| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 21/08/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 60 |
| Copyright: Other |
Activity sessions get top marks for training
Don’t stick your staff in the classroom for long, boring sessions – take them to the great outdoors instead. Linsey McNeill reports
WHEN Thomas Cook launched JMC Holidays last year, it looked for a wacky yet effective way of telling its 1,000 employees exactly what the new brand represented.Bosses had drawn up a list of what they called seven core values and they wanted to tell everyone who worked for the company what these were. More importantly, they wanted everyone to remember them.
So they hit upon the idea of an outdoor training programme for which staff had to participate in a range of team-based activities, each of which represented one of the seven core values. For example, one of the exercises involved trying to get eggs over a barrier without breaking them. For every egg that broke, the team lost a bucket of water -Êeach bucket representing a set amount of clients.
JMC head of communications Mairi Doyle said: “This made you realise that it’s OK to experiment but you must remember that a high-risk strategy could have an effect on your customers.”
Doyle said the company considered the training programme to have been a huge success. “Taking us out of our normal working environment into an unusual situation made it more likely we would remember the messages we were being given.
“It was physically as well as mentally challenging,” added Doyle. “People are still talking about it months later.”
Outdoor pursuits-type training programmes are popular in the US, where they are often referred to as boot camps but they have yet to catch on in the UK.
Other travel firms said they had looked into the idea, although they have no plans to introduce such events in the near future. But Skybridge, a London-based company that specialises in business improvement, communications and events consultancy, said outdoor training was a far more cost-effective way of educating staff than sticking them in front of a blackboard.
Business development manager Matthew Gilbert said: “These sorts of events probably cost a bit more than classroom-based training programmes but they are a much better way of getting staff to remember your message.”
The company organises activities to suit each company’s purpose, its size and its budget.
“Each event is tailor-made for each of our clients,” said Gilbert. “Some want a team-building event for eight people, others want an event for 500.”
Often participants are set a challenge, which they have to complete within a set time period. For example, Skybridge recently organised a team-building event that involved staff from two associated companies making advertisements for their firm’s products using professional camera equipment on powerboats on the Solent.
“But this could be scaled down so staff could use hired camcorders in the grounds of a hotel,” said Gilbert.
He is confident travel companies will eventually realise the value of activity-based strategic training programmes.
Day to remember:classroom-based sessions can simply bore staff but out-of-office activities are more likely to leave a lasting impression with employees
Day to remember:classroom-based sessions can simply bore staff but out-of-office activities are more likely to leave a lasting impression with employeesHow can I set up an activity training event?
Q: Do you need a large group of people to put together an activity-based training programme?
n Answers supplied by Skybridge, tel 020-8254 1500.