So guys, before you read my account of the event I’ve been working on and some issues, challenges etc I faced... I’d love to hear about your experiences too, so leave me a message if you found you’ve shared some similar experiences!
WYP Developing Talent in Future Leaders Event
It’s been a while since my last blog post, for good reason too! I have been madly putting together the Woodside Young Professional’s (WYP) event Developing Talent in Future Leaders.
The premise of the WYP network is for those with under 10 years of experience in their field to be exposed within the organisation to senior management with the objective of increasing visibility, career progression opportunities, education, social and professional networking as well as support for those beginning their careers, regardless of discipline.
With this in mind the event objective aimed to address the theme of retention of young professionals and career development into senior management positions. Six panellists were invited to discuss their success in gaining leadership positions from a young age and they spoke of their experiences during the event. CEO and Managing Director of Woodside Energy Ltd, Peter Coleman, was the MC for the event and also shared some of his experience of being a leader within the organisation.
The event also used interactive technology, Turning Point, for the audience to vote on the questions (pre submitted by members of the WYP network) they wanted answered by each panel member. There was also opportunity for open question time, and a live video link was set up to ensure Young Professionals in our Karratha Office could also attend the event.
After the auditorium component of the event the attendees, panellists, CEO, WYP members and some extra special guests such as members of senior management (SVPs, EVPs, etc), were invited to stay for a networking session, with catering and a wine tasting offered by Fermoy Estate Winery.
Issues & Challenges: A Lesson in Corporate Branding
The issues and challenges I faced putting this event together, were particularly focused around corporate approvals, branding, internal event attendance and also the NFP nature of the WYP network. I was allocated the tasks of coordinating catering and drinks (including getting the relevant approvals), name tags, branding of the event and design of the invitations, as well as working with the committee together on other aspects of the event as a whole.
My first hurdle was related to the graphic design of the invite as I have limited graphic design skills and knew I wanted to bring in an external graphic designer to give the event a point of difference and some interesting visual associations right from the start (this is something that had never been done before within the WYP committee). Having recently worked on a quiz night event with a different function at Woodside, I knew the event posters for that event were done well and I wanted to engage the same graphic designer for this event.
I ended up chatting to a colleague who I had worked on the event with and found out that graphic designer was not available, however this colleague said they had some graphic design skills and agreed to help. I prepared a brief relating to my expectations and plans for the invite design, which included the below invite I had found on the net as an example of the simplicity I was after:
The two options I received did not meet my brief and were not of a professional standard, which was one of the first real challenges I faced having to make the call to decline their services and go with an external designer, who produced the invite to an excellent standard and met my brief completely(as below):
I found it was difficult to deny my colleague the opportunity to help, considering they had spent time on the designs, however the standard I wanted to reach to represent the committee and the organisation as a whole could not be compromised and although it was tough, it was a decision that had to be made.
Once I had the invite above, I needed to present it to the WYP committee and have the design approved by Corporate Affairs. It was this that prompted me to consider the Woodside Graphic Style Manual which encompasses the colour palettes, design style, fonts and imagery that are acceptable to use as well as the positioning and appropriate use of the Woodside logo.
WOW...there was so much to consider...I admit I was too hasty in giving out the graphic design brief and the fatal error was neglecting to consult the Graphic Style Manual in the first instance, definitely something I will bear in mind for future projects. I had to get back to my graphic designer with the changes I had received from the branding team in the Corporate Affairs Function. Changes included the logo colours and positioning, the colour palette, fonts used and there was one minor change to the title of the CEO and Managing Director, Peter Coleman...not just the CEO.
The final result approved by corporate affairs was as below:
I was incredibly grateful to the team in corporate branding for helping me and for being so patient with the approvals process. It was definitely an eye opener and will prompt me in future to be incredibly strict with the guidelines prior to beginning work.
The other issues and challenges mentioned included the approvals process from Woodside and Buildin
g Management, this required Insurance information and Building inductions from the external service providers from Fermoy Estate and the catering company, as well as a Job Hazard Analyses for the event, etc. The initial caterer that was engaged did not meet the compliance required by Woodside and Building Management which resulted in a late catering change to an internal source two days before the event, which definitely added to the pressure of final preparations.
The external caterer was initially considered over internal sources due to budget restrictions as they were a more affordable option, bringing me to another point of challenge for the committee, the Budget! With a relatively small annual budget the committee had an estimated budget of only around $2000 for the event and this presented in itself many obstacles and negotiations. The wine tasting was secured free of charge through a contra style deal, name tags were printed internally at low cost and all other costs were kept to a minimum by using as many internal and readily available resources as possible.
Event Feedback & Debrief
The event went very smoothly and generally feedback has been very positive with some points for improvement, these were discussed yesterday during the WYP event debrief meeting and included:
· Pre-event Marketing drive was successful, now the challenge is to maintain momentum getting new members and find new ways to engage before events.
· High number of registered attendees (117 – with maximum capacity of 120), however more than 40 people did not show up on the day, and some arrived without registering.
· This impacted planning as the catering was planned for 85, and only 77 attended, meaning the event was over-catered for.
· The hand held microphones were not tested prior to the event, they didn’t work and panellists were forced to use the lectern for speaking.
o AV should’ve been checked earlier in the day and possibly organised for an IT professional to attend and stay for the duration of the event to ensure a smooth running presentation.
o Issues with the Karratha Video link right at the start of the event needed to be resolved by IT.
· Less panel members would’ve been ideal as six panellists meant the introductions took a long time and audience engagement wavered.
· MC needs to be responsible for keeping the event timing on track and steering the conversation to conclude on time, event went 30mins over scheduled running time (networking afterwards was impacted).
· Event running over time also meant less interaction between the panellists and the audience as question time was cut short.
· Audience was heavily focused on MC Peter Coleman during question time, would’ve been good to have more questions directed to the six panel members.
Future Goals
To improve events in the future the WYP committee’s main aims are to reduce the amount of no shows at events, and to maintain the interest and high number of registered attendees. A survey was sent out today to those who attended with a separate survey sent out to those who registered but did not attend, hopefully this research will help to determine the areas that need to be improved and the focus for the next event.
The combination of pre-event Marketing and internal communications and branding that was achieved and trialled for this event was considered a great success and will be pursued and explored for future events. An example of this would be the WYP membership drive that was fuelled by a global message that went out to all Woodside Employees asking if they qualified to join the WYP network, clarifying the purpose of the network, the profile of the members and also giving instructions on how to join. This was released one week prior to the event promotions beginning and boosted membership by around 40 members.
Another avenue that was explored that could be further developed was the extension of the WYP to the administration skill pool and the support of the head of the skill pool in filtering the event invite out helped to confirm the appropriateness of administration professionals being included in the WYP network.
This event has taught me a lot and I look forward to using the information gathered to make the next WYP event even better!
Regards,
Maddy
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