Workation: combination of work and vacation
Our team dared to realize project Workation
The first triscon workation recently ended. What began as an idea from our founder and managing director Roman Ferstl to duly celebrate the company’s five-year anniversary, has gained more and more shape over the past few months, until our team finally boarded the plane in mid-June 2023 to set off for Italy. To be more precise, to Monte Sant’Angelo, where we moved into the luxuriously furnished Villa Simone Charming Puglia for an entire week.
Is it really possible to combine work and vacation?
The term “workation” is made up of the two English words “work” and “vacation” and thus represents a combination of work and vacation. The daily work is merged with aspects of vacation, which can boost the creativity of the employees and the exchange within the team.
Merging working parts with vacation? Working where others spend their holidays? Can this really work?
Exactly these questions came up before starting into our joint workation. Is it organisationally, technically and also on a personal level really possible to carry out the daily tasks at a place where one would normally go on vacation?
After ten days in Italy the triscon team can confirm: Yes, it is.
Of course, certain preparations have to be made to ensure that the whole process runs as smoothly as possible. Here are a few lessons learned from implementing our new work project:
Plan your arrival
At an early stage in the planning of the workation, our team decided to arrive on a Friday afternoon so that we could make all the preparations for the upcoming work week on the weekend. It was important for us to be able to set up, wire and test the necessary IT at the workation location without stress before the beginning of the next work week.
From today’s perspective, we would do exactly the same again – not only because it allowed us to take our precautions calmly, but because we also had the opportunity to buy additional necessary material (e.g. LAN cables). It also gave us time to relax and go on our first road trip before the work week started.
TIP: Take an adequate amount of LAN cables, USB hubs, extension cords, and power strips with you. From our point of view, it has also proven useful to pack a WiFi router and/or a WiFi signal booster. Also keep in mind that your standard equipment (e.g. laptops) could possibly become defective – so carry an appropriate amount of spare equipment with you (spare laptop, spare power adapters, etc.).
TIP: Clarify with the team in advance whether a larger monitor than the laptop screen (possibly even a second screen) is necessary for their work activities during the work week. Your accommodation provider may be able to provide you with the necessary equipment on site if you ask them in advance. Alternatively, you can ask your team to postpone non-urgent work that requires a larger (and/or second) screen until after the workation.
Check WiFi connection
In our opinion, it also made sense to test the WiFi connection available on site as soon as possible after arriving at the accommodation.
If the connection quality does not meet the expectations or required needs, necessary optimizations can be carried out relatively quickly (e.g. purchase of data packages for cell phones to enable an internet connection via mobile connection, etc.).
Define team rules
Before starting into the workation, we clarified the following topics with our team in order to enable smooth cooperation:
- To what extent do the employees contribute financially to the workation?
- Who bears the costs of on-site catering?
- Regarding the leisure program planned: Are there certain activities that are obligatory for everyone, or is everyone free to participate in the leisure activities?
- What regulations are made regarding the recording of worktime during the workation (for example, do talks about work topics, e.g. while having dinner, count as worktime or is this to be seen as an informal exchange within the team?)
Plan a pleasant conclusion of the workation
Finally, we ended our workation week with an exciting weekend (half-day tour with a private boat along the beaches of Gargano as well as overnight stay and visit of the city of Bari), which the triscon team perceived as very positive, since this gave us another opportunity to get to know each other better on a private level.
TIP: Plan some free time at the end of the working part to finish the joint workation project in a relaxed, informal setting.
With this in mind: The triscon team wishes you a safe journey and lots of fun and success at your workation!
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