Have faith in the face-to-face

Following the recent C&IT Recovery Forum hosted at etc.venues, Emma Castle, Co-Founder of CastleBell and Zoe Tuffs, Leadership Coach at Times Zen, explained what they think it means to be ‘back to live’.

Emma and Zoe set up a partnership to deliver masterclasses six months ago to help people looking for a job, but the Forum was the first time they had met in-person. Zoe said “It is wonderful to meet in-person, we now know how tall the other person is!” They came together because they shared the same purpose and values and recognised their businesses were very much aligned but both agreed that what was amazing about meeting up was to share their passion, a feeling that every conversation was important and to be introduced to each other’s network. 

They explained what stood out about their day and the event was the positivity in the room. So many people were looking to the future and felt the restrictions were behind them. Emma said the best part was “just to talk about what people are looking forward to and share a sense of excitement and anticipation about business going forward.”

Thay talked about what role face to face could play in recovery. Again, Emma and Zoe agreed that keeping an engaged and motivated workforce is going to be really challenging for businesses going forward. Emma added that communication plays a huge role with teams to make them feel part of the company, saying “Communication is so important for businesses, and they should have faith in the face to face.”