At Oxford HR we have had an exciting and challenging fortnight and we thought we would share our latest developments with you.
It all started last week with our quarterly strategic away day, when we all gathered from around the world (Sudan, Amsterdam, and even Brighton!), joining forces to decide on some imminent changes – watch this space, Oxford HR is about to surprise you. We spent the day planning some new areas of focus, now that Gordon Hughes, Strategic Advisor on Peace and Security and Sara Elsaeed, Associate Consultant Africa, have joined our team. As usual, the day helped us to get to know each other better and to bring lots of ideas to the table, which we will be implementing in the next quarter.
Shortly after, some of us travelled to Amsterdam in the search for our new Associate Researcher, Europe, who will be joining us in September. They say it is a good position to be in, when you have to decide between brilliant candidates – it is, and it isn’t: I just wanted to hire them all. We also walked + 14,000 steps around Amsterdam finding our next office. Overall, the two days were a success: we have a new Researcher and an office. More on this next month!
Finally, on Wednesday, David Lale and myself participated as facilitators in the Barclays Citizenship Initiative. Organised by the always excellent Dr Louise Erskine, Career Volunteer – our sister company – the initiative involved bringing together selected non-profits (Alzheimer’s Society, British Red Cross, First Love Foundation, London Youth Support Trust and Young Minds) and the Barclays colleagues. Conjointly they addressed a problem statement with the goal of helping the charities increase the impact they have on the local communities. The event was strictly timed, and out of the box thinking was highly encouraged. The best ideas were discussed within the teams and the non-profits chose the ones they think will work best depending on their capacity and knowledge, and the solutions were presented at the end. The most important part is yet to come, as in the next 3 months teams from the Bank will be following up with the implementation of these solutions.
And this takes us to today, a calm and sunny Friday afternoon back in Oxford, catching up with a time that flies by way too quickly. We hope you are having an excellent end of the week, and next Friday we will bring you news about our participation at the Asia Summit in Bangkok, where our Asia team, Ana Fernandes and Gazal Srivestava are currently flying the Oxford HR flag.
