We Love Surveys CEO Helen Dargie, right, receiving the Best Event Award at the 2019 Leicester Business Festival
As far as debuts go at the Leicester Business Festival, I think we can safely say our event was a huge success.
Not only did we have some top-class speakers; not only did we cope with a last-minute change of venue; not only were the audience thoroughly engaged and leave with some really useful takeaways; but, by heck, we only went and won the award for Best Event of the Festival!
So, what was it all about? Our event, Employee Engagement: Effective Strategies, Stories & Technologies to Help You Get It Right, took place at the City Rooms, Leicester, on October 29.
This was the fifth year of the Leicester Business Festival, a hugely prestigious event that boasted more than 100 business events of all descriptions during the course of two weeks, reaching thousands of attendees.
Speaking at our event were Kirsty Turner, the Head of HR at Iceland; Cheryl Willey, a HR consultant at PeakHR; and We Love Surveys CEO Helen Dargie.
Having Kirsty was a real coup for us. Iceland have ranked among the Best Big Companies to Work For in the UK in the annual Sunday Times Best Companies survey for the last 12 years, and have twice won top spot, in 2012 and 2014.
Kirsty rarely has the time to take part in these kinds of events, so to have her give our receptive audience a rare insight into one of Britain’s fastest-growing and most innovative retailers was a real treat.
The benefits of employee engagement
Kirsty shared a case study on how focusing on employee engagement makes such a difference to Iceland, and it was obvious to see why they are consistently named as one of the best companies to work for in the UK.
And, even though it’s a huge company like Iceland we’re talking about, everyone in attendance was able to relate to it.
Cheryl launched PeakHR after a 15-year career as an HR manager and HR director for local, well-established firms, so she was well-placed to give the audience impartial advice on the benefits of employee engagement strategies.
And our very own Helen talked about how technology can assist HR leaders in taking the pulse of the team on a regular basis, how it sends engagement soaring and how data can be used to form strategies for the business as a whole.
Essentially, the event was ideal for businesses of all sizes who are looking to improve the way they engage their employees to increase productivity and wellbeing. And that was what we were able to achieve, judging on the fantastic feedback we received from the members of the audience.
The audience was a good mix of people who work in HR, senior leaders, MDs and the like, and it was clear they were able to extract a lot of really useful information from each talk. The audience was constantly engaged, not only with the speakers but among themselves, too, with plenty of discussions going on around the floor.
Similar events planned for the future
It was a bit of a hitch, to say the least, when our original venue pulled out at the last minute. But we were so grateful to the City Rooms for stepping in at short notice and accommodating us. All in all, it worked out pretty well in the end.
The whole event really was a massive success. It started conversations and enabled people to discuss how to tackle employee engagement, stories were shared, and people walked away with some solid ideas on what their next steps are.
And there has been so much interest in it the event that, not only will we be back next year, but we are going to take it on the road and hold similar events elsewhere.
Now, did we mention our award? In case you’ve forgotten, let us remind me you. We won the Best Event of the Festival at the closing ceremony!
We are delighted, thrilled and over the moon to have received this award. It’s testament to the whole team for putting the event together, to our fabulous speakers Kirsty, Cheryl and Helen, to the City Rooms for digging us out of a hole that could have easily swallowed us up, to everyone who attended, and of course to the Leicester Business Festival for having us.
We’ll see you next time!