When you grow from 20 people to 50 in two years things can get a little crazy… You’re inducting a new employee every other week, keeping on top of a huge project load while still trying to keep the essence of a start-up.
With a 150% increase in staff and a new office in Sydney it was no longer possible for the Executive team to get together with the troops on a weekly basis to talk to them about what we stand for, where we’re going and how we’re going to get there.
We needed a new way to get the IP message out there. Enter the Core Values and the IP Culture Captains…
IP Core Values
The Leadership Team took some time out to craft values that signify what they want the Intelligent Pathways brand to represent and the type of people they want representing it.
The IP Core Values are:
+ FUN!!!
To love what you do, you have to enjoy it and at IP we believe Fun is an essential ingredient to a successful business.
IP Culture Captains
The IP Culture Captains were born from a keen enthusiasm to make IP a great place to work and a strong ability to make things happen.
Their job is to come up with a quarterly theme twice a year with a series of events and activities that put the spotlight on one of the IP Core Values, align with our current business priorities and encourage team bonding.
The IP Winter Olympics
Our first Quarterly Theme was launched in Q3 of this year (January – April 14).
The key objectives were:
- Engagement – helping employees to better understand the projects being worked on across the company outside of their team
- FUN!
We split the staff into teams and came up with a series of Olympic themed events and activities around business projects. For each event and activity there was an opportunity for teams to win points. At the end of quarter the team with the most points was awarded the ’Gold Medal’ aka a trophy and a team lunch at a restaurant of their choice.
We kicked off the festivities with our very own IP Winter Olympics that was run in Brisbane and Sydney at the same time with employees participating in the ‘Cross Country Skiing’ Obstacle Course, the ‘Combined Figure Skating’ Three Legged Race and the ‘Curling’ Egg & Spoon.
Other activities over the quarter included employees presenting other team’s project updates at team meetings, a pedometer challenge and a trivia quiz afternoon with Olympic and IP themed questions.
While there could only be one winning team (TEAM WHITE!!!!!!!!!!!!) this was a highly successful initiative that has improved employee knowledge of other areas of the business and brought the IP value of ‘Engagement’ to life.
Feedback from the staff has been very positive. The team events in particular were a highlight as they gave people the opportunity to get to know colleagues outside of their immediate business unit teams, which we believe is a key to creating a great culture and an awesome place to work!
