Executive Summary:
Blue Hat Teambuilding has the capacity to offer the most complete range of creative team building solutions. With the widest resource capability of its peers, including an in-house design centre and workshop that creates both in-person and virtual team experiences, Blue Hat are unrivalled in their ability to design and deliver bespoke team building solutions that make a real and positive difference to their client and won an award because:
- A unique solution was created for a developing brief.
- A combination of experiences exclusive to Blue Hat, coupled with expert facilitation created a team building solution that no other company had the ability to deliver.
- A consultative approach to develop the initial brief with the client enabled the development of the key objectives.
- Our ability to tweak our team building concepts live on site to include last minute client requests.
- We handled and delivered key modules within the programme repeating them for multiple groups with excellent feedback and results.
Client Brief & Key Objectives
HSBC came back to Blue Hat for help with their Graduate Development Programme. Having successfully delivered elements of previous programmes, we worked closely with HSBC at a planning level as part of the continuous development process. The existing method of message delivery was through traditional classroom style training sessions. We were asked to maximise the potential of their programme by incorporating a series of fun, interactive and engaging team building activities to bring the HSBC messages to life. HSBC had over 350 delegates, split into four training programmes, with each programme lasting 3 weeks. Delegates are sponsored by their regional departmental management teams and the fact that they are prepared to fully fund individuals from their team to take several weeks out of the day to day business demonstrates the value given to this programme internally. A team of Blue Hat consultants were invited to the 2-day workshop at HSBC corporate headquarters to help design and plan the 3-week programme and include some strong additions to an already successful programme. A powerful endorsement of the trust they have in our ability to deliver results orientated team building solutions.
Primary Objectives:
- To create the ideal networking environment, for individuals to form meaningful relationships with key colleagues.
- To enable graduates to better understand the 4 key areas of banking (Global, Retail, Private, Commercial).
- To promote personal development within the group of future leaders of the business.
- Pressure testing –putting individuals in high pressure situations to see how well they respond.
Secondary Objectives
- To embed the group’s corporate sustainability messages into the programme
- To gain a deeper and more meaningful understanding of individuals behaviours and give individuals the opportunity to practise new positive behaviours in a non-threatening environment.
- To overcome cultural boundaries in a large group made up of international graduates.
Creative Solution
We introduced a multi-faceted solution, designed to deliver on the numerous and varied objectives stated across a three-week period, repeated a further three times during the year.
First Intervention – Create Energy
At the very first gathering of the delegates, having flown into the UK and arrived at the venue just a couple of hours before, we delivered a light-hearted and fun activity around dinner. The idea was to help the group relax and network as it was the first time delegates had met. The activity involved the group working in smaller competing teams, each faced with 101 mini challenges and a ticking clock. The aim was to complete as many challenges as possible within the time. These challenges were devised specifically to appeal to an international audience and to test a variety of skill sets. The result was to get the team talking about each other’s skills, likes and dislikes, from the first moment and begin forging relationships that will last throughout their corporate careers. It also introduced an element of pressure as teams plan and take action against a number of competitors and a ticking clock.
One of the key organisers of GGDP commented, ‘in 15 years of this programme, we have never seen such energy on the first day. The delegates have got to know each other better in 2-hours, than they normally do over the whole 3-week programme’.
Second Intervention – Bringing the Banking Industry to Life
The second module was delivered in a morning and afternoon session. The morning consisted of a Commercial Challenge where in teams, delegates had to produce a presentation to an ‘investor’ around one of the banking sectors. The idea was to test the knowledge of the group. What made the activity particularly challenging is that the groups had just one hour to digest information on all four banking sectors, without knowing which one they would have to present on. After an hour, we removed the information packs and then allocated one of the four business areas to each group.
Third Intervention – Pulling the team together through creativity
The afternoon session required us to create another new and exciting activity (which we called ‘Animate’). The core part of this activity saw teams utilising the high tech edit suites that we created for especially for HSBC. Each suite was set up for ‘stop-frame animation’. Teams had to take 150 images to create 10 seconds of film. The group were split into smaller teams and each were allocated one of the banking sectors. We edited them together to create a 40 second film.
An additional challenge had teams working to create a 4-minute webcast. The brief asked them to deliver a Chairman’s message to the shareholders, explaining how he plans to expand the particular business sector. It was HSBC’s AGM around the same time, making the theme/ style of this activity particularly relevant.
Fourth Intervention – The sustainability agenda
The final module that we were involved in was themed around HSBC’s Group corporate sustainability vision and values. Blue Hat delivered an activity we called ‘Eden’. Designed to embed HSBC’s sustainability message, Eden is a fun and engaging activity that promotes communication, strategizing and working within a team. Uniquely, Eden is a competitive challenge in a collaborative environment closely mirroring HSBC’s business units and departments. The game required teams to travel around the world, completing tasks based on the cities that they were visiting, to earn ‘resources’ enabling them to build a sustainable community. The team with the greatest sustainable community at the end of the event would be deemed the winners. All teams’ actions affected the global emissions gauge, which in turn affected the various outcomes of the teams. Whilst vying to be the winning team, the group had to work together to keep the global emissions in check.
Project Evaluation
We received an overwhelmingly positive response from the delegates, sponsors and organisers from HSBC. Every module delivered is scored by each delegate over a range of criteria, between 1 (exceeded expectation) and 5 (could do better). The modules provided by Blue Hat consistently outscored anything that had gone before, averaging between 1.4-1.7.
Here is what HSBC’s two project leads had to say about the events delivered by Blue Hat;
‘Just wanted to say again how much we have been enjoying Blue Hat’s involvement in GGDP and how grateful we are for your time and commitment to delivering a set of events that absolutely lands for our delegates and effectively delivers to the agreed learning objectives.’
‘Beat the Clock was awesome and Animate worked really well. Coupled with the brilliant Eden, the creativity you’ve brought to the programme has once again brought the experience alive for my grads.’
And here are a selection of comments from the delegates who experienced the sessions first hand;
“I really enjoyed the activity, a different way of learning.”
“Activity based learning is effective and insightful.”
“Helped change my perspective.”
“Blue Hat’s element is very successful at bringing to life the reality of working together and sharing values in an effective and efficient working environment.”
“Informative and fun.”
“Fun and creative way of thinking of the overall impact.”
