On Tuesday December 22nd all 352 team members including our five brands within the group came together to celebrate the end of the year in their annual Christmas Conference. Like most events in 2020, this celebration was held online as part of a virtual experience that included presentations, an award ceremony and a virtual “after party” all broadcast from their 212 Studios in Worcestershire.
Dale Parmenter, CEO, spoke about the importance of bringing the team together, “2020 was an incredibly challenging year with a 50% drop in sales, we felt it vital to bring the team together with their families for a light-hearted and celebratory look back at the year. It may have looked different this year with our global team working from home, but we still ended the year together as a team. A fitting virtual end to a virtual year, we celebrated the wins, lamented the lows, laughed together at the bloopers and shared in games and activities. It is so important to come together at the end of the year and take the time to reflect, but more importantly to look forward as a team. We couldn’t do the traditional Christmas Party, so our virtual experiences team worked hard behind the scenes to make sure we could still be together for a fantastic virtual get together!”
Using four of the 11 studios, the fast-moving show saw heads of department, review the successes and challenges of the year. Live events were restricted to January and February, throughout the rest of the year these replaced by virtual solutions. We delivered 500 virtual solutions to over one million viewers globally, a record number of new clients joining the roster, a record number of industry award wins at 44 and despite the crisis the team also achieved 40 CSR projects.
Using the our XR studio the annual “anything’s possible” award ceremony took on a very different look and feel celebrating the team members across the group who have shown outstanding achievements during the year and have lived by the company’s five values of Belief, Passion, Understanding, Effectiveness and Trust. Awards were also given to Team Member of the Year, who epitomises the values and lives the anything’s possible culture, and Team of the Year, won by team whose combined actions and results have clearly demonstrated that anything really is possible every year. For the first time ever, this was awarded to the entire company, who all received a bonus which was an equal share of the small profit the group made in the year.
With the serious stuff done, we welcomed 65 new team members who joined in 2020 in true company style with a traditional Drip Show, the action packed, interactive entertainment show which included games, quizzes, challenges and more.
“It has been a tough year and there are more challenges to come, but we have proven in 2020 that by working together, flexibly and remotely we are still able to achieve great results, and remain a safe, secure and trusted partner, delivering great results for our clients even in times of crisis. We face yet more uncertain times in 2021, but it is a credit to the team that we face it from a standpoint of stability, and ready to take on the challenges,” says Parmenter.
