The day began with a look back over the past year, highlighting everything we’ve achieved since we relocated to our new purpose designed HQ in Castle Donington 12 months ago. Our leadership team also looked at the bigger picture, updating the team on our progress against our five-year business plan and discussing where the company’s going and how we’re going to get there.
After this everyone was split into four teams for what we called ‘Pitch to Guy’. Each team had to brainstorm ideas to make the business better and then pitch them to Guy, with the winning team getting a bottle of bubbly!
We then teamed up with leisure and activities company, Closer to the Edge, who organised several team-building exercises, building on values such as trust, communication, conflict resolution and working as a team to get the most out of every situation.
Moving on to Markeaton Park in Derby, we then tackled the high ropes to put into practice the ‘can-do’ attitude that we had been developing throughout the day.
Our ‘Pitch to Guy’ exercise was a huge success, with feedback from the session already being put into action and a workshop taking place as a follow-up to really get under the skin of our core values here at On.
Some additional improvements have been made to our customer service actions and a new ‘No-Work Zone’ has been introduced at our HQ, complete with a Nintendo Wii and a dartboard, which will allow the team to unwind during their breaks.
We’ve also been getting our creative juices flowing in our own offices with the creation of an artificial beach on our mezzanine, complete with sand-printed vinyl floor, surrounded by Astroturf and decorated with deck chairs – All of which has been achieved via the use of recycled materials from previous events.
Speaking about the away-day, managing director Guy Eaton, said:
“As a company that holds the Investors in People accreditation and puts its people at the heart of everything we do, it’s essential that we keep our staff happy and healthy and make sure we share our vision for both the company and them as individuals.
“Our away-day was the perfect opportunity for us to combine these elements. We really value our team’s input and it was great for everyone to get together and do something fun, yet of great value to the company.
“We’ve received really positive feedback from the Closer to the Edge team, who felt that we are already a high performing team with good inter-personal connectivity. We’re planning to work with them again at another event in early 2017,” added Guy.
