Three Hands > News > Newsletter, May 2007
Welcome to our third ThreeMail
May 2007We're delighted to announce that Three Hands and corporate responsibility consultancy Acona (www.acona.com) are developing a working partnership that allows both organisations to complement each other and widen the services they offer to clients. As part of the relationship, Three Hands is sharing Acona's central London office.
At Three Hands we link business, people and communities in innovative ways, including developing people through community engagement. So here are three interesting examples of how we're doing this now, and three more coming up:
Three on the go
Compass points to a diverse Crewe
In April, 13 Compass Group employees completed their 9 month-long ?Meridian Management Development Programme by testing leadership behaviours such as embracing diversity, sharing success, passion for quality and winning through teamwork on a three-day Socially Responsible Development™ (SRD) programme, which involved working alongside school pupils and people with disabilities...
The team's brief was to plan and build a therapeutic garden for disabled people on an allotment in a deprived area of Crewe run by social enterprise Pathways (www.pathwayscic.co.uk). They worked alongside pupils from a local school, some of whom were non-attenders and in danger of under-achieving at school. Under enormous time pressure the combined team succeeded in completely transforming the plots, making them accessible to wheelchair users and older people in the local community. The young people benefited from being engaged in a project with a tangible objective, giving them a sense of purpose and an understanding of disability issues.
&##8220;This Community Challenge has proved to be a fitting climax to a concentrated nine-month programme bringing
learning and leadership behaviours together while making a positive impact on our people professionally and personally”
Rita Evans, Management Development Manager, Compass Group
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Compass managers and school pupils take a short break | A very happy team of Compass staff and school pupils complete their project |
Adam & Company, part of the RBS Group, have chosen a Socially Responsible Development™ programme running over several months to develop the key competencies of a team of 14 employees. Together they are operating as a Ball Committee to organise and run Breast Cancer Campaign's (www.breastcancercampaign.org) first ever fundraising ball in Scotland. The Pink Tartan Ball will take place at Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel on October 26th. Like to come to the Ball? Let us know...
The team, representing management and non-management, are meeting regularly with a Three Hands facilitator to work on pre-agreed competencies based on the RBS competency framework, allowing the progress that the team members make to be recognised in annual appraisals. They'll be honing their skills in project management, selling, marketing, branding and copywriting, presenting, networking, internal communications, communicating with third party suppliers and building relationships by putting on a key fundraising and awareness-raising event for the charity.
Honey, these kids are amazing!
We've broken new ground by running our first 'open' SRD programme, partnering with the London charity Kids Company (www.kidsco.org.uk). Twelve employees from six companies - Reuters, RBS, Tata Consultancy Services, Compass Group, Control Risks and BDO Stoy Hayward - and six young people from Kids Company, worked as a team over two days to prepare a major presentation about the charity's work supporting profoundly vunerable young people, that they will deliver to a business audience at Shoreditch Town Hall on July 2nd. Would you like to be there or attend a future programme? Get in touch...
The presentation will aim to give people from business a deep understanding of the issues that Kids Company is tackling, why these issues are relevant to the business world and how business can best understand and support their work. The two-day programme, during which the team devised the presentation, gave participants the opportunity to develop personal and team skills in areas such as project management and planning, communications, marketing and design, problem-solving and resource management. It also raised their personal awareness and business knowledge of social issues and business community relations.
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Proper planning prevents poor performance! | A good reminder for a brand new team |
Three coming up
Developing our India connection...
Buro Four and a school for the children of lepers
As an example of our growing connections in India, a team of 7 people from construction project management company Buro Four will deliver a badly needed project for Anand Gram (www.anandgram.org), a school for the children of lepers in Pune, India at the end of September. It's part of a personal development and reward programme involving the whole company.
Strategic skills tested to the full...
Kroll and a fundraising strategy for Place2Be
At the end of June, a team of 12 from Kroll, part of MMC (Marsh & McLennan Companies), from Partners to support staff from different UK offices will work together as a team over three days to develop a local fundraising strategy for children's charity Place2Be (www.theplace2be.org.uk) - and put on a fundraising event in a school in Greenwich. This programme is part of a developing Corporate Responsibility agenda within Kroll.
Orange will restore a Groundwork Environment Centre
At the end of June, 50 employees from Orange will work for a day at the Environment Centre in Wolverhampton run by Groundwork (www.groundwork.org.uk). The site is being restored as an environmental centre for schools, the local community and the city itself. At the end of the day, they'll all take part in a Three Hands team development de-briefing exercise.
And finally...
We hope you find our occasional ThreeMails interesting and inspiring. For more examples of programmes we’ve run for companies such as Reuters, Royal Bank of Scotland, Motorola and Orange see our case studies page, and do please contact us if you’d like to know more!