What a day we had our Connection offsite day at Castleknock Hotel for the entire Activ8 team on Friday 5th January. This was a historic day for us. It was the first day we as a company had all of our employees in the one room. Our employees travelled from our offices and bases all across the country to connect.
Our CEO, Ciaran Marron kicked us off with a brief summary into what we, as a company achieved in 2023. Followed by insights into our 2024 growth plans and strategy to deliver another fantastic year. Our Chief People Officer, Allison Morrissey, delivered an excellent panel discussion with our Technical Support Advisor, Alma Monaghan, our Chief Financial Officer Dermot Berine, our Head of Brand and Innovation, Jim Mc Eneaney, and our Store Operator, Mark Storey. The panel discussed our 5 values, what these values look like in practice and how they affect different departments within Activ8. Our 5 values are; accountability, respect and inclusion, innovation, safety, and quality.
It was a privilege to have Fergal Brophy on hand to deliver our Innovation Workshop alongside our own Chief Commercial Officer, Gary Connolly. This was a very powerful exercise and one our staff really enjoyed as we brought one of our values to life. We concluded the afternoon with an inspiring talk from former Irish Rugby International, Bernard Jackman. Bernard shared some excellent stories with us from his experience in working with high-performing teams in sport and business around the world that included Red Bull, Manchester United, Dyson to name check a few. After lunch we signed off the day with some Comedy Bingo and a lot of laughter from comedian Steve Bennett. A big thank you to our MC on the day Gerardine Lally who helped create an atmosphere on the day that was not only entertaining, but also left a lasting positive impression on our staff.
There were some key takeaways on our values, on innovation and connecting as a larger team. We focused on how we can continue to live our values through daily behaviours and working together and connecting as a team helps us deliver these values. We learned how innovation can’t be taught, but we can keep practicing it. With this, we learned how bringing together our people from different departments, with a diversity in skills, is the best recipe for true innovation.
Finally, we learned that coming together and connecting as a whole team can bring real energy ahead of another exciting year in Activ8!
