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Work and relaxation/ How large Albanian companies are taking better care of their employees

2026-07-26 07:26:00, Sociale CNA

Work and relaxation/ How large Albanian companies are taking better care of

Company leaders can improve productivity by investing in an activity called “retreat.” Although these activities have increased in recent years, they remain a new concept for Albania. From recreational activities, sports, to trips abroad, what are the organizations that Albanian companies offer for their employees?

If a company once organized a year-end dinner and considered its obligation to its staff fulfilled, today expectations are completely different.

More and more businesses in Albania are investing in retreats, team building, development camps, outdoor training, and shared experiences for staff, creating a new services market that until a few years ago was mainly limited to foreign corporations.

At first glance, the phenomenon may seem like a fad imported from Western work culture. In reality, there is an increasingly strong economic logic behind it.

In a market where companies are facing difficulties in finding and retaining employees, investing in organizational culture is being seen as a less costly alternative to constantly replacing staff.

The cost of leaving an employee is not limited to salary. It includes time lost in recruitment, training the new employee, reduced productivity during the transition period, and the loss of accumulated knowledge.

For specialized positions, the cost of replacement can reach several months' salary. In this context, a retreat of several thousand euros can be seen more as an investment than an expense.

In Albania, the labor market is changing rapidly. Emigration, an aging population, and a shortage of specialists in certain sectors have increased competition among companies for talent. For the first time, many employers are facing a reality where salary is no longer the only argument for retaining people.

This is especially evident among younger generations. Generation Z employees and a large portion of millennials are looking for more flexibility, professional development, and a work environment where they feel included. For them, workplace experience carries almost as much weight as financial compensation.

This change is also being confirmed by companies themselves. According to Ornela Shehi, Head of the Marketing and Events Department at Deloitte Albania, young professionals are increasingly aware of the importance of benefits beyond pay.

“The work environment, the culture of collaboration, and the professional community they are part of play a significant role in their decision to stay and develop within a company,” she says. In this context, retreats and similar activities are increasingly being considered as part of the value package that an employer offers.

From entertainment to risk management

In many companies, retreats are no longer seen as recreational activities, but as human resource management tools. Jonel Kristo, an entrepreneur and retreat trainer, says the problem companies are trying to address goes deeper than organizing a social event.

“Businesses are investing in retreats because they are seeing that a tired, fragmented or disengaged team costs much more than a well-thought-out experience,” he says.

According to Mr. Kristo, the objective is not entertainment per se, but restoring the connection between people, strengthening the internal culture and reducing tensions that often remain invisible in the daily work routine. He adds that the biggest challenges of companies today are not necessarily technical, but human.

Communication, trust, collaboration, and motivation are becoming factors that directly affect organizational performance. In this perspective, the retreat functions as a mechanism that aims to improve relationships within the team and identify tensions that remain hidden in the usual work environment.

This also explains the change that the concept itself has undergone. If team building once meant sports games and group dinners, today many programs include communication sessions, collaboration exercises, decision-making simulations and discussions on organizational culture. In a way, the retreat is becoming more and more like a management tool.

This approach is also followed by large business groups. Edit Valisi, Recruitment and Talent Development Manager at BALFIN Group, says that activities outside the office are among the forms that leave the longest mark on employees.

“Retreats create spaces where people share experiences beyond roles and routines. Here they are not just participants, but interactors,” she says. For a group with over 5,500 employees from 24 nationalities and operations in 12 countries, these activities are seen as part of an effort to build a shared organizational culture.

A new emerging industry

The increase in demand has also created a new economy around this phenomenon. Hotels, resorts, conference centers, trainers, organizational psychologists, event companies, and tour operators are benefiting from the growing demand for special activities for staff.

For many tourism structures, corporate clients are becoming an important source of revenue outside the summer season. Retreats are often organized in the spring or fall, helping to extend the season and fill capacities during periods when tourist demand is lower. In this regard, the trend is not only affecting the way employees are managed, but is creating a new market for value-added services.

The growth of this market is also related to the changing priorities of companies themselves after the pandemic. According to Ornela Shehi, wellness and team building activities are increasingly being planned as part of talent management strategies.

"In many companies, this budget item has not only been maintained, but has been increased and is being planned in a more structured way, with clear business objectives and concrete indicators of success," she notes.

The danger of the corporate "show"

However, not every retreat produces results. Mr. Kristo distinguishes between a retreat that creates impact and an activity that remains just a facade.

"A retreat becomes a 'show' when the focus is more on appearance than impact. When the hotel, videos and photos for social media are important, but not what actually happens with the team, then we have more internal marketing than development," he argues.

According to him, activities should be linked to concrete objectives such as improving communication, integrating new employees, or strengthening trust between departments.

One of the most common criticisms is that many companies focus on form rather than substance. A luxury resort, professional videos, and photos for social media can create the impression of a successful investment, without necessarily guaranteeing an impact on staff.

Mr. Kristo argues that a retreat loses its value when it turns into internal marketing and not organizational development. According to him, activities should have concrete objectives: improving communication, integrating teams, resolving conflicts or clarifying the vision. Otherwise, the effect remains temporary and disappears a few days after returning to the office. This is also the difference between cost and investment.

A company that organizes a retreat needs to be able to measure its impact. Indicators could include staff engagement levels, cross-departmental collaboration, employee turnover, or internal survey results. Without these metrics, it’s difficult to assess whether the money spent has delivered real value.

In large companies, efforts to measure impact have become increasingly structured. At BALFIN, indicators such as employee engagement, internal promotions, and collaboration between group companies are monitored.

According to Edit Valisi, in 2025 alone, over 100 employees were transferred between group companies and 632 others were promoted. Meanwhile, at Deloitte, Ms. Shehi says that indicators include the level of engagement, the rate of voluntary departures, collaboration between teams and the company's reputation as an employer.

Symptom of a larger change

Perhaps the greatest significance of retreats lies not in the activities themselves, but in what they reveal about the transformation of the labor market. For decades, companies competed primarily on salaries. Today, competition is gradually shifting towards organizational culture, employee experience, and the quality of the work environment.

This is why many companies are seeing investing in organizational culture as a long-term competitive advantage. Ms. Valisi notes that the number of professionals wanting to join BALFIN has increased by an average of 27% per year, while 85% of employees choose to build their careers within the group.

For Ms. Shehi, investing in the employee experience creates value that goes beyond the financial aspect, while Mr. Kristo sums it up with a simple sentence: “A tired team costs more than a well-thought-out retreat.”

Retreats are just one symptom of this change. They show that businesses are realizing something that until a few years ago was considered secondary: a company's performance depends not only on strategy, technology, or financial capital, but also on the quality of the relationships between the people who work within it.

And in an economy where talent is becoming the hardest resource to find, investing in these relationships is being seen less and less as a luxury and more and more as a necessity./ Monitor