This year, our team at New Profit introduced quarterly all-staff retreats to help our team get closer to each other and the emerging work happening across the organization. The idea was meant to address some of the realities we face as an organization, given the “new normal” of hybrid and remote work. These 2 to 3-day retreats, designed, developed, and executed by New Profit’s People Ops team in close coordination with staff across the organization, provide team members with an opportunity for deeper learning and relationship building, regardless of tenure position or geographic location.

The specific objectives for each Learning Week are:

• Support team members in connecting (and reconnecting) with one another 
• Help the team feel more connected to New Profit’s work and our wider community  
• Start to join ‘the what and the how’ of our work in 2022  
• Facilitate deeper connections and relationships within individual teams 

Some of the topics covered during the first two Learning Week retreats included: strategic updates and feedback sessions with senior leadership, guest appearances from several social entrepreneurs in the New Profit portfolio, and off-site team activities like happy hours, bowling, and dinners.

Ultimately, we aim to ensure that these retreats build a strong culture at New Profit that values and extends relationships beyond the work…We asked two of our team members to share their thoughts on Learning Week by responding to one of the following prompts:

• What from learning week do you find most helpful?
• Share a memorable moment from your learning week experiences so far.
• What is the benefit of coming together as a team in the new virtual/hybrid work environment?
•  Please highlight any learnings or “aha” moments from your learning week experience.

First up, we caught up with Chief Financial Officer Ian Magee, who has been with New Profit for five years, and had this to share:

Hear more from Ian here.

We also chatted with Alida Scecchitano, a member of our Operations team who is one of the primary architects of Learning Week. Here’s what Alida had to say:

More from Alida here.

In the spirit of momentum building and transparency, we’ll continue to share reflections from our Learning Week retreats and dig deep to not only share the good but find ways to discuss the challenges our team may be experiencing and uncover the insights that folks are walking away with. We’re planning our next Learning week so stay tuned for more! 

New Profit Communications team,