Congratulations to our Q4 Culture Essentials Award Winners!

Speak Up, Respect & Protect, Communicate, Improve, Empower, Listen & Learn

Richard has shown true culture essentials in multiple ways whilst taking on a recent project to mitigate the exponential increase of cooking oil costs. Whilst pursuing his own ideas to mitigate costs from not only the introduction of oil filtration to increase the longevity of oil, but also a focus on the health and safety of our galley crews onboard as they complete their day-to-day tasks. Richard has worked collaboratively with teams across our offices, from procurement to health and safety, to onboard teams and shoreside experts. Having an open approach and focus to cost mitigation, HESS and its sustainability benefits, this piece of work will not only benefit our brands but those of our wider ABG group. Great work encapsulating all of our culture essentials, collaborating and true ownership of the end-to-end project. Well done, Richard!

Improve, Communicate, Empower

Elizabeth has gone above and beyond in empowering our marketing team to achieve our brand growth goals. As we approach year end, we had some additional budget signed off to bolster Cunard's TV advertising plan - critical to driving ad awareness which is the biggest indicator of commercial growth. This budget was approved for us to spend with short notice, and with a TV booking deadline fast approaching we had to do something nobody enjoys, and request a fast-tracked payment. Elizabeth went above and beyond to help us achieve this, keeping us informed of the process, making sure we knew what we had to share with her and by when to get it done, and identifying places where we could push against certain timings to make sure we could hit the deadlines. All this has resulted in the payment being added to the payment run in time and thus means the TV booking will go ahead and will significantly support Cunard ahead of a challenging Wave period. We know that last minute payment deadlines aren't fun for anyone and hugely appreciate the work Elizabeth did to get this secured for us. Thank you, Elizabeth!

Speak up, Improve, Communicate, Empower, Respect and Protect, Listen & Learn

Sharon has set up and leads the CUK Analyst Community Network which helps to share knowledge and expertise amongst Analysts at Carnival UK. This has improved communication between the Analysts from different teams and departments. The network develops new and innovative ways of working, to provide the right data at the right time for the business to make decisions. It also provides and promotes opportunities for development. This is the first network of its kind at Carnival UK. Well done, Sharon!

Respect & Protect, Improve, Listen & Learn, Empower

Asha is currently supporting a new fleet colleague who is transgender, who contacted us while applying for a role. She is working with them to ensure that they are clear on what their experience of working with us will look like, that they are treated with respect and that the teams onboard know how to support them. On the face of it, it might look like this would be part of Asha's job as a DEI professional. Whilst it is her job to ensure that the policy is fit for purpose, it's certainly not an expectation to manage a situation like this on a 121 basis. Asha has recognised that it would be really daunting to join a ship, where you will live and work, without knowing exactly what that experience will look like. She's handled this with sensitivity and has worked with security, onboard HR and Medical. She's taking everything that she learns from this process to form a new Transgender policy is that is fit for purpose in the future. She's taking time to listen and learn from the needs of our new colleague, empower the teams onboard to provide great support and improve our processes for the future. This is showing respect for the new crew member and demonstrates that she won't let anyone slip through the gaps when it comes to the wellbeing of our people. Thank you, Asha!

Improve

Flav is an absolute Culture Essentials Hero. Its not just what he does to help, but his passion to find the best outcome and the way he truly owns the challenge. Flav has helped us throughout the year on ADHOC last minute 'man in the know' requests to provide AV kit and solutions when we don't know what we need. But he doesn't just go through the motions of handing over something. He wants to be there to ensure it's right, he wants to find out what the issue is so he can make it better. You know instantly as soon as he is involved, you are in save hands as he'll pull out all the stops effortlessly to reach the best possible outcome. The most recent example of this was when we were preparing for Josh and David's Q&A. initially we asked for Flav's expertise in what kind of kit we'd need to have a permanent set up in the atrium. Flav then took it upon himself to not only scope out, but work with this external supplier to cost and source everything. He wasn't happy with just that set up but also pushed us to fix current issues we wouldn't have been aware of - and wouldn't let it rest until we agreed to do it right. If that wasn't enough, while Flav was away on board he continued to support and when he realised getting kit in time wasn't an option, rather than a 'sorry' he went off and arranged temporary supplier agreed a discounted rate and for them to come and install for us so we had a short term solution, but also the team in house to work through the long term. I only heard about all of this when he had found the solution, which he then actioned when I approved. He went way beyond the call of duty to ensure we had a solution, both considering what we needed right away, how to do this cost effectively and how to support us longer term. On a side note to this, while all of this was going on I cced Flav into an email from Princess Cruises who needed last minute AV support at the terminal, on the off chance the kit could come a few days early and serve both purposes. Rather than give the answer of no, Flav worked behind the scenes to reach out to a number of other contacts while to try and source additional kit - an did so for the launch of their new ship. When it came to the day of our event our AV team were caught up in the Oil protests and in true Flav fashion he was there first thing looking for a back up solution, digging out kit from the server rooms, working with Aaron Fry (Shout out to Aaron) and managed to find a full solution for the set up. He went above and beyond at every point, in getting the set up we needed, ensuring it was done in such a way the place was presentable and also stayed, without being asked, to manage the AV for the event to ensure it ran as smoothly as possible. At every point of this example Flav could have stepped back, given a yes or no pointed us off elsewhere, but his passion, keenness to support, do the right thing, to not only fix the issue but improve the outcome was amazing. He's an absolute breath of fresh air to work with as you know he will take hold, and deliver. Thank you, Flavio!

Speak Up, Improve, Empower, Respect and Protect, Listen & Learn, Communicate

Jacqui Cutler is being nominated for the Cultural Essentials awards because she epitomises what they stand for. Jacqui has been employed at Carnival for over 20 years and is as passionate and dedicated about the company as the day she started. Primarily Jacqui is being nominated because of the value she has brought to the IAM project. She has stepped out of her normal role and took the lead as subject matter expert to deploy a product called SailPoint. Throughout the project, Jacqui has spoken up where the delivery is not meeting the quality Carnival expects, but encourages and praises others when our goals are met. She listens, and eloquently and effectively communicates to all those involved to ensure they are fully aware of the current status or issues. Where possible she has delegated activities to her less experienced colleagues, trusting and empowering them to make decisions so that the project's timelines were not missed. At the end of November, the project will finally come to fruition after an 18 month long journey and Jacqui has been there the whole way. Well done, Jacqui for your tenacity, persistence and a successful project delivery.

Improve, Communicate, Listen and Learn

Rachel Blake is a Product Owner in the MyCruise team, focused on the goal of making self-serve seamless and effortless. Over the past few months Rachel has driven significant improvements, working closely and collaboratively with Contact Centre Operations and Port Operations to really understand the key pain points for our guests. Rachel has successfully delivered the removal of e-tickets which had been driving frustration for guests, a significant volume of calls into CCO and ongoing technical incidents. Since the change being implemented at the beginning of September, we have seen a 30% decrease in MyCruise related calls. Not only is this a better guest experience, it also frees up CCO to focus more on selling cruises and driving revenue! Rachel continues to drive forward improvements and is currently focused on brining Online Check-in into MyCruise. Rachel has consistently delivered whilst always displaying our culture essentials, whether that's Listening to & Learning from our port operations teams, who have fed back how impressed they are with how she has approached the work, incorporating their feedback, continuing to champion and drive improvements in our digital guest experience, applying fantastic prioritisation to deliver the most value and communicating changes to plans in a timely manner, and lining up a really clear comms plan for the e-tickets removal. Congratulations, Rachel.

Improve

At the beginning of September we had a significant backlog of guest air bookings for 2023. The backlog had built up over the summer months due to programme changes and late airline changes in summer 2022.The backlog of air bookings was a concerning 5x more than pre-covid levels. In light of this, a working group was formed to address this challenge with representatives from Cunard Air and the CCO Air team. The air bookings were prioritised based on commercial risk and a tracker file was established. All of the working group made the task happen and prioritised the work accordingly. From 19 September to 25 October, over 2000 guests had flights booked which is a fantastic achievement and exceeded expectations. A huge thank you to the working group. Its one of the best examples of cross functional working and an incredible achievement.

Congratulations to:
Eveline Izard – Cunard Air
Elaine Snelling – Cunard Air
Mark Cleaver – Cunard Air
Donna Wood – CCO Air
Karen Robinson – CCO Air
Paula Browning – CCO Air
Hannah Curtis – CCO Air
Hillarey Tite – CCO Air
Stephanie Tayler – CCO Air
Corinne Abernethy – CCO Air
Plus, Paul Kenny, Neil Christopher, Claire Scott and Vicki-Hart McLaren

Speak Up, Respect & Protect, Improve, Communicate

The Revenue Support team have recently completed the latest Quarantine & Isolation batch 12 cabin moves for both brands, which consisted of 1600+ bookings. This process has been ongoing since June 2021, and each time a batch has been communicated to guests and agents, the volume of cabin moves has increased over time and become a more complex process for both P&O and Cunard and the International Markets. The team have worked closely with other areas of the business to improve the process and learnings based on feedback from previous batch moves. The team have had many frustrations during the last 18 months as this is a time-consuming process. The cabin moves required action in a timely manner as the comms were based on live Inventory and potentially upsetting for guests. We are very proud of the team for all their hard work and dedication, and the impact they have had for both ship and shore. Well done to all areas involved including both the Cunard and P&O comms teams, Sales for agents and CCO for supporting with call outs and inbound call from quests to query cabin moves. A huge team effort for all involved. Thank you!

Congratulations to: Glinda Robinson, Chris Roberts, Karen Finch, Nicola Forrestall, Amy Harris, Adele Pithers, Christine Farrell, Jessica Doe, Beth Joy and Nicola Loosley.

Communicate

The Shore Employee Admin team have always been consistently helpful and answer queries efficiently. They always manage expectations of stakeholders and keep all individuals involved, informed of any updates. They receive a high volume of very varied queries and requests and will take the time to carefully and sympathetically investigate and respond. This contributes greatly to providing a robust HR service to employees which they can trust and feel comfortable approaching.

Congratulations to Sarah Kennett, Sarah Callan, Rachel May and Nadine Lombard.

Improve, Communicate, Empower

The team have been working extremely hard across the year implementing revised ERPs across our fleet with no project management support. The team have demonstrated a number of culture essentials but mostly Improve, Communicate and Empower. They have worked closely with key shoreside stakeholders throughout the project. Update and implementation meetings have been held with each ship, providing regular monthly updates to all ships involved and support visits to each ship during implementation. We have received extremely positive feedback from the SMT on the conduct, support and dedication of Dean and Rob during the implementation support visits. We are revising our ERPs to address the below objectives. It should be noted that all points were not mandatory to complete from a compliance perspective, but the team have introduced a SMARTER more effective ERP, reduced unnecessary training loads, and are focusing training in particular key areas. The anticipated savings in Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) training costs from the Training compliance team, not including the uplift in crew for Queen Anne is equal to £571k over five years. Guest Experience teams have been extremely supportive of the project and alignment of training and duties, ultimately fast tracking crew in particular areas onboard who no longer require STCW training.

1. Address Flag Feedback. Flag have advised that they would like more officers in incident teams.
2. Improve Resilience. Our Muster Stations are mostly manned by one department, and this potentially represents a single-point failure. By diversifying the muster station personnel departmentally we mitigate against the loss of a single department for operational and emergency reasons. This has also been raised by flag.
3. Control Costs. Due to the way our ERPs are currently configured across the fleet, we have a number of personnel across the fleet trained in disciplines which does not pertain to their emergency duties. By narrowing the ranks which need to be trained in certain disciplines, we can manage our training costs more efficiently.
4. Realign with Workforce Plan Our crew configurations have undergone change, and now our emergency response plans must respond to those changes.

Congratulations to: Dean Provis, Rob Bissell, Mark Beaumont and Iain McConnachie.

Respect & Protect, Improve, Communicate

This was a project that involved individuals from across the business coming together for the greater good of our guests. We were notified that the platform used to send out all polar booking communications, e.g. booking confirmations, waitlist matches, emergency notifications, was being decommissioned as it was old and unsupported. Given a very tight deadline, the project team pulled together to find the best replacement platform. Once a new platform had been decided upon, the work started in earnest to get the new templates ready. This was no easy task as there was no documentation on the previous platform eloquence and no one on this project had been involved previously. But the team, ably led by Anita, took a logical stance and slowly but surely made their way through all the multiple templates required, ensuring that the pertinent information was included for all our guests across both P&O Cruises, Cunard UK and Cunard Germany. The team was at all times good natured and good humored. I've worked on many projects at CUK but I think this was one of the best run and organised projects and everyone pulled their weight to ensure success. Thanks should also go to our colleagues in the US, Brad and Kut who made this happen.

Congratulations to: Anita van der Broek, Michelle Smith, Steve Diggins, Marie-Claire Stoke, Silvia-Marie Brent, Kerstan Clifft, Jessica Morton, Evie Flecther, Tanzin Choudhury, Louisa Gould, Martin Cooper, Somjeet Roy, Katarzyna Radzimirska, Isabel Mundy and Berit Rodwell.