Helping Hyundai drive to greater effectiveness

When you're the team responsible for managing the import of thousands of cars per year, it's vital that you all work together in the most effective way possible.

Hyundai Car UK's import team at Tilbury Docks handles over 33,000 cars every year, as they are imported from Korea and made ready for UK dealers. The team handles everything from unloading the vehicles through to rigorous pre-delivery inspections and the fitting of special items such as alarms and music systems.

The management team at Tilbury wanted to improve the collaboration, and help their staff each get a better understanding of others' roles and daily pressures. Staff at Tilbury are split over three areas - office, administration and managers; workshop staff; drivers. Although these three groups of people work together, their roles are separate so there was little understanding or empathy with colleagues' daily issues.

Rob Gearing - import operations manager at Tilbury, called in leading learning and development company, True North, to help.

Andy Parker, True North's managing director, recalls: "I went to Tilbury and discussed the teamworking issues in detail, listening to Rob and his team to understand how we could effect some meaningful change; something that would deliver real business benefits. We discussed how team issues affect the business, and what the best possible outcomes would be from some kind of learning event. Rob wanted to develop more of a sense of team, get people to really understand each other and work together better. Like many businesses, the sheer pace of the working day doesn't always give time for people to appreciate each other as people - you often only get time to do that when you meet outside of the working environment. We decided that this was the solution."

True North was engaged to develop a teambuilding day. Although the day wasn't going to be a 'corporate jolly', it was decided that it should have a strong fun element, as a reward for the team hitting its car-processing target.

True North developed a series of teambuilding activities, which were all designed to get people interacting on more than a superficial level, so that they would learn how to better collaborate. Some of the lighter activities included a 'racing challenge' where teams of people are pitted against each other via a series of networked games consoles - creating some healthy competition, while building team awareness. "Even the fun activities allow us to get people to think about themselves and others and give us a means of promoting key messages," says Parker.

True North also ran three facilitated sessions, each using two professional coaches, to get people to think and talk about how things worked in the workplace, and what it would take to make the workplace better. Participation during these sessions is the key to success - the coaches help people openly explore issues and collaborate to propose solutions. "This really allows people to communicate their issues - and to get others to understand and empathise with them. It also enables everyone to work as a team, to create their own solution. It's this kind of thing that really changes the way that people work - they carry this back to the workplace and then act on it."

The day was held off-site, away from the distractions of the business, and had an almost one hundred per cent attendance rate. "We got some fantastic feedback," says Parker. "People were telling us that it's the best event of this type that they've been to. And, what's more important, it's had a real impact on the business."

Teamworking issues at Tilbury are starting to disappear and people are striving to work together much more closely. As this starts to take effect, the whole place will operate more smoothly, be more efficient and be a better, more enjoyable place to work. Not that the process is over by any means - to build on the work, True North will be providing some follow-up activities: smaller things which keep the momentum going and reinforce the success of the day.

Andy Parker: "So many of these types of events are a waste of money, or just plain embarrassing to attend. We've all seen how painful they can be, from episodes of The Office! But properly run, with defined goals and professionally managed sessions, they can really get people thinking and changing how they work for the better, resulting in a stronger team and a more effective business."

Clive Beer, Hyundai's Operations Planning & Development Manager, summarised the success of the day by saying: "It was really pleasing to see everybody, without exception, joining in and getting involved. There was good co-operation across all the different departments and the challenge for everybody at Tilbury now is to ensure that the good work is carried forward."

About Hyundai Car
Established in 1967, Hyundai Motor Company has grown into a leader in Korea's automobile industry. In 2003, Hyundai exported over 1,000,000 vehicles and surpassed the $10 billion mark in export sales.