Steps

On Wednesday 10 March 2010, Steps joined forces with Training Journal and Room54 to create a one day conference focusing on employee engagement. Attended by over 65 delegates representing companies large and small from the UK and further afield, the day was a valuable opportunity to explore measures to put people at the heart of business success.

Through insightful guest speaker presentations from David MacLeod, Nita Clarke, Mark Moorton and Professor Katie Truss, delegates had the opportunity to hear about employee engagement from a variety of perspectives. There was also plenty of opportunity to ask questions, debate some of the key issues and share best practice. The day was chaired by writer and broadcaster John McCarthy - who brought to the event his own very personal account of how to build relationships with people and use engagement as a means of creative advantage.

We also introduced a number of smaller group tasks, from table discussions, to small scale presentations on key themes - to get individuals engaging with the subject and each other on a more personal level. These group activities were a fantastic addition to the day - with people involving themselves in lively debate, getting stuck in to the interactive sessions and sharing experiences with one another. The informal atmosphere and the range of contributions made the day a rich and creative one - and we hope that these activities helped delegates to think about how they might implement new measures to address engagement within their own working environments.

We were keen to gauge the success of this unique event, and undertook evaluation measures to determine the impact of the conference. Of those who responded to our feedback questionnaire, 100% said that they would recommend the event to a friend or colleague, and overall there was a 27% increase in confidence levels relating to tackling employee engagement after the conference. This fantastic feedback gave us the proof we needed - that engaging with one another is the first step towards building a culture of engagement within individual organisations.

To further our commitment to making the event as engaging as possible, and in order to sustain the momentum after the energy visible in the room on the 10th March, we wanted to make available online the slides from our fantastic and insightful speakers. All of the materials can be found on our event website: www.engagingforthefuture.ning.com.  This site will be maintained as an ongoing online resource focusing on engagement, so please visit - post your ideas, share your thoughts and continue the debate. We will also be adding to the site some of the photos and video footage that we captured from the day - so check back regularly, there will be frequent updates.

As one of our respondents commented in the feedback - this event gave attendees ‘permission to talk openly about relationships, which some suggest isn't appropriate in business'. We wanted to create a day that allowed us to put people at the heart of business success, and the result was a day led by people, involving people and discussing how we best connect with people.

It was great to see the room so enthused and engaged with the subject, so thank you again to those who attended, for playing your part in what we felt was a unique and highly successful event.

To find out more about how a Steps solution can heighten employee engagement within your organisation please contact us or call the office on +44 (0) 20 7403 9000.

We are now in the early stages of planning a conference event for next year, so if you are interested and have a suggestion for a key topic or HR issue that you'd like to see addressed, please contact us to register your interest.