Last week Asphalt held their Stronger Together Conference. “The idea behind this was to highlight the fact that the Asphalt business is far more than a stand-alone business and in fact the Asphalt family includes many more colleagues than those just within the direct headcount,” commented Garry Gregory, Director Asphalt and Paving solutions. “To reinforce this we widened our audience to the conference to include all these additional colleagues/departments and asked a number of them to give a presentation on the role they play and how we can help one another. This included the likes of Strategic Planning, Supply Chain, Logistics, Procurement, Accounts Receivable, Credit Control, and Estates, to name but a few.
Recognising the extended family we then impressed upon the audience the benefits of working together and the positive impact of doing this (what this looks like).
The key messages were about the fact we are ‘One Team CEMEX’ and that we need to be better at sharing ideas and knowledge, collaborating across business and boundaries, replicating best practice and ultimately leverage our collective assets (‘the whole is greater than the sum of the parts’).
The day also included a Team Building exercise and an external presentation given by an Adventure Cameraman – both building on the theme and importance of Teamwork. One particular highlight was a presentation from one of our customers, Dave Rigby from Multipave, who talked about what it looks like when we work together well, also what it looks like when it doesn’t go so well and the impact this has. Dave gave a straight forward and honest presentation which certainly left us with food for thought.
During the evening we took the time to recognise those individuals and Teams that have made special contributions throughout the year by way of a ‘Sports Personality of the Year’ awards ceremony.
The conference feedback received has been hugely positive and I’m in no doubt will positively affect the health, safety, engagement, customer service and financial results of the Asphalt business and also the wider CEMEX business.”