People have been and will always be at the core of Aquiles Solutions. Moreover, every passing year and every successfully completed project proves this attitude right. To keep up with a fast-pacing internal growth and external challenges of the IT and Software Development world, it is essential more than ever to build a fluent and trusting communication and coordination within a team. A strong sense of belonging to the team creates a fruitful work environment and generates motivation and engagement from day one not just with the company but with the projects realized for the partners. With the purpose to fuel up the teambuilding spirit and to get out of the routine, #AquilesPeople set out for La Garrotxa (Girona) in the farmhouse “L’Arcada de Fares” to spend two days escape in the nature.
Teambuilding retreat at La Garrotxa
As often as not a phenomenon of a new post-pandemic reality is used to justify or explain certain actions and results, yet for the topic of employees’ experience and corporate culture it could not be more influential. Home office set up, restricted office capacity and increased social bounders set higher obstacles for creating a strong team spirit, especially for newcomers.
To fight those restraints back the HR, Culture and Learning and Development team organised a two-days retreat that was mainly focused on introducing new members of Aquiles family, sharing the updates and results of the on-going projects and just enjoying one-selves in the environment of nature and fun activities.
A short escape into the nature for teambuilding activities is turning into a nice #AquilesPeople tradition that started a couple years ago when we jointly define the company’s Mission, Vision and Values. Participating in this task allowed each person on the team to feel related and complicit in the fundamentals that guide the company where he or she is working.
Sharing experience - Boosting the values
The priority of the Aquiles Retreat 2021 was to put into light each member of the team, to acknowledge the great job done, to show the cultural richness of the team and to do some fun Teambuilding activities.
Why do we want to share with you this experience? The truth is, because it was a great success!
Great job done
Twenty-two on-going projects that are currently carried out at Aquiles Solutions were summarized in the “Present your project”. The aim of this activity was to present each on-going project, give a short description of the problematics and developed solutions, point out the intermediate results and share the “lesson learnt”.
This activity was brutally important as it helped to share the knowledge in general, it stimulated a more open communication that sometimes fades away in the daily routine and it fired up the interexchange of new techniques and ideas in between the teams. And last but not least, it gave a feeling of professional satisfaction as we applauded to each project team for a great job done.
Remembering our roots
Once we finished with work topics and had a nice cup of coffee or tea with a local bakery pastry, we sat down to the “round” tables to continue with the “Remembering our roots” activity. Aquiles Solutions is a multinational company with people from different cities, countries and continents. Each person at the round table presented his or her place of origins through answering a fun questionnaire, sharing cultural peculiarities or local idioms and bringing typical food or beverage.
Showing our cultural diversity, as a group we could see the benefits it brings on the professional and personal level. Not to mentions that this activity helped the newcomers to feel integrated faster, more easily and with fun!
Outdoor Activities
To polish the effect of teambuilding and raise a sense of healthy competition the second day of the Aquiles Retreat 2021 was dedicated to the outdoors activities. Among all the tasks and challenges, one was standing out in particular – “Find your logo”.
Let´s do some sport
The first step was to find 15 pieces of the Aquiles logo assigned to each playing team that were previously hidden in the Garrotxa forest. Once found or gained from the competing teams the logo should have been puzzled in one piece.
Unleashing creativity
Having the logo ready the next task was to decorate it in a joyful and meaningful way. That was a perfect moment of joining the forces to bring the touch of the creativity and imagination into the engineering thinking.
Deep values behind the humour
Once all the logos were decorated, each team should have presented its masterpiece and described the meaning behind those spangles. It helped to remember those values and principles that Aquiles Solutions logo stands for both as a Technological Partner for its clients and as a company that unites ambitious and determined specialist for achieving challenging projects
Conclusion
The history shows that only a united and passionate team can achieve big goals that are set by the world and by the team itself. The most efficient and sustainable way to achieve that is by creating a culture of trust, communication and full integration, which requires daily open-minded attitude and regular retreat-training activities alike to Aquiles Retreat 2021.
The HR, Culture and Learning and Development team did an amazing job of organizing the event, setting the ground for an enjoyable workplace and implementing the concept:
The team is greater than the sum of its members!
