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Take me away


Take me away

Karen Edwards|Practice manager|

The 2019 awards season recently culminated in the Oscars – the biggest night of the year for the film industry. Whether it be the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs or, in fact, any awards ceremony, they all have one thing in common: celebrating being the best. Being brilliant at what you do. This was the theme of our recent annual awayday.

Every year, we close our offices and go offsite for a day of reflection: we celebrate the successes of the past year, share future plans and ideas, and concentrate on having some fun! This year’s event opened with our managing director, Nicola Poole, taking us through the past 12 months, giving an overview of our best moments and appreciations. Hedges is a values-led business, guided by the ‘why’ which lies at the heart of all we do – making the difference. Our ‘advice for life’ ethos is adopted throughout the firm, shaping our approach of being a lifelong trusted adviser rather than a transactional service provider. Creating an inspiring working environment is one of the key values that also shapes the firm’s day-to-day activity.

Actively praising each other and showing deep care and respect helps to cultivate an inspiring environment in which our staff can thrive.

Another of our core values is ‘consciously giving back’. The staff nominate an annual charity, and for the second year running, we’re supporting Homeless Oxfordshire. We took the opportunity at the awayday to launch the year’s big fundraising initiative, entering a team of 25 people into the 2019 Oxford half-marathon, with a team alongside to support the fundraising and cheering on the day. Our MD also managed to secure the free services of a personal trainer to get us all marathon-ready. If that isn’t inspiring, I don’t know what is!

In line with the ‘brilliant’ theme, we invited along to the day one of the UK’s top inspirational speakers, and the author of best-selling book How To Be Brilliant, Michael Heppell, to join us at our awayday. It seemed entirely fitting that Michael should take to the stage and inspire our team to be their most brilliant selves; with each staff member being given a copy of his book and their own ‘my brilliant plan’ notebook, he got everyone buzzing on how to be their best selves. The finale of the day was Hedges ‘goes to Hollywood’, with an events company booked to coordinate a commercial filming activity. Five groups, each with a theme, £1000 each of monopoly money and a room full of props. Two hours and a huge amount of laughter later, we held our very own Hedges Oscars, complete with gold statues for the winning teams. As well as seeking brilliance, we take inspiration from Maya Angelou: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Actively praising each other and showing deep care and respect helps to cultivate an inspiring environment in which our staff can thrive. A thriving team inspires our clients too; loving ourselves helps our clients to love us, they can feel the authenticity of a happy workforce and this leads to the client loyalty which sits at the root of our success.

Our awaydays are an annual event that we would not be without – they are the perfect time to revisit these core values and to thank our employees for being brilliant!

This article can be found in LPM April magazine: Legal resurfaces

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