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Training Events
striving to be
the best.”
As many
corporate event organisers and
agencies which are tasked with
handling internal communications
and training events will testify,
strategy is key. There’s a lot of
businesses, perhaps unwittingly,
which are ambling year-to-year
without a coherent plan. To change
the mindset of a team, to galvanise
them to deliver results, you need to
work towards a clearer strategy, and
Butcher agrees. He says: “Everything
is about strategy, even when you have
got businesses who are free with their
working hours, you still need the
structure, you need to control the
situation rather than letting your
employees control you. If you are too
free and too relaxed, you will run
something that isn’t productive.
“From the top of an organisation
you need to buy into a strategy, then
you need your team to be working
together towards that. A lot of people
invest in marketing and showcasing
brands, but you need to ask yourself
what people you need to deliver on
your plan. It is about embracing the
talent that you have got but then
understanding them and your own
key strengths and weaknesses better.
“By doing this you can then
understand which areas you need to
focus on when looking at a
recruitment strategy or upskilling your
team to move forward.”
“If teams haven’t
got the people
engaged to work
for them and to
innovate, then
that is the
difference
between winning
and losing”
Nick Butcher, executive director
—
at HR Strategies Pro Ignition
Above: Nick
Butcher delivering
a session at
Mercedes-Benz
World, Surrey
Picture: Claudia
Weaver
There will be some who may not
understand the connection between
how the motorsports-based
programme can work as an event, so
how would Butcher demonstrate the
ROI?
“Sport as whole is very relatable,”
he says. “Ultimately these courses are
bespoke to individual business,
therefore ROI is absolute key. We look
at the pinch points of a business and
advise accordingly. We assess what
the business needs are and what
level its management is at, then talk
to the individuals on staff and analyse
their opinions, as everyone has their
own individual values.”
Butcher continues: “From the
information we gather, we feed it into
the course, tailoring it to ensure it is
relevant. We take them through
stages, such as the theory of
leadership and how to apply it to their
business, then build modules to help
them execute what they have learned.
In terms of ROI, a well-trained team
which is in synchronisation with
company values will result in a higher
retention and higher productivity rate.
This will naturally lead to savings that
will then be made on areas such
salaries and outsourced upskilling.”
Butcher is well connected in the
world of motorsport, and as such has
honed the Ignition programme in this
arena. He shares an example of how
the programme helped transform a
performing racing team into an even
stronger-performing racing team.
He explains: “Last season, thanks
to a partnership we had with their
www.conference-news.co.uk
driver Louis Foster (who finished 3rd
in the British F4 Championship and is
one of the drivers managed by MB
Partners), we worked with his team,
Double R Racing (based in Woking,
Surrey and co-founded by 2007 F1
World champion Kimi Raikkonen) the
week they won the British Formula 4
Team’s Championship, which was an
interesting session as they were
already a successful team of
individuals. However, it’s just not
about winning a one-off; they want
sustainable success for seasons to
come and so it was important for us
to work with them to focus on
unlocking that.
“We sat down with them and
looked at some case studies of
sports teams that have achieved this.
In Formula 1 you can look at teams
like Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull,
but we also looked at other
successful teams such as
Manchester United through the
90s/2000s and the rise of Team GB
in the Olympics. We then asked them
to think of their own examples, before
they took those values and set up
their own core team values, which
served as the ‘buy-in’ for their team
the following season. These team
values are now proudly displayed in
the team’s factory in Woking and
each team member knows what it
means to be a part of Double R
Racing. In fact, they use the phrase
'WE R DOUBLE R' which I think is
really powerful.
“Double R Racing may be a
motorsport team but we have run
that same course for charities,
manufactures, health and safety, and
automotive companies, so it is
industry agnostic. The thing that
made Double R unique as a case
study is because we were dealing
with an already high-performance
team who wanted more.”
HR Strategy Pro’s Ignition
programme is worth checking out if
you are looking for new and
innovative ways to help grow you or
your client’s business. Courses are
available for a range of budgets. Visit
www.hrstrategypro.co.uk/ignition or
email [email protected] for
more details.