Commended - The OpenLearn Impact Award for Supporting Business and Organisational Goals
Catch22 ran its InspirEd event during Learning at Work Week which focused on the Talent strand of its 3-year business strategy and sets out a vision where Catch22 is ‘a place where people with work with purpose and have the capacity to develop.’
The aim for the week was to create a varied programme of events that promoted and embedded Catch22’s organisational values of compassion, collaboration and curiosity. The specific objectives for the week were to:
• Engage at least 30% of the organisation in at least one in-person activity during the week
• Promote cross-hub learning and collaboration
• Build content into the programme on key organisational priorities including health, safety, wellbeing, management development and data and insights
The programme for the week included a full schedule of online learning sessions delivered by over 50 members of staff from across the organisation sharing their knowledge and expertise on a wide range of topics, including:
• Creating compelling content for your service
• Writing impactful and enticing job ads
• Human Givens – a framework for therapy and other settings working with young people.
The Chief Officers Group hosted four in-person events in Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham and London covering varied subjects such as ‘The Tik Tok Creative Academy – getting young people into the creative and cultural industries’ and ‘How do we educate children about exploitation risks’. These were led by senior leadership team members which allowed for open discussion around priority areas.
The staff awards ceremony included a specific Learning at Work Week competition where the prize was an Xbox donated by partner organisation Microsoft.
All of the events were for staff across the organisation, whatever their role, so they could share learning and best practice and encourage new ways of thinking and cross-hub working. The full programme reflected the range of services and programmes that Catch22 delivers. The cross-cutting themes on areas such as data and insights, health and safety and management proved very popular and helped to reinforce organisational priorities.
The InspirEd event was promoted early to ensure colleagues could free space in their busy schedules. Team leaders encouraged team members to book onto sessions and attend at least one in-person event. Regular communications created a buzz of activities. These included:
• Posts on the Catch22’s social intranet using the hashtag #LAWW23 with booking links for all sessions, the programmes and details of how to nominate staff for awards
• Monthly promotion in the Catch22 staff e-bulletin
• Inclusion in the CEO’s Friday email to all staff
• Sharing of information through the management and team structures to team leaders and frontline colleagues
• Daily reminders of sessions that day and session leaders promoting their own events
Engagement on social media was high, boosted by staff sharing photos and learning from sessions and tagging in colleagues who worked across the different hubs.
The 30% target for attendance at InspirED was exceeded – over 40% of staff took part with 1250 individual attendances at online events. The event resulted in cross hub learning and collaboration. The sessions on organisational priorities such as staff retention and wellbeing were popular and the in-person events promoted transparency and open dialogue between staff at all levels. Staff felt more engaged with Catch22 and were committed to sharing learning with colleagues across different areas of the organisation. There were positive shifts in employee engagement scores on wellbeing, feeling proud and valued, and feeling part of an inclusive and diverse community. Catch22 saw a significant increase in its employee net promoter score, so the organisation is better positioned to retain talent and maximise productivity.
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