Off-site days: the whole Leadly crew, one room.

Since moving into Leadly HQ in Ancoats, we’ve had a very good problem. There are now too many of us to fit in the office at once. Well, at a desk, anyway.

Day to day, that works brilliantly. Our office days are built around individual teams, with each department heads-down on the work that matters most. But there’s something about getting every single Leadly human in the same room that you just can’t recreate on a video call.

So we’ve started something new: the monthly Leadly away day.

Once a quarter, we take over a space in the heart of Manchester, order in lunch and bring the whole team together, face to face.

It's where our big quarterly meeting happens: company updates, wins worth celebrating and what's coming next, shared with everyone at once. It's where projects get off the ground, or finally over the finish line. And it's where people who usually only see each other's names in a Slack thread get to grab a coffee and actually chat.

There's still plenty of time to crack on with the day job. We just do it side by side, with a few more faces around than usual.

Office days are for teams. Away days are for the whole team.

The first one

Our first away day was on Friday 16 October. We headed 28 floors up to the Sky Lounge at City Tower, Piccadilly Plaza, for one of the best views in Manchester.

Here's how the day ran.

• 8:30am — Coffee first. Everyone arrived, settled in and grabbed a brew and a pastry. Catching up wasn't a distraction. It was the point.
• 9:30am — The quarterly team meeting. The whole business in one room for company updates, big wins, what's coming up next and anything else worth sharing across the team.
• 11:00am — Coworking. Laptops out. There was still plenty of room for normal work, just with a better view than usual.
• 12:00pm — Lunch. Gyros and boxes from THATZIKI. Choosing an order was easily the hardest decision of the day.
• 2:00pm — Wellness session. Laptops away, comfy clothes on, and time to do something a little different together.
• 3:00pm — Wind down. A chance to wrap up anything left from the day before heading home.

Not a bad way to spend a Friday.

Time away from the screens

That wellness session wasn't a nice-to-have bolted onto the end. It was a chance to step away from our laptops and do something different together, and it's staying in the running order for every away day from here.

Wellbeing isn't a box to tick at Leadly. It's built into the calendar.

Why it matters

We say we're people first, and we mean it. As Leadly grows, it gets harder for everyone to know everyone, and easier for teams to drift into their own corners. Away days stop that from happening.

They give us space to connect, share what's going on across the business and look after each other, all while still getting the work done.

A new era of Leadly needs new rituals. This is one of them.

Same time next quarter?

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