Francisca
Marketing · Vivencias Travel
The two-day-in-office model has settled in, and with it a new problem: those days fill up with meetings that could have been remote. How to design the annual gathering of a team that is almost never complete.
The hybrid pattern with two fixed office days, usually Tuesday and Thursday, is now the most common arrangement in large companies across Chile, Argentina and Brazil. It brought with it a paradox we see in almost every team that comes to us: people see each other more than during the pandemic and know each other less than before.
The reason is easy to describe and hard to fix. The two office days fill up with meetings. Meetings that could have been remote, because they are the same ones that used to happen over video, but which now get scheduled in person because "we are all here anyway". The result is that the office day has the least free time of the week, and nobody has lunch with anybody.
What changes with a hybrid team
A team that works together every day has thousands of micro-interactions nobody plans: the corridor, the coffee machine, waiting for the lift. That is where the trust gets built that later lets someone message a colleague in another department directly instead of escalating through their manager.
A hybrid team lost that. It did not lose coordination, which tools handle; it lost mutual knowledge. And that does not come back with more meetings, because a meeting has an agenda and a corridor conversation does not.
That is why the annual gathering of a hybrid team has a different objective from classic team building. It is not about motivating or rewarding: it is about deliberately producing the conversations that used to happen on their own.
The most expensive mistake: filling the offsite with content
The temptation makes sense. If you are gathering fifty people who are almost never in the same place, it feels wasteful not to use it for the strategy, the results and the roadmap for the half-year.
The problem is that this turns the day into a long meeting, and a long meeting could have been done over video in three forty-minute blocks. What cannot be done over video is having lunch together.
The proportion that works best: one third structured content, two thirds unstructured shared time. And the content third goes early, not after lunch.
How the day is built
For a hybrid team of 30 to 80 people:
- A short work block in the morning. Ninety minutes at most, covering what genuinely needs a room: a decision, a presentation that will draw questions, an announcement.
- A shared activity. What matters here is not which activity but that it forces people to mix. An outing, a walk, a stations format.
- A long lunch with deliberately mixed tables. The most productive part of the day, even though it does not look like it on the agenda.
- Real free time in the afternoon. An hour with no programme. That is when the conversations happen that justify having gathered everyone.
- A short close. Fifteen minutes, not an hour.
What stays out: the three-hour panel, the facilitated exercise that makes everyone speak in a circle, and each department presenting one after another.
The people who live in another city
Almost every hybrid team has people in another city or country, and this is the decision that most determines whether the gathering works. Either everyone who can travels, and the programme justifies the trip, or you build a different gathering for them. What does not work is leaving a camera open in the corner of the room during the social part. That person is not taking part, they are watching colleagues enjoy themselves without them.
How often per year
Once or twice. One well-built annual gathering beats four aimless half-days, for a practical reason: someone travelling in from another city can do it once, not four times.
If the team is very large or very dispersed, one general gathering a year plus smaller departmental ones works, and the smaller ones do not need to be events in the full sense.
Which activity to choose
The one that forces people to depend on each other, not the one that looks best on the calendar. Team building activities and what each one is good for explains what each one produces; in short, for a hybrid team rebuilding mutual knowledge, walks and activities that require coordination work very well, and anything auditorium-shaped works considerably worse.
If the gathering is in Chile, team building in Chile covers what sits within two hours of Santiago and which month suits what. If the team is large, team building for large groups explains how subgroups are built so people do not end up talking to the same colleagues as always, which in a hybrid team is precisely the risk. And to know whether it worked, how to measure the result of a team building day has the question that actually matters: how many people did you talk to that you do not normally see.
Frequently asked questions
Why run team building if the team already meets twice a week?
Because those two days tend to fill with meetings that could have been remote, and what a hybrid team lost is not coordination but mutual knowledge. That does not come back with more meetings: it comes back with shared time that has no agenda, which is exactly what an annual gathering can produce deliberately.
How much work content should a team gathering include?
A third of the day at most, and early. The remaining two thirds are unstructured shared time: the activity, a long lunch with mixed tables, and at least an hour with no programme. A day packed with presentations is a long meeting, and that could have been done over video.
What do you do about team members who live in another city?
Either everyone who can travels and the programme justifies the trip, or you build a separate gathering for them. What does not work is leaving a camera open in the room during the social part: that person is not participating, they are watching colleagues enjoy themselves without them.
How often should a hybrid team gather?
Once or twice a year. One well-built annual gathering returns more than four aimless half-days, mainly because someone travelling in from another city can do it once rather than four times. For very large teams, one general gathering a year plus smaller departmental ones works well.
