Beyond the Office: What Our 2026 Taiwan Trip Says About Life at Apex

​What do you learn about the people you work with when you leave the office behind?

This year, the Apex team travelled to Taiwan for our annual company trip—three days to celebrate the work of the past year, experience a new culture, and spend time together outside our usual teams and roles.

Fully funded by Apex, the annual trip is one of our biggest company events and one of the ways we recognise the contribution our people make throughout the year. It is a chance to recharge and enjoy somewhere new, but it also reflects something important about how we work: individual achievement is valued, people are trusted to enjoy the experience in their own way, and connections across the company matter.

At our first dinner in Taipei, our Managing Director, Brock, raised a glass and shared a simple message:

“Travel opens your eyes.”

Over the next three days, those words came to mean more than discovering a new city.

Through unfamiliar streets, Taiwanese food and culture, conversations with local people, and time spent with colleagues we do not always work alongside, the trip gave us a chance to see both Taiwan, and each other, from a different perspective.

Here is a look back at Apex Company Trip 2026, and some of the moments that reflected who we are beyond the office.

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Freedom to Experience the Trip Your Own Way

One of the defining features of the Apex company trip is that there is no single way to experience it.

Rather than following the same sightseeing schedule as one large group, employees are free to decide where they want to go, what they want to do, and who they want to spend their time with.

For some, that meant heading into the mountains of Maokong to enjoy Taiwanese tea among the tea fields. Others travelled to Shifen to write wishes on lanterns and release them into the sky.

Some explored cafés, shops, and the historic streets of Dihua Street. Others spent their evenings at Taipei’s night markets, discovering local food or experiencing the city after dark.

Our home base was a five-star hotel in Taipei’s Zhongshan district, giving everyone somewhere comfortable to recharge between activities—whether that meant relaxing by the pool, visiting the sauna, or simply catching up with colleagues over breakfast.

Everyone’s version of the trip looked a little different.

“We were even lucky enough to see a rainbow!”
— Risa Endo, GA Team

“I got to recharge with one of Taiwan’s famous massages.”
— Naomi Kujiraoka, HR Team

“I loved how the city combines both modern and historic elements.”
— Ryosuke Mikashima, Executive Search Team

That freedom is intentional.

Bringing everyone together does not have to mean asking everyone to do exactly the same thing. The trip gives people room to create an experience that suits them while still being part of something shared across the company.

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New Perspectives, Far From the Familiar

Taiwan gave us plenty to discover.

There was, of course, the food: xiaolongbao, lu rou fan, beef noodle soup, douhua, Taiwanese tea, mango shaved ice, and much more.

But some of the most memorable moments came from smaller, less expected interactions.

Employees spoke about local people offering help when they looked lost on the street or on the train, sometimes communicating through little more than gestures. Shop owners took time to recommend things to try, while strangers stepped in naturally when someone appeared to need assistance.

Paolo from our Pharmaceutical Team reflected:
“If you looked like you needed help, people would naturally approach you. Their kindness felt genuine, with nothing expected in return.”

Experiences like these were a reminder that travel can shift your perspective in ways that are difficult to plan.

A different language, culture, or environment can make you notice things you might otherwise take for granted—and that was one of the ideas behind Brock’s words at the beginning of the trip.

Travel opens your eyes.

Sometimes to a new place. Sometimes to a different way of thinking. And sometimes to the people around you.

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Connections That Do Not Always Happen at a Desk

For many employees, the most valuable part of the trip was not a particular destination or activity.

It was the people they shared it with.

In any workplace, it is natural to spend most of the day with the colleagues closest to your own role or team. A company trip changes that setting.

You might have breakfast with someone from another department, take the train across the city with colleagues you rarely work with, explore a night market together, or end the day talking at the hotel with someone you normally only see in passing.

It’s out of these small, ordinary moments that different kinds of conversations start to happen naturally.

“I had the chance to spend time with people from teams I don't usually interact with, and I felt like I came back with a lot of new connections.”
— Risa Endo, GA Team

“It was a rare opportunity to speak casually with people from other departments and really get to know them better.”
— Yuriko Abe, L&D Team

These moments might seem small, but they help shape how people experience a company.

Titles and team structures matter at work, but they do not have to define every interaction. Experiencing another culture together created a more informal setting for colleagues across Apex to get to know one another—not simply as people from different departments, but as people.

And those relationships continue long after the trip ends.

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Celebrating Individual Achievement as a Company

Recruitment is a performance-driven industry.

Individual results are visible, goals are demanding, and people spend the year working hard to deliver for their clients, candidates, and teams.

That individual drive is an important part of the work. But it is only part of the picture.

The annual company trip creates a moment when people who have spent the year pursuing different goals can come together and recognise what those efforts have contributed to collectively.

Paolo described the trip in a way that captured this particularly well:
“I think of it as a company-wide bonus that everyone has earned through their hard work over the year.”

That is perhaps one of the best ways to describe why the company trip matters.

It is an opportunity to enjoy the results of a year’s work together—not just as individual teams or performers, but as a company.

And when the trip is over, what stays with people is not only the memories. There is also a sense of motivation that carries into the year ahead:

Let’s keep working hard so we can all do this again next year.

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What We Bring Back With Us

After three days in Taiwan, everyone returned to Tokyo with their own version of the trip.

Different places visited.
Different meals eaten.
Different stories.
Different groups of people they had spent time with.

But there were also experiences we shared.

We stepped outside our normal routines. We experienced another culture together. We had conversations with colleagues we might not otherwise have had. And we celebrated what people across the company had accomplished over the previous year.

Company culture can be difficult to communicate through a list of values on a website.

Often, it is easier to see in the experiences a company creates for its people—and in the way those people interact when there is no meeting to attend, no target to discuss, and no job title that needs to come first.

For us, three days in Taiwan offered a glimpse of that.

The freedom to enjoy the experience in our own way.
Colleagues connecting across teams and roles.
Individual effort being recognised and celebrated as something shared.

Perhaps that is what “Travel opens your eyes” came to mean for us this year.

We discovered a new place, but we also came home knowing the people around us a little better.

And now, we are looking forward to seeing where the next year takes us.

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