Last week more than 20 of our team came together in Manchester for the first Retool: three days of learning, sharing ideas and spending time together, with colleagues travelling in from London and Glasgow to join the Manchester office.
Retool started as an idea in July. From the first planning conversations, what stood out was how many people wanted to be part of it. Colleagues from across the business gave their time to shape the sessions, test the material and run parts of it themselves. That willingness is what made it work.
We are five months into our financial year, and it has been our best start to one yet. We chose this moment on purpose. The best time to look hard at how you work is when things are going well, and we wanted to invest in our people now.
Most of the time went on the basics, done properly: understanding a business before we speak to it, asking better questions and listening to the answers, and explaining R&D tax relief and energy schemes in plain language. The aim is consistency. Whoever a business speaks to at Bonham & Brook, and whichever office they are in, the conversation should be just as clear and just as useful.
Our R&D, Energy and finance specialists joined us to run technical sessions with the team. That matters to us. Everything we say to a business has to be grounded in the legislation, so the information people get from us is accurate and up to date from the very first conversation. That includes being straight with a business when something doesn’t qualify.
There were two days of sessions on the timetable, but much more came out of the room than that. The energy you get from having everyone together is hard to create any other way, and some of the best pearls of wisdom came from the team themselves, in the sessions and over dinner on Thursday.
Every session has been saved so we can keep coming back to it, and we are asking everyone who came what worked and what didn’t, so next year’s is better again.
The first annual Retool was a complete success. Thank you to everyone who planned it, ran it and threw themselves into it.