope that new normal will be replaced by newer normal in second half 2021. I'm really looking forward to get the team together for a few days. I'm just thinking now about a best economical way to do it twice a year instead of what we did before - once a year. It can even be fluid time-wise.

[Kaibeezy]

We also do partial meetups. When someone is traveling near another team member, we’ll get one or two more to pop over based on function or proximity. Basically we look for excuses ;) These are often especially productive, whereas the larger meetings end up being more social.

[tsjq]

"get together" : to meet for a few days, or to resume working from office ?

[tbejn]

Get together for a few days, or a week.

[tsjq]

The company Will inform employees a 3-4+ weeks prior to the get together or get-back-to-office date.

That'll give them time to plan the travel : drive/fly/walk . "Spend Your Own Money" , coz we were a non-remote workplace pre-Corona.