Solar Trade USA: All Company Meeting in Phoenix, AZ
From April 19-20, 2023 our BayWa r.e. Solar Systems LLC colleagues met in person for their All Company Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. The overall theme of the event was Organizational Resilience and the thread that kept the sessions together was built on three As: Awareness, Adaptability, and Attitude!
This year’s All Company Meeting was hosted at the Grand Resort & Spa in Phoenix, AZ, and was fully planned and organized by a group of in-house employees.
The meeting was kicked-off with an inspiring introduction from the CEO Jodi White, followed by a special visitor: Frank Jessel who presented the BE Strategy and shared how the US entity is doing in comparison to its sister companies.
The day 1 sessions focused on individual resilience and team resilience where various leaders of the organization shared from a place of vulnerability about how failures in their lives provided growth opportunities by taking ownership and learning from them. Our colleagues also had some fun by turning awareness, adaptability, and a ‘can-do attitude into action by building the highest free-standing marshmallow towers with 20 spaghettis, 1 yard of yarn, a roll of masking tape, and one marshmallow.
Day 2 of the All Company Meeting focused on Team Resilience and Organizational Resilience. Throughout the activities, employees worked on team health and distinguished facts from stories in order to better understand everybody’s contributions to team health. The next activity was inspired by the Solar Trade House from the Czech Republic: Our teams learned about our BayWa value proposition and the customer journey and formulated their own team purpose and how they connect to the organization’s value prop. The final session was a scavenger hunt around the resort with the intent of having fun while tying the content back to the theme of Organizational Resilience and our three As Awareness, Adaptability, and Attitude
To break up the day’s activities and to offset them from getting tired during the warm afternoons, they did employee led yoga and tai chi on Wednesday and Thursday. The group was entertained by learning new skills and getting some much-needed movement during the day.
The event included cohort discussions to reinforce the learnings of the previous sessions. These mixed-team cohorts gave employees the opportunity to meet new colleagues, make connections, and reflect on the activities in a purposeful way that they might not have with their own teams.
Of course, there was also time for leisure connection outside of the scheduled agenda! The mornings started with sunrise hikes and yoga led by our employees. Some colleagues took advantage of the water park and jumped into the lazy river, raced on the water slides, or played games and instruments at the fun-committee-organized BayWa Palooza.
Thank you to all the amazing organizers for bringing us together and thank you to all participants for making this event unforgettable.