Olly Swayne is Operations Manager for Select Service Partner (SSP) at Bristol Airport responsible for providing catering facilities for some 6,000,000 passengers each year.  Olly leads a team of between 100 and 200 people, depending on the season, who work in businesses representing global, national and local brands such as Dexters, Starbucks, Burger King, Soho Coffee, Bar Zero 9, Caffe Ritazza, Caviar House & Prunier. His business is 24/7 and aims to deliver brilliant operations and brilliant offers through a team of brilliant people:  The team are passionate about maintaining SSPs position as the UK’s Food Travel Expert.

Since taking over the reins Olly restructured the Management team and implemented a gradual business improvement programme to drive productivity, profitability and engagement.  Part of this process has focussed on identifying and developing talent across the business in order to build ‘bench strength’ and provide strong succession to sustain growth over the long term. However, Olly realised that there was still a cultural and behavioural challenge ahead “Once I had the right management team in place one thing that had struck me was that managers appeared to operate their businesses in silo’s, rarely exchanging best practice, ideas or resources.  If I could get the management team to work better together as a team the potential for growth was obvious. I felt we had to improve our overall team game:  There was a lack of a team values and there was a need for some simple leadership development in order to improve the engagement of our wider team and their relative performance.  To achieve this, I felt that we had to really get away from the intense working environment and invest in a team development programme that would prove memorable, fun and inspiring!’

Olly contacted us and we designing a team transformation programme together with specific objectives for a tailored teambuilding that could tackle the business challenges. We designed a unique programme to meet the specific demands and pressures of a catering environment, working with a management team of twenty-four managers.

Olly said,’I was so impressed with the whole event and by how well my team came together during our programme – it has given us all a shared perspective that has helped us all communicate better than ever before. It has truly brought the whole team together and released the potential of everyone working closer together as a management team.  We’re in a much better place to sustain our successes into the future and ensure that the whole SSP team share in that success!’