Celebrating team success in times of lockdown with the Values Awards

The Kalibrate team has pulled together and worked harder than ever during a uniquely challenging period in the industry. To recognize and celebrate the achievements of our Kalibrate Team, incorporating newly acquired TAS and Kent Group Ltd, we held our first Kalibrate Group Values Awards.

Kalibrate’s Global Head of HR and Corporate Services, Paula Geraghty, discusses why it was so important to commend employees’ achievements at this time, and how we plan to put learnings from lockdown into action.

Kalibrate’s Values

We wanted to identify and recognize the many ways our team has excelled in demonstrating Kalibrate culture and our four main value pillars this year. Additionally, we wanted to celebrate the top performers in our newly acquired businesses in Canada and US that already align with our overall ethos, culture, and talent pool. 

Team members were nominated by their colleagues for awards where they’d met and exceeded the Kalibrate Values:

• ‘Lead the way’ encourages confident, considered decisions, learning from mistakes and owning commitments to Kalibrate’s industry-leading work.
• ‘Empower others’ motivates employees to share knowledge, collaborate, and be helpful to clients and colleagues.
• ‘Challenge convention’ seeks to ensure we continuously improve by challenging the status quo, questioning assumptions, and intelligently innovating.
• ‘Be genuine’ promotes honesty, integrity, professionalism, positivity, and hard work.

Our CEO, Oliver Shaw, explains the importance of our values, and how colleagues lived up to them over the course of this year: “Our four company values were chosen because they illustrate the culture we strive to embody every day. We want our people to be driven, collaborative, and inhabit a growth mindset that allows Kalibrate to thrive through ever-improving products and services.

“During the international lockdowns, we’ve kept working because our clients have kept working, and I’m proud of the way our global team has stepped up to the challenges created by COVID-19. It’s in living the four values that has allowed us to weather the storm of the pandemic.

“That’s why the Values Awards were introduced this year. Without our people, we wouldn’t be able to be a partner to our clients, and support their business decision-making through improved strategy, process, automation, and optimization. Our people deserve to be recognized for their efforts and achievements in 2020.”

Supporting our team throughout lockdown

Showing kindness and support to colleagues is an integral part of our culture. At the beginning of lockdown, we set up a dedicated Wellbeing Hub and Teams channel, containing guidance on adjusting to isolation, help with caring for others, financial advice, and even a Kids’ Corner sharing tips on juggling homeschooling with work. 

Our employees have been sharing photos, recipes, art, and home fitness videos. The Teams Channel has also become a place to chat and support one another — as one employee summed it up, “I think this Wellbeing forum, and in particular the mental health aspect of it, will be instrumental in keeping us safe mentally whilst the lockdown keeps us safe physically.”

To ensure our staff continue to receive full, sustained support, we’ve appointed a wellbeing team dedicated to continuously enhancing our culture of employee care.

Ongoing staff support and safety

The Awards have been such a success that we intend for them to become an annual celebration as our team continues to excel. Our working environment remains a safe and secure place for them to thrive, as confirmed by our COVID Health and Safety Certificate, awarded following a comprehensive risk assessment.

Our premises observe social distancing and we’ve installed sanitising stations, protecting our team. We used the UK as a flagship and rolled out best practice measures across the globe. We are confident that these renewed efforts will benefit our future operations, starting with the reduction of our global office footprint. Realizing that we are able to operate remotely — crucially without impact on productivity and client experience — provides our team with more flexibility and a better work/life balance.

We’ve taken concerted, extensive measures to safeguard our staff, the results of which also support our client relationships and industry-leading innovation. Kalibrate’s operations have become safer and more efficient than ever, putting us in the best position to nurture future growth.

Values award winners

Here are this year’s winners and how they excelled in their roles to earn their awards

His high-quality work and innovative approaches to helping our clients have boosted Kent’s NPS score, and he challenges the business to be better through selfless and constructive teamwork. He’s excelling in his role and is viewed as a leader among the team.

She’s has won new clients through a deep understanding of their business needs. She’s always able to find a solution and has created excellent demo tools, all underpinned by a positive attitude.

He’s worked relentlessly on multiple huge, overlapping consultancy projects this year, all while always honoring long-standing client commitments.

She’s tirelessly improved the Kalibrate Planning project, as well as innovating pre-sales engagements, solution messaging activities, and testing and reporting within CS Planning.

He’s owned the KPL3.0 project, enhancing the client experience, proactively managing a problematic report in his own time, and successfully coordinating a multi-disciplinary project plan.

He’s kept the team upbeat alongside a high work ethic, driven by honesty, supporting even if it’s outside his expertise, and always offering his invaluable wealth of knowledge.