As a way to promote staff bonding, reflect on yearly work and generate new ideas for the coming year.
Women Against Violence and Exploitation in Society Sierra Leone has held its annual Staff Retreat at the DOHAS Hotel on Thursday, 8th, December, 2022.
The staff retreat commenced with prayers and all staff giving their inputs on the agenda items for the day .
The Executive Director( Hannah Yambasu) who was Emcee took to the floor to enunciate to the team the purpose of the staff retreat which is to reflect on our work and to drive cooperation and nurture interpersonal relationships amongst staff- all to an organizational advancement. She introduced the team to an activity in which staff were asked to point out one thing that has changed about their lives and the organization for the year under review.
Hannah Yambasu facilitated the next activity- discussions on our challenges and what we can do differently. Here, the staff were grouped into three to come up with their thoughts and present in a plenary.This activity gave rise to practical solutions after long discourse and generated recommendations that could be adopted in this regard.
This was followed by a music and dance with Jacob serving as DJ.
This activity was fun filled as it saw interesting but lovely dancing styles by the team.
It was a clear demonstration of the old saying ‘All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy (& Jill a dull girl).
The executive director conducted the next item of activity tagged staff relationships and managing conflicts. The focus of this activity was understanding Interpersonal Relations at workplace . Here, staff were divided into groups of 3’s and 4’s based on those who work closely together in the office to assess each other’s professional attitudes and deliberate on how to work better together ; this activity produced valuable office issue resolutions.
In the end Gender and Advocacy Advisor(Hannah Kentouche) did a snappy pictorial presentation of her work over the year in relation to Agiamondo and this was followed by a Christmas surprise activity wherein staff wrote special Christmas messages on a card to colleagues in the office through a poll of names they were asked to choose from.
There is no doubt about the fact that the staff retreat is one we look forward to again next year. The balance of fun and learning cannot be overemphasized as key to productivity.