Ben and Hayley brutally dismiss Daphne and Paul

The team eat some of the biscuits while coming up with ideas for their retreat. When Ben asks what happens at a corporate retreat, Hayley suggests that they have to talk about ‘KPIs’. Ben then explains to Paul that this stands for ‘Key Performance Indicators’.

When Hayley asks Ben what sort of company he would start, he suggests an airline which only flies around the North Island. Hayley agrees that their company should be a North Island exclusive airline called North Airlines.

They begin to write an acrostic based on the company name, but they only seem to get as far as the end of ‘NORTH’, with ‘N’ initially standing for ‘No Southlanders’, and ‘O’ standing for ‘Orange juice only’. When Paul asks if they are going to provide water, Hayley refers to second line of their acrostic, saying “No… Follow the ethos.”

With 20 seconds left before their guests arrive, Ben and Hayley pour out glasses of orange juice, and one glass of water, which Hayley explains is there as a test. When Paul asks what happens if someone takes it, Hayley says “They’re out”, and Ben laughs but agrees.

The participants arrive and are warmly welcomed, but when one of them (Daphne) takes the glass of water, Hayley immediately tells her that she has to leave, and she is sent away. Paul double checks that Daphne was actually fired.

Ben tells the participants they are all flight attendants for North Island airlines, and explains that Hayley is going to go through the company ethos with them. They have a whiteboard with their ‘NORTH’ acrostic written on one side, and a couple of graphs on the other with random figures labelled ‘Company stats’ and ‘KPIs’.

Hayley begins by explaining that ‘N’ stands for ‘No South Island destinations’, ‘O’ stands for ‘Orange juice only’ (confirming that this is why Daphne has been dismissed), ‘R’ is for ‘Really hot flight attendants’, ‘T’ is for ‘Timely’, and ‘H’ is for ‘High-fives on arrival’ (at which point, Ben and Hayley high-five).

Ben then takes some time to discuss the graphs, pointing out there was a dip, and they all know why. Hayley interjects to say “Daphne”, and then Ben confirms that since Daphne left, there had been a real bounce.

Ben and Hayley then claim that the company is like a family, and that they are all going to do a trust exercise together. They get the participants to close their eyes and run, full-speed, towards the whiteboard, trusting that Ben and Hayley will tell them to stop before they hit it. The last person to participate in this exercise happens to be called Paul, so when they tell him to close his eyes and run at the whiteboard, Paul Williams also obeys their instructions. This causes some confusion, with Hayley stopping Paul Williams and claiming he’s the “wrong Paul.”

The group then move to the bar for a ‘networking function’ including some drinks, with Hayley saying “Follow us guys. Let’s get drunk!”. As Ben is making a speech to everyone, there is a knock on the door, and it turns out to be Daphne. They invite her back in to the company, with Ben saying they’ll just put it down as a written warning, and Hayley making a toast to “Daphne not suing us”.

Hayley asks retreat participant Paul how he finds it working for North Airlines, and Ben asks him if he finds there too many Pauls, adding they could get rid of a Paul Williams. When Paul Williams is then removed from the bar, everyone cheers, before Ben starts a chant of “Number one Paul!” to the other Paul.

In the studio, when Jeremy observes that the party seemed to really kick off once they had kicked Paul Williams out, Ben describes Paul as a “fun sponge”. When Jeremy notes they’d also been quite brutal to Daphne, Hayley admits that while the retreat was all make believe, Daphne was a real person who’d been hired to appear on a show, and was then immediately kicked off for simply grabbing a cup of water. Paul reveals that Daphne had been fired after just 42 seconds.

Jeremy decides that the team’s retreat seemed a lot more fun, mainly because alcohol was involved, and he awards Ben and Hayley 5 points each.

(Written by JoGo and proofread by Karl Craven)