Facilitating Culture Essentials in Practice

As we continue our cruising countdown and focus on creating unforgettable holiday happiness for our Guests once again, it’s more important than ever to check in on how we want to work together to make sure that we return to service stronger and better than before – doing this will help us create an ideal organisational culture together.

To support this culture ambition we’ve created Culture Essentials in Practice sessions for you to take part in as a team.

The Culture Essentials in Practice sessions are being cascaded through the business by our leadership team – line managers attend a session run by their manager before facilitating a session for their team. This means they’ve full experience of Culture Essentials in Practice and are well equipped to support their team through the session.

To make sure everyone feels comfortable and supported in running a Culture Essentials in Practice session, all line mangers receive a full facilitator pack including facilitator notes, videos and team workbooks.

Managers you’ll find the facilitator pack in the common drive – Depts\Common\HR-Culture\2 Year Retention Folder\Culture Essentials in Practice

Shona Blackmore, Director Finance Operations, has both attended and facilitated a Culture Essentials in Practise session. She shares her experiences here:

I’ve had the great fortune of attending a session and facilitating a session, the experience was different but equally enlightening.

If I start with the session I attended, with little prior knowledge other than the pre read (and that was skim read due to inbox and workload coming out of my ears). Firstly it was nice to see different faces and their backgrounds on the Zoom screen. The session facilitator talked about ground rules we may want as a group with an example of the Zoom meeting being a ‘safe place’ which made me wonder what on earth we were going to talk about – this would have been clear if I’d taken the time to absorb the pre read (my first learning). Ground rules in my mind were turn phones off, give 100% attention, no attempt of multi tasking. I’m pleased to say that’s what we agreed upon and it was clear the meeting was a safe place to talk openly.

When I facilitated the session the whole sentiment of what Culture Essentials meant really landed with me. It was a really good reminder of the values and behaviours and helped me to check myself that I’m actually living by them and remind myself of my commitments. I wanted to show my whole self to the group and got great feedback as a result. With my experience of attending a session fresh in my mind, I encouraged the group I was facilitating to take 15 minutes out of their day ahead of the session, with a tea or coffee, no distractions and read the pre read pack at least once, I suggested that it would make for a more informed and interesting session – it did.

I came away from the sessions having recapped where we were before the pandemic, not frantically running around about working refunds but instead servicing and supporting our fabulous ships and Guests. It was a good place to remind ourselves we are one team even though we’re spread across ship and shore – we have so much diversity that we should celebrate.

Spending quality time together as a team is invaluable and these sessions will help you understand our Culture Essentials, behaviours and how they’ll benefit everyone working at Carnival UK. They’ll also help you have open, honest and courageous conversations about how you work together at your best, and where you think there’s room to improve.