By Ashley Gardner, Director of Recruiting & Sales at HR-Rethought
The HRR Team enjoys food and teambuilding. So, what better way than to spend our quarterly team event than at The Culinary Center of Kansas City?
It’s not often we get to spend time as a team together! We are all busy with clients, both on-site and off-site, building and fostering their cultures, which we love! However, we also embrace the concept of needing to make sure our internal team doesn’t get burned out. We have to make sure that “we” really does mean our entire team and that our culture and core values are continually strengthened. For that reason, we make it a priority once a quarter to do something FUN together!
Our experience at The Culinary Center showed us many things, among them:
- We love food
- We “get it done”
- We have fun and laugh a lot (while staying focused!)
- We are competitive (but still supportive!)
- We embody the HRR Core Values
Upon arrival, our team members were warmly greeted by the staff. Chef Vicky (who was phenomenal!) divided us into three teams to prepare different items for our dinner. The first team was in charge of the main course, the next was responsible for sides, and the final team was heading up dessert. She gave us the instructions and then shared the news that we had just one hour to complete our designated items. We high-fived and dove into food preparation. It was GO TIME!
Our team focused up, and time flew by! When Chef Vicky told us we only had 30 minutes left, there was a flurry of asking each other who needed help with what. A shift in gears ensued and it was “down to business!” As our one hour deadline approached, we were putting the last of the dishes in a bin to be washed, cleaning our workstations, and patting each other on the back for jobs well done.
We had chopped, diced, blended, whisked, prepped, and more to curate a beautiful dinner of chicken spiedini with amogia sauce, orzo pasta, roasted brussel sprouts with bacon and balsamic glaze, and chocolate molten cake with whipped cream. (Is your mouth watering yet?)
We enjoyed the fruits of our labor by toasting to honor the beautiful dishes in front us, thanked the staff at The Culinary Center, and shared recaps and laughs of the day – from who was a kitchen pro, who left out the eggs in their recipe, who followed directions versus just diving in, etc. It was exactly the “refresh and reset” our team needed.
Moral of the story: Make sure you are carving out time… to spend social time with your Team!
