Bizarre HR: Is this the ultimate offsite retreat?

The CEO of a US-based startup wanted to give his employees a once-in-a-lifetime experience – so he flew them all to Thailand for a month.

David Barrett, co-founder and CEO of Expensify, flew 20 of his staff to Railay Beach in southern Thailand for a month to work together and hang out with each other in a different environment, Business Insider reported.

Barrett said he has done this before with his team – last time it was to Vietnam – and claims there is “no better way to gel a team”.

“We go for a whole month, to somewhere that has the holy trinity of power, Internet, and beach,” he said. “We look for somewhere inexpensive.”

While the trip sounds like a dream to employees, the all-expenses-paid ‘offsite retreat’ is far from a holiday. Barrett describes it as a “working trip” where staff still keep up their normal job duties and participated in multiple long-range meetings to stay on top of their workload.

While Expensify covered flights and some meals, employees covered their own accommodation.

Barrett said the whole trip cost the company around US$30,000 (S$37,400).

The trip is optional, but almost every employee participates, Barrett said. Some staff, depending on family requirements and other factors, only do the middle two weeks of the trip.

“We think this is the most productive month of the year,” he said. “You take them out of their time zone. They don't speak the language. It's this very inclusive environment. You have time for the conversations you never have otherwise. Our best ideas for the company come out of these trips.”