OSL Company Day
An important part of the way OSL delivers solutions to our clients is through our philosophy and culture of Clever Thinking. By this we don’t simply mean creating smart engineering ideas and solutions; Clever Thinking applies to every aspect of our work, be that addressing a complex technical design issue or a more efficient way of processing our timesheets.
Though the team has always worked to this mantra, central to its success is continual review and development, which to be fully effective requires the input of all at OSL.
With this in mind, at the recent Company Meeting held at OSL House in Hull, Director Alastair Robertson, as well as presenting the results of the previous financial year and outlining the challenges and targets for the new year, took the opportunity to reinforce the Clever Thinking message with the team.
The challenge of a new financial year, an expanding team, continuous personal development and the ever-increasing onus on creating quality, environmentally sound solutions all played a large part in this event and truly brought everyone together under a shared goal.
The afternoon included a presentation from Jamie Cleaver, PhD CEng FIChemE. Jamie is an expert in key skills training for engineers, including working closely with the IChemE in delivery training. He assisted OSL in the development of the Clever Thinking culture and is also instrumental in the delivery of an ongoing programme of tailored training courses and development for the OSL team.
Stating that OSL’s philosophy is unique and a business differentiator, Jamie also explained how we can all get the most out of Clever Thinking and enhance our individual skills in the process, recognising that it can be used in any scenario. Jamie’s visit was incredibly valuable in helping us to refresh our understanding of Clever Thinking and in facilitating an activity to demonstrate its significance.
The activity incorporated both mental tasks and engineering challenges and it fully encapsulated what Clever Thinking is all about. For the team exercise, the staff were split into groups and requested to create a structure capable of supporting a Chocolate Orange. They were given a box containing dried spaghetti, marshmallows and some tape and left to use their own initiative and teamwork skills to create a solution by sharing their ideas.
We’re delighted to say that despite some tough challenges thrown into the mix along the way by the ‘Client’ (Alastair!), all five teams succeeded. The teams demonstrated a wide range of creative thought processes along the way, whilst combining ideas across the groups to develop an innovative solution to the problem.
To finish off a day of abstract thought and physical application, Fudge of Princes Avenue in Hull put on a splendid classic afternoon tea. Needless to say, the sight of finger sandwiches, cakes, pastries and tea served in bone china cups was very welcome indeed.
Bringing the team together to improve our technical solutions and internal processes whilst incorporating a motivational speaker and plenty of cake: that’s what we call Clever Thinking! To find out more about our philosophy and how we use it to benefit our clients, get in touch on 01482 626400 or email info@oslconsulting.com
