“I enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about the hardships that our farmers are going through and allowing us to be able to assist them in our own way.”
Jodi Joeng, Senior Payroll Specialist, Mimecast
This is the 2nd year running that we are pleased to host a team building experience for Mimecast Australia. Last year we ran one big event for them in Melbourne as part of their annual conference with attendees joining from across the country. This year, they opted to run three separate team building events – two in-person events in Sydney and Melbourne respectively, followed by an online team building session for anyone who couldn’t make either of the two previous in-person team sessions.
Being no stranger to the format, like ducks to the water all three groups settled in quickly to the session didn’t take long for the competitive spirit to flow, something which is common in all our team building sessions whatever the format – in-person, hybrid or online.
This was the first time that Mimecast had run a team building session like ours online and it was a resounding success, with everyone getting into the spirit of the moment, including our facilitator Richard who came specially dressed with his Akubra and ‘Flanno for a Farmer’ flanno, complete with a special virtual background for the session.
The conversations were very animated and the topic was close to the hearts of all three groups, notably the team leaders in the online session who had each spent their childhood living on the land, in Australia as well as Fiji and Pakistan, making the session both special and poignant for them. It was also amazing to see the surprise and respect that these people immediately got from their colleagues when they learnt about their farming childhood.
This is the sort of deep connection, bonding and respect that is built through our team building sessions as all talk about work is suspended in favour of learning about the more important things in life such as the group’s personal lives, values, beliefs and experiences.
The resounding success of the sessions was plain to see and translated directly into the food hamper shopping exercise which brought out the very best and most competitive in all the teams and resulted with over 20 hampers of food being donated to the charity Drought Angels to help many Aussie farming families that are struggling from natural disasters affecting their crops or herds, be that drought, flood, fire or other challenges.
There is something special about collaborating with your colleagues to do something nice for someone else, even a stranger, as shared by Dani Misteli, Mimecast’s Regional Officer Manager:
“Everything was very well planned and thoughtful. Just incredible! It really touched my heart.”
That’s Team building with Purpose.