Dresden road trip – when a business trip feels like a “weekend trip”
In order to be able to start work straight away on Monday morning, we set off on Sunday morning. Equipped with sandwiches, biscuits and chocolate bars, my line manager Kerstin Sebastian picked me up for our business trip to Radebeul, our location in Saxony and home to our Accounting department. And indeed, the six-hour car journey almost flew by. Because there was a lot to talk about: The latest topics from the office, strategic ideas for the further development of the HR department and, of course, one or two private matters.
Before we checked into our hotel right next to the Zwinger in Dresden, we picked up Ina Metzig, the site manager from Radebeul and head of our accounting department, from her home. She then gave us a short tour of Dresden’s old town, including Frauenkirche, Semperoper and Fürstenzug, before we stopped off at a small Spanish restaurant for some delicious tapas and sangria.
On Monday, we went to the office in Radebeul – it was my first visit to the site. Since the introduction of #YourVoiceMatters and our CompanyMood survey tool, we have implemented many measures to increase employee satisfaction and loyalty in Ratingen and Radebeul. However, direct contact with colleagues on site is sometimes lacking in order to understand exactly what motivates them and where there may be further potential for improvement. The visit to Radebeul was intended to help here. And indeed, our colleagues gave us a very warm welcome and were clearly delighted with our genuine interest. And so the first day was filled with insightful and informative discussions. We spent the evening mainly collecting, synchronising and sorting the many impressions. A little later, we ended the evening in a cosy atmosphere.
As we couldn’t get through all the conversations on the first day, as our colleagues really took the opportunity to tell us what was on their minds, we also spent the morning of the next day in the Radebeul office talking. After lunch together, there was unfortunately only time for a short feedback session and we immediately realised that this could not be the last visit to Radebeul, as there was still so much more to discuss. And before we said goodbye in the afternoon, we promised the team that we would be back soon.
We arrived back home in NRW late in the evening and when my boss dropped me off, we all agreed: the trip was super exhausting, but the direct and intensive contact and the many conversations with colleagues were also a lot of fun and very enriching. It didn’t really feel like work at all. And so we are already planning our next visit to our Radebeul office and are really looking forward to it!