We take time to talk and listen

One of our values, here at SITA UK, is ‘Communication’ – meaning that we take the time to talk and listen to one another and our customers. This value is very important to us every day, but it’s under the spotlight once a year when the management committee travels around the country to update our managers and supervisors on the company’s strategic goals, priorities and areas of focus for the 12 months ahead.

Every March, we communicate with our staff and let them know how we are performing against our strategy and what the key projects are. We have been doing this for six years now, and the events give us the chance not only to talk directly to up to 700 employees, but also to listen and answer any queries they might have.

The events take months to organise … content, invites, venues, the list could go on … and they are in their own way a great example of one of our other values – collaboration – as a number of departments including HR, training and communications are involved in their development. They are exhausting, as we travel around the country from venue to venue, rather like a rock band, and at the end of the three week period we are all certainly very tired.

However, a buzz we get from these events makes everything worthwhile! It is a great way of engaging with a large number of key employees over a relatively short period of time and reminding ourselves how far we have come as a company over the last few years. It shows a genuine commitment from the senior managers to communication and how important we see this value as a building block for the company.

We have recently announced the start of our rebrand process, which will take some time to implement, as our parent company unites all of its brands under one global name – SUEZ environnement. Having strong company values is critical, as it has a huge impact on the overall success of the business. Whether the company employs 5,000 or 80,000 people, without strong company values there is no framework in which employees can build their success. Values show the way to act and how to be consistent. The more united a company is in celebrating and applying the values, the more value they add to the company.

Of course many other companies constantly reinforce their values, and maybe even hold these sort of events, but I have not heard of many examples. Personally, I feel a genuine pride in these events and the effort we all put into communicating with each other … I’m also looking forward to the holiday I always take afterwards to recover from these very intense few weeks!