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Southern
Housing Group Annual Staff Conference 2002
"Although we knew what we wanted to achieve with this event,
we weren't entirely sure how something quite so unusual would go
down with staff from so many different backgrounds. But what happened
on the day itself surprised and pleased us all." - Jackie Carter,
Central Services Director, Southern Housing Group
Background
Information
Like many not-for-profit organisations, Southern Housing Group has
recently faced new challenges as the social housing sector becomes
increasingly competitive. In responding to these challenges Southern
Housing Group was looking for innovative ways to communicate a positive
vision for the future to encourage staff to take up enthusiastic
ownership of the Group's plans.
Southern Housing
Group is a not-for-profit housing association that has been helping
people in housing need for 100 years. Working with 50 local authorities,
the Group has a reputation for innovation in regeneration schemes,
community development and construction work. The organisation's
development programme is now worth over £200 million and will
produce 1,500 homes.
Fresh
Tracks have been providing innovative solutions to motivate
and develop teams and individuals from Europe's most forward-thinking
organisations since 1992.
Fresh
Tracks had worked with Southern Housing Group on two previous
occasions. The first was an away day for head office staff shortly
after a move to a new building, while the second was a senior management
conference to discuss implementation of new corporate objectives.
In both cases Fresh Tracks were charged with rewarding, recognising
and re-energising the team and breaking down any barriers that might
inhibit the organisation realising its aims and objectives. It was
also important that individuals and teams began to take ownership
to implement the new business philosophy.
In 2001 Southern
Housing Group, with Fresh Tracks,
began to plan for a staff conference "with a difference":
a full day's programme bringing together their entire staff for
the first time from regional offices all over southern England -
approximately 400 people in total. The aim was to motivate and inspire
the staff with an inclusive vision for the future - and to have
some fun in the process.
Programme
Development
By now Fresh Tracks had
developed a good working relationship with Southern Housing Group
and knew that it was an organisation open to new ideas. The programme
was developed in liaison with Southern Housing Group's Central Services
Director, Jackie Carter, who was keen that the day should be seen
as a valuable and inspiring use of each participant's time: "We
wanted everyone to leave feeling proud of the organisation, ambitious
for its future and energised to develop their own skills within
it".
In planning
the programme, we ensured that sessions would be informative, stimulating
and highly participative. One of the main objectives was for all
delegates to leave with a greater understanding of the diverse activities
going on throughout the organisation, including new projects, awards
and achievements. Sessions would therefore focus on getting participants
to think about and respond to key themes and developments.
By dividing
the delegates into mixed groups of about eight people from different
regions, disciplines and levels of seniority, we aimed to make informal
participation and discussion one of the key elements of the day.
There would be fifty of these groups, or teams, and to ensure that
on the day the programme would go smoothly, we decided to ask for
fifty volunteers to act as table hosts to lead their teams through
the various activities. Once word about this year's annual conference
started to get round, we had more volunteers than we needed. We
ran two training days focusing on leadership and facilitation skills
for these table hosts in sessions that were intended as personal
development seminars, as well as a planning session for the annual
conference.
Delivery
On the day itself, a senior Fresh
Tracks facilitator led the programme. We had built a certain
amount of flexibility into the day's schedule, but it was important
to keep the programme moving to time and keep up the pace throughout
the day. It was also important that the day was managed informally,
underlying the nature of the day's activities.
As the doors
to the conference hall were thrown open and the delegates began
to make their way to their tables, the room came to life with lights
and music. After a welcome from Southern Housing Group's Chief Executive,
Tom Dacey, we went straight into the first session - a fun and lively
ice breaker in which participants introduced themselves to their
team-mates and designed badges for each other that reflected their
interests and areas of expertise.
There was then
a formal presentation by the Housing Corporation on the recent and
very positive review of Southern Housing Group that highlighted
many examples of excellence throughout the organisation. This was
followed by a specially-commissioned piece of film made by Fresh
Tracks in which staff and residents talked about their roles within
the organisation and what contribution they and their teams made
to Southern Housing Group's successes.
The next session
was a hugely popular activity in which teams were asked to develop
a storyboard for a 2-minute promotional video about Southern Housing
Group. This was to be based both on what they had seen and heard
that morning, and their own experience within the organisation.
Each team was given a Polaroid camera with which to create images
for their storyboard and then had 45 minutes to get their ideas
onto the board. Over lunch the completed storyboards were displayed,
highlighting an impressive breadth of ideas, creativity and imagination.
After lunch
an energetic percussion workshop prevented any post-prandial dip,
and then it was on to the keynote presentation by motivational speaker
Robin Seiger who provoked, inspired and entertained the audience
with anecdotes and encouragement.
Then came one
of the day's real challenges: getting a room of 400 people to juggle
simultaneously. After some coaching by their table host and several
practice sessions, we were down to the play-offs. At the end of
the session the winning team received a bottle of bubbly!
The final session
asked participants to begin to pin down ideas for implementing some
of the examples of best practice that they had heard about during
the day. This was done in the form of a confidential "letter
home" which was posted by Fresh Tracks to the recipients a
month later to remind them of their inspiration and plans.
At the close
of the conference Tom Dacey thanked everyone for coming and asked
all participants to accept a reward voucher from Southern Housing
Group. This entitled staff to one of a range of activities, trips
or visits and closed the conference on an enthusiastic and positive
note.
Feedback
At the end of the day, most participants were leaving with a smile
on their face: "I really enjoyed it". Our aim had been
to get people talking to each other and give everyone an opportunity
to find out a bit more about the successes and plans of the organisation
for which they worked. Above all people had had fun and in doing
so, were encouraged to think creatively about their contribution
to the organisation, and ways in which they could enrich their own
working environment. "Very informative, good team building
and a fun day for all"
A major contribution
to the day was the role of the table hosts who helped to ensure
that the despite the logistics of the programme - with over 400
people moving around the venue - the activities were well managed
and productive. Thanks to them, "everything appeared to fit
together seamlessly". As for the overall programme itself:
"The pace was exactly right. No spare time for boredom!"
SHG Objectives
Realised
At the outset, SHG had told us that their aims were to:
- share knowledge and expertise
- celebrate their successes
- meet other people in the Group
By the end
of the day we had certainly achieved the first objective. The energy
and originality expressed the video and in the storyboard exercise
immediately following had clearly highlighted the range of talents
that exist within the Group and the contributions individuals make
to the whole organisation. Likewise, the Housing Corporation presentation
at the start of the conference flagged up one of the Group's major
success of the year as well as outlining examples of best practice.
We had celebrated
a number of individual, regional and Group-wide successes by highlighting
"beacons of excellence". Meanwhile, the exhibitions and
displays by the various SHG regions showed enthusiastic support
from all disciplines within SHG and gave everyone the chance to
find out about other people within the Group.
At the close
of the conference, we hoped that everyone would feel that the day
had been a valuable and inspiring use of their time. Feedback indicated
that the audience felt "overwhelmingly" that they had
had a productive day. "…a brilliant day and a fantastic
way to meet staff from different work areas. By the end of the day
it really felt that we had established sound working relationships
which may be useful in the future."
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Tracks 2001, for more information
click here or email: mail@freshtracks.co.uk
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