EPIC’s Birmingham meet is the talk of the town
The largest ever gathering of EPIC Risk Management staff saw the majority of the company’s UK and US-based employees descend on Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter to enjoy a socially-focused update on the company’s trajectory via the first in-person ‘Town Hall’ meeting of the year.
Normally held quarterly online, the Town Hall concept turns physical once a year in more ways than one, as the face-to-face meet for project updates and planning discussions also allows for group challenges in the form of team building activities, followed by a welcome social event for the team to enjoy work-free time together.
Hosted this time round at the impressive Iron House conference venue, the assembled EPIC staff also had chance to hear a remarkable and uplifting talk from big wave surfer Andrew Cotton, who shared a message of resilience, bouncing back, and always believing that anything is possible.
“I think it has been a fantastic event,” explained company CEO Paul Buck.
“We get as many people as possible from EPIC here for the day and we’ve had over 30 people present this time. This has grown year-by-year, as EPIC and the numbers that we have here have grown, and I think that makes it even more important to get everyone together. We’ve had a great day at a great venue and we also have chance to go out and celebrate our successes as a group afterwards, which is really important.
“During the day, we talk about how well the last six months have gone and we talk about our work in all the pillars, all the different countries in which we work, and what our plans and focuses are the for next six months.
“We’ve also done some team building exercises, because the team is growing so fast at the moment and it’s good to get people to know each other better, and we welcomed a very inspirational speaker, Andrew Cotton, who got over serious injury and has broken world records, which was a very motivational story.”
The company’s focus on the wellbeing of employees was also high on the agenda, with a new level of financial support being unveiled to staff by programme manager and wellbeing committee member Pippa Robson during her presentation on how employees will continue to be very well looked after during their time with EPIC.
“Today has been brilliant,” she reflected. “It’s amazing to have the opportunity to speak about wellbeing and how important it is to the business; we take our people seriously and they’re at the heart of everything we do. We want to make sure that they feel that way too, appreciate where they work, and stay with us.
“Twelve months ago, we identified that wellbeing would be a massive priority at EPIC; it was one of the key focus areas that we wanted to build within the business.
“We’re still embedding a really strong foundation of wellbeing and the majority of people at EPIC are really on board with all of the wellbeing initiatives; they are really getting involved with the challenges and activities.
“The Town Hall has given us a chance to reflect on that progress and how much we’ve achieved. The four key areas that we’ve identified that we’d like to address over the next six months are ‘physical’, for which we’ve got fitness plan VP Go; ‘financial’, which our newly-unveiled money management tool Bippit will cover; ‘social’, which will include further team building activities and social days; and the next one will be ‘emotional’, where we’ll be looking at mental wellbeing through concepts like Time To Talk, where we’ll be arranging for staff to speak to members of the team that they don’t normally get to check in on.”
