This March, Kennedy Scott hosted its annual conference. Members of staff from offices throughout London, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire took time out from their day jobs to attend the event at Latimer Mews Conference Centre in Latimer, Buckinghamshire. This venue provided the company with full conference facilities in a quiet rural setting as well as overnight accommodation and evening entertainment.

The event took place all day Friday 11th March and during the morning of Saturday 12th March. Teresa Scott, Company MD, opened the event by welcoming the 70 plus attendees and introducing the theme of the conference as "moving ahead". This theme reinforces the Kennedy Scott slogan "share the challenge – secure the future" and points to the exciting new developments the company will be taking forward as well as evolving the  cultural shift in focus from training provision to job broking.

The next presentation of the day was delivered by Freda Jacobson of Training and Career Matters. Freda talked to the delegates about Equal Opportunities covering both relevant legislation and diversity awareness. Working in groups, staff discussed perceptions of Equal Opportunities within Kennedy Scott and what progress still needs to be made. These working parties reported back to the group as a whole.

Their comments included observations on Kennedy Scott’s excellent diversity policy in staff recruitment and on the importance of monitoring in assuring equal opportunity standards continue to be met. It was generally agreed that going forward staff would aim to create a situation where the provision of equal opportunities could be taken for granted rather than be an issue for discussion.

Friday afternoon was dedicated to workshops on good practice, designed to enable staff to achieve greater satisfaction and maximum efficiency within their roles. Workshop topics included: job matching for all staff, the importance of administration and its consistency across the company, management, and a review of VREC, the new IT system in its early stage of roll out.

The day’s activities culminated in dinner and an awards ceremony, which recognised the achievements of particular teams and individual staff members. The awards included a special category recognising the long service of staff members who have contributed to the company including Grace Morrison (Accounts Manager), Janet Wilson (Counsellor), Janet Waller (Administration Monitoring Manger), Frank Overland (Systems Manager), Lee Templeman (Southwark Centre Manager) and Maureen Templeman (Centre Manager).

Saturday morning kicked off with less formal exercises such as quizzes and some funky team building exercises that could rival the research and development departments of many a multi national.

Later in the morning Teresa Scott closed the conference with a presentation that outlined Kennedy Scott’s strategy for the future. She talked about the various new contracts that the company has recently been awarded and the opportunities for future growth and development; and most especially the key contribution that each individual can make in the continued progress of the organisation.

The conference provided an opportunity for staff to find out about the company’s progress and vision for the future. It also allowed staff members to spend time  with each other away from the stresses of the workplace. Liz Pierce, Kennedy Scott’s Training Monitoring Manager, commented on how well the theme of moving forward and cultural change was expressed by the various presentations of the event while Sandra Harry (Office Support worker at Head Office) remarked on what a great opportunity the conference provided for meeting staff from other sites and how her understanding of what Kennedy Scott offers in each of its programmes has been really cemented in her mind.