Networking3.0
Introduction The business of getting together has never been so valued as we clamour for personal connections and engagement. For the past 18-months organisations are adapting to a new era in the workplace with new practices, new employee expectations and a need to build a strong company culture leading to a competitive advantage. The past two years saw our emotions masked and our personal interactions limited by screen time to facial expressions only; the nuance of body language was lost. The novelty of working from home soon took its toll as employees became increasingly alienated, confinement exacerbated pressures and the boundaries between home and work became blurred. While a hybrid workplace and distributed workforce marks today’s progressive employer, face-to-face creates community and encourages us to flex our social capital at a level of interaction unachievable online or through instant messaging. Leaders recognise that as we now have less time spent in the office there is a greater need to spend time together interacting and building relationships. Events have adapted in stages reflecting our ability and willingness to get together: from virtual to hybrid and the third phase and welcome return of face-to-face. As we come back together in person, it is fitting to recognise and plan for new expectations and to address the nuances of the last 18 months. We hope you enjoy Networking3.0 and that it will be a valuable resource in your face-to-face marketing plans.
Stephanie Hall
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Leaders know in-person interaction can be a key component of innovation and growth and will be glad to see more employees get face time with clients and one another. * Reshaping the landscape: corporate travel in 2022 and beyond DELOITTE
A new
Rh y thm Fluidity, flexibility, and agility are the new corporate watchwords as the constraints of working 9-5, 5 days a week is confined to the business archives.
I believe that we can do more than we’ve ever imagined, by being more than we’ve ever appreciated.
Andy Holmes, C4Human
The workplace is no longer the focus for where tasks and actions have to take place, instead the workplace is the hub for interaction and creativity and brings to life company culture. Equally, the speed at which the workplace was digitised proved that some parts of the job and some types of events are just as adequately accomplished in a digital format. The pressure of working from home also brought employee wellbeing to the fore and has led to a new set of considerations for event planners. The stakes have been significantly raised around mental health and wellbeing in the workplace due to the greater awareness around business and working practices that can contribute to poor mental health. Employers understand more than ever that poor mental health in the workplace can impact on both voluntary and involuntary staff retention. Employee wellbeing isn’t just about those most at risk, it is about the entire workforce and event organisers who in the past have planned around the traditional 9-5 day delegate package, now have wider considerations that support delegate mental health and wellbeing to bear in mind.
Energy Levels
Wake up
Start of work
Morning routine
Lunch Workday routine
Our internal clock shapes our energy levels throughout the day.
End of work
Dinner
Evening routine
Sleep Evening routine
This circadian rhythm is hardwired and can have important implications on how we interact when we are together. In the past we expected employees to be in the office and to be on top form at all hours of the work day. The reality is that once the ‘work day’ begins we take a few hours to reach our peaks for alertness and energy, and when we do, it doesn’t last for long. Our levels decline after lunch and pick back up after 3pm until hitting a second peak at approximately 6pm. Our alertness then declines for the rest of the evening and hits its lowest point at approximately 3:30am. For event organisers, planning around cortisol highs and circadian rhythms can have a distinct impact on events and maximising the delegate experience.
Purposeful Organisations want to work with likeminded brands who share their values and outlooks on the environment and society. Employees too want to work for organisations who are considerate businesses and go beyond profit as a marker of success. The need for procurements to highlight ESG (environmental social and governance) means that planners may be working with a new supplier roster and are seeking reassurances from their partners that they have a demonstrable purpose. The pursuit of profit is no longer the sole marker of business success – being sustainable is a given – having a purpose and doing good now means doing well.
Priorities have been upended and consumers are far more considered in their decision-making processes and selection of brand partners.
Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we care about is called passion. Simon Sinek
The Third Phase As business travel largely ceased in 2020 and 2021, corporates have since re-evaluated their travel policies and mitigated their environmental impact. Training and e-learning events are proven to be equally effective online and the demand for getting together face-to-face has never been higher as we seek to re-establish our networks and rebuild trust unbridled by face masks and laptop screens.
There is a paradox to hybrid working: without commuting and the time spent in the office, remote workers get much more time back in their day and a ‘better’ work-life balance. However, they also integrate their working life more fully into their home spaces and the lines between work and home life are blurred. As we address new hybrid work routines employee experience is coming to the fore and is helping to set organisations apart: workers want trust, social cohesion, and purpose. They want their contributions to be recognised and a collaborative approach to work. They want to learn, grow and want their individual purpose to align with that of their organisation. In recent years we’ve understood the significant impact of the experience economy and the appetite for creating lasting memories. We’ve long recognised the term customer experience and going forward need to ensure that events give amazing employee experiences too. Experiences that evidence the organisers’ company values and culture.
54% of survey respondents said they missed being able to easily speak to co-workers, and 44% said they missed the sense of camaraderie with their team.
HR News April 2022
Networking
Optimise employee / customer experience by giving ample time to create conversation, ideas, outlooks and considerations and give enough time for feedback, ideation and re-building emotional connections. What’s your brand purpose and how can this be replicated in the event?
Recognise your valued voices and ensure an inclusive workplace. Create spaces where people feel safe to give their views and set up group dialogues to dissect and discuss.
Mental health and wellbeing isn’t just for the workplace. Create opportunities for complementary therapies and show genuine care for your team or guests. Choose your menus and drinks well with a focus on the local supply chain and purposeful organisations. Celebrate the next generations preference for lo and no-alcohol. Be bold, ditch the four walls and forgo the formality of a full day seated looking at a stage set. Experiential learning connects, creates and ensures a collaborative approach. Our 500 acres give you plenty of scope for some truly ‘blue sky thinking’.
Meet, Eat and Sleep with us Whether you are with us for a day or an overnight stay, we want to minimise any impacts on our local environment, as well as help to inform and educate our guests.
If we can encourage more people to use less or to make more changes, we can all help bring about a difference. As the UK’s first hotel group to become a B Corp we are resolute in our approach to people and planet coming alongside profit. Whether you are hosting or attending an event at Exclusive Collection we go way beyond speculations and calculations to tangible actions that, however small can add up to create a bigger change, which will help make us better businesses and citizens. We strive to reduce, reuse and recycle and actively pursue supply partnerships who think like we do as we journey towards a carbon zero business.
It’s brilliant to see how the focus to better ourselves is being played out in many of the team’s home routines too. We also see our businesses exemplifying the good, albeit small steps, that can be replicated at home by our guests too. At the end of the day, it’s about little changes coming together to make a bigger difference.
Meet Rather than tablescaping our meetings with unnecessary pads and pens we’ve put them to the back of the room so that they are used on a genuine needs basis rather than a sketchy nice to have. Our bottled waters are better for the environment; glass has a lower impact when it comes to recycling and the South Downs are on our doorstep thereby minimising transport. We even collect any water from the half-used bottles in the meeting rooms and bedrooms and transfer it to water butts for use around our estates. We’re on a mission to save power across our properties with an annual reduction of 4%. We’ve an emphasis on ensuring we purchase only renewable energy supplies and use environmentally responsible suppliers.
Eat Our food is seasonal and British with ingredients sourced from artisans, growers, and suppliers in the local counties to our properties. All our menus highlight the carbon emissions involved in growing and producing them. By educating organisers on the carbon impact of each dish we are seeing informed decisions to actively reduce the footprint of the dishes chosen. We’ve a focus on growing our own and have created kitchen gardens across our estates. These kitchen gardens have also become a focal point for learning activities and long-standing shared moments, as well as helping the environment. We work with Olio for any unused food that is left over from events or conferences. In the last 6-months, we’ve helped 174 families with 1,600 meals from food that would have been unnecessarily sent to waste. We super charge the daily grind of work with coffee by Mozzo, an artisan roaster and blender who is committed to working directly with trusted farmers and growers. Best of all, any coffee capsules that get used in our bedrooms are fully recyclable. We’ve also just planted 19,500 vines to form a vineyard in collaboration with Ridgeview Wine Estate at South Lodge. This follows swiftly on from our certification as B Corp and forms part of our wider commitment to pursuing purpose, in the form of both social and environmental goals, as well as economic growth. Ridgeview is currently going through the rigorous process to achieve B Corp status.
For some time, we’ve found suppliers and partners with the same philosophy as us to work with. We look for collaborators who are responsible in their actions and who also seek to minimise their impact on the planet from how they package, reduce waste, and recycle their products, to how they are delivered to our businesses.
Sleep Molton Brown, a heritage British brand, is responsible for our guest room amenities and, in our bid to reduce all single use plastic, we use large bottles that can easily be re-filled. We are using up our shower caps as the impact of fully removing and recycling them is greater than whittling them out of the business! We’re cutting out single use sewing kits and moving to larger kits that are available upon request with our guest services team. We’ve jilted the plastic milk jiggers and replaced them with small glass bottles. The numerous bin liners we change daily in the bedrooms and bathrooms have been switched to being compostable.
We’ve 40-years under our belt of consciously thinking about how and who we do business with and how it impacts the environment and society around us. In the last 18-months we’ve found likeminded businesses and have made the commitment and measured steps to become a B Corp, a movement of global companies who too put people, the planet, and their purpose alongside profit. Doing good business is all about having purpose and caring for the environment that surrounds us all. Doing good business is the support towards employees, their wellbeing and building kinship for one another and the company they work for.
Nature Immersion Lainston House An experience designed to take your team on a mindful journey to improve their health and happiness both at work and in their personal lives.
This nature immersion experience has evolved from the Japanese practice of Shinrin-Yoku; to bathe your senses in the atmosphere of the forest to combat stress in the workplace. The practice is proven to have long-lasting physiological benefits and is in the process of achieving ‘green prescription’ status within the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust. Lainston House’s open expanse offers the perfect place to reconnect with nature and follow the guided meditation, gentle nature-themed activities, and group reflections which the experience entails. You can detox from the digital within the 63-acre estate, and its historic and noted beauty hotspots such as our scenic mile long avenue of lime trees, 600-year-old Holm Oak, 1000-year-old chapel and our very own apple orchard which features 20+ heritage varieties.
There is a balance of solitude and companionship; some activities are solo and others in pairs or with your entire group. Your experiences are selected on the day to best suit the location, weather and season and include activities such as mindful photography, creating land art using natural materials or interacting with water if it’s a rainy day. The 3-hour nature immersion experience features 5 to 6 activities. What’s the benefit? Teaching ways in which you can slow down, take a break from the busyness of life, and find inner calm and mental clarity, to leave with a sense of peace and creativity. What you need A few things to bring with you… Mindfulness can be achieved come rain or shine, with your nature immersion experiences based on the weather. As such, you will need to bring extra layers to keep warm as well as waterproofs. There will also be some sitting or lying down, so you’re welcome to bring your own yoga mats if preferred, or we have exercise mats available for your comfort during the experience.
01276 478476 meetings@exclusive.co.uk
Lainston House, Winchester, Hampshire Heathrow Airport: 50 minutes London Waterloo: 60 minutes
50 bedrooms 8 event spaces Max capacity 166
Award-winning dining Season cookery school 63 acres for activities
The Herball South Lodge The power of botanicals have long been recognised for their medicinal or therapeutic properties.
Derived from leaves, seeds, bark, roots, or twigs of plants grown in our Sussex grounds and gardens, botanicals can help provide a curative effect on personal wellbeing. At our interactive botanical counter, guests are invited to join The Herball to extract and create their own bottled botanical elixirs or natural fragrance. The Herball will guide guests on an olfactory journey, detailing influences, philosophy, plants and their health benefits and uses. Guests will learn the individual benefits of the botanicals to create bespoke bottled elixir or perfume with a story, name, ritual, and rationale. Guests may prefer to blend a personal or group bespoke bottled & labelled botanical water. Again, seasonal plants will feature and can be added to local natural mineral water supplier, South Downs Water which is naturally filtered through the deep chalk layers of our neighbouring South Downs.
What’s the benefit? This activity enables the group to connect with each other and for individuals to show their flare in a safe and non-judgemental environment. Whether it’s a subtle note or a heady fusion of botanicals, this activity helps individuals to communicate and to share their feelings or experiences triggered by olfactory learning. What you need This is an indoor activity and is not weather dependant. This 3-hour experience, for up to 15 people, is a valuable addition to events where new people are being brought together or when creating cohesion in problem solving is required.
01276 478476 meetings@exclusive.co.uk
South Lodge, Horsham, Sussex 88 bedrooms Award-winning restaurants Gatwick Airport: 25 minutes 12 event spaces 44,000 sq. ft spa London Victoria: 45 minutes Max capacity 170 93 acres
Kitchen confidential Lainston House We’ve created three bespoke cooking challenges, woodfired, bake off and Thai for everyone to enjoy, whether you’re able to surpass yourself at ‘the pass’ or have never stepped foot in the kitchen before.
We can accommodate groups of up to 24 willing delegates, perfect for team building or client entertaining! Pairing up, you’ve got two hours to get technical, following a recipe to create your masterpiece ready for judging. Our favourite technical challenges include red velvet cake (decorated in your brand colours) or a croquembouche (mini profiteroles tower). When the time is up who will be crowned the ultimate bakers and get the boss’s handshake?! If you’ve an enthusiasm for fusion flavours, spice things up with our Thai class. Woodfired cooking is the hot ticket at the moment and we’ve plenty to tackle different tastes in our extensive Kitchen Garden. Perfect the traditional woodfired margherita pizza by pairing up in teams of two to make the pizza dough and prepare the toppings, before baking your creations in our very own woodfired ovens! As your pizza dough proves, learn to create the classic tiramisu dessert from scratch.
Lainston House, Winchester, Hampshire Heathrow Airport: 50 minutes London Waterloo: 60 minutes
Our company cooking experiences can take place in Season cookery school or the Kitchen Garden. What’s the benefit? Preparing food as a therapeutic exercise is also known as culinary therapy, therapeutic cooking, and culinary mindfulness. The practice develops patience, reinforces organisational skills and boosts confidence from creating a dish from scratch to serving platter. Not to mention it’s enormous fun! What you need Our cooking classes can be indoor or outdoor and can last for 2-3 hours either morning or afternoon.
01276 478476 meetings@exclusive.co.uk
50 bedrooms 8 event spaces Max capacity 166
Award-winning dining Season cookery school 63 acres for activities
Sharp shooter The Manor House Whether it’s a case of sharpening up your swing or starting from scratch (not off scratch!) and learning how to swing, playing on a Championship Course is no mean feat.
This focused session is designed to get participants pin sharp and round ready. We will start with grip, stance and posture - the basics required for a good swing and always an area for improvement whatever the competency. We will practice a few shots before our pro shares his skills, tips, and hacks! The focus for this experience is on the short game as most benefit can be gained in this quick fix activity. What’s the benefit? Golf is a moderate form of exercise helping increase blood flow and potentially stimulating the brain and ideas. This concentrated session will help recharge your guests’ batteries and encourage communication across your group. It can also help reduce anxiety and increase confidence. What you need Golf is an outdoor sport and therefore subject to the British weather.
01276 478476 meetings@exclusive.co.uk
The Manor House, Castle Combe, Wiltshire Heathrow Airport: 90 minutes London Paddington: 70 minutes
50 bedrooms 4 event spaces Max capacity 100
Michelin starred restaurant The Full Glass Bar with over 180 gins 18-hole championship golf course
Art in the Secret Garden Royal Berkshire This is one to get your team expressing themselves and to kick start the conversation.
With art so open to interpretation, there is no good and no bad in this activity - the leveller for everyone is taking part and artistically articulating themselves during the session. With the hotel’s Queen Anne architecture as the backdrop, and the activity based in the hotel’s secret walled garden, participants are able to express themselves through colour, hue and medium. Whether it’s bold and directional or gentle and discreet your artwork doesn’t need to replicate your management style, instead it’s an opportunity to step back, reconsider and soak in the environment.
What’s the benefit? Art is a fantastic way of getting a group of people to express their individuality in a non-judgemental atmosphere. Harking back to our formative years of learning, art calms and connects us with others. What you need A creative head and an over-shirt in case of splashes and dashes of paint. This class will take place in the secret walled garden unless the weather requires us to move indoors.
Royal Berkshire has a heritage for leadership having been built by the Churchill family and inhabited by Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole’s daughter.It is also known for innovation and in the early 19th century was one of the first private houses to install a private swimming pool. Leadership and innovation continue to precede events hosted at the Royal Berkshire and by bringing these experiences to business gatherings we are giving a modern take on the location’s longstanding values. This activity can be used as a quick fix of fresh air or for a longer session learning more about focal points, structure, and balance; perfect business learnings and the very reason for the saying that ‘art mimics life’!
01276 478476 meetings@exclusive.co.uk
Royal Berkshire, Ascot, Berkshire Heathrow Airport: 15 minutes London Waterloo: 50 minutes
66 bedrooms 12 event spaces Max capacity 200
Local flavours Energy zone, snacks and games 15 acres of landscaped ground
Sound of silence Fanhams Hall Our Japanese garden makes a fitting location for a gong bath and this powerful sonic experience where guests are immersed in the vibrations of the ancient instrument.
Gongs have been used from as early as Greek, Roman and Egyptian times to signify awakening, arrival and transitions. This form of meditation enables relaxation and emotional release. Our Japanese gardens, Koraku-en, were conceived in 1900 and were laid out to represent a pilgrimage through the circular pathway. Our Indian bean tree represents the sun and the adjacent pine trees represent the sky. Maples frame the Japanese tea house and pavilion and lend themselves perfectly to a sound therapy session either at the start of the day or to draw a day of deliberations to a tranquil conclusion. What’s the benefit? Gong baths are highly rejuvenating for the body and bring about an overall sense of relaxation, which can reduce stress, as well as help develop a better ability to cope with stressful situations, help move emotional blockages from trauma, and even stimulate altered states of consciousness. What you need Other than a clear head this experience requires little preparation by guests. You can choose to sit or lay down, so you’re welcome to bring your own yoga mats if preferred, or we have exercise mats available for your comfort during the experience.
01276 478476 meetings@exclusive.co.uk
Fanhams Hall, Ware, Hertfordshire Stanstead Airport: 30 minutes London Liverpool St: 45 minutes
77 bedrooms 12 event spaces Max capacity 130
Event focussed dining Energy Zone, Karaoke Klub Landscaped historic gardens
01276 478476 meetings@exclusive.co.uk