And so I've done my own talk now. It seemed to go down very well indeed and I had a blast doing it. There were a LOT of people there and everyone said such lovely things.
My energy levels have seriously dipped now.
To those who are interested though, there is a Pinned Tweet on my page @Gary_Cookson with a link to a 10 minute version of today's talk. Today I added 5 minutes of new material and haven't (yet) recorded this but watch this space.
I'm back in another session now, this time by Jeff Birk from OC Tanner on building a culture of recognition and appreciation. This is something all workplaces should strive to have.
Recognition, says Jeff, is partly about encouraging effort. This can be done by communicating that someone is on track and in good standing, but has the impact of improving manager/employee relationships and improves employee confidence in their own skills.
He asked when the last time anyone had this at work. Pleasingly, lots said within the last week but for many it was a year or more.
Recognition is also about rewarding results. This encourages improvement, customer satisfaction and helps employees feel they are making a difference. Jeff made a comment that we need to have this continually, like the crowd during a football match, and not save our recognition or feedback until the end result or end of the match.
Jeff's style of delivery was really engaging and I enjoyed listening to him.
He said recognition is also about celebrating careers. He gave some good examples of how we can appreciate career choices by individuals, choices of coming to work for our organisations and choices to stay, particularly those who stay a long long time. This is about showing that the company cares and that the employee fits in (something I blogged about last week) and improves relationships amongst co workers.
Really good advice here and strikingly simple but sadly not always followed in many organisations.
He challenged us not only about when we last received recognition, but when we last gave it.
Off to another session now on creating a coaching and mentoring culture with Claire Vaughan and James Moore from the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust.
Claire talked about the poor culture at WAST 3-4 years ago and it's clear they were in a bad place both from an employee and customer perspective, and outlined some of the improvements that had been made.
She pointed out that their new CEO has an HR background and therefore "gets" engagement. I'm sure this must help.
Interestingly, the service began focusing on relationships and behaviours, not actions and outcomes. This appears to be a running theme both in this conference and in my own personal development recently. It is neatly summarised by the photo below.
James mentioned that they are trying to break the Drama Triangle in the interventions they are doing, and got us to try this out via some paired coaching conversations which proved surprisingly effective at creating a sense of dignity and engagement.