Our team recently took some time to come together, learn and share ideas as part of our annual People & Culture Conference. The day involved group projects, self-reflection and team building, as well as a bit of cake thrown in for good measure! Keep reading to find out what we got up to.
“Making Shepherds Friendly better from within”
Our annual People & Culture Conference gives our team some valuable time together and away from their desks. More importantly, it offers our people an opportunity to develop themselves and put ideas forward to make improvements to the Society for our members.
Culture Director, Nasrin Hossain is passionate about bringing the team together and encouraging them to use their voices. Speaking about the conference, she said:
“Every year we aim to make the People & Culture Conference as fun and engaging as possible and we know our team have a great time. Keeping our people engaged and happy at work is vital to us providing the high level of service our members expect.
“In addition to this, some great ideas always come out of the conference; it’s another forum for creativity to shine. The fact that changes or improvements to the Society come straight from our people means that we’re making Shepherds Friendly better from within. It’s a testament to the passion and dedication of our team and the conference is another outlet for that.”
Learning About Ourselves
Having worked as a business consultant, trainer and coach for 19 years, Tom from T Bamber Associates helps us train and develop our team throughout the year. For the past two years, he’s also kindly supported us at our People & Culture Conference.
This year, he spent time talking to us about our individual character types and how these can come together and create a strong team in the workplace.
Sharing Ideas
We then split into groups to come up with ideas of ways to improve the Society for our members and our people. Teams had to present their ideas to their colleagues, Tom and our Board in the form of a poster.
Our team didn’t disappoint; lots of really good, creative ideas were shared. In fact, the Board couldn’t choose a favourite, so everyone was a winner! All the ideas will be implemented between now and the next conference and we can’t wait to see how it all goes.
Team Building
After a morning of idea generation and introspection, we’d worked up an appetite. So, our team shared lunch together, including cakes that everyone had baked and brought in as part of the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning in aid of cancer support charity Macmillan. By munching our way through some delicious baked goods, we managed to raise £244 for this fantastic charity. We also made donations of cakes to send to local charity group, Handy Ladies Feeding the Community.
Once we’d filled up on cake, it was time to put our brains and bodies into action in the Crystal Challenge. We headed over to Cheadle Town FC’s football ground where a variety of team activities awaited us. Brain power, teamwork and lots of communication were needed to tackle the games and challenges in order to win. This was the perfect opportunity for our team to team collaborate with and get to know new colleagues who joined the business in recent months. Competition was fierce (but friendly), and our victors were crowned after a very close contest!
All in all, a fun and productive day for everyone. And we can assure you that the day’s events were organised with Covid-19 precautions in mind.
