By Sally Sola, Founder, Cheltenham Flower School
As businesspeople, we all know that it is easier and better to retain good people in your company than recruit them. The costs alone associated with recruiting someone, even if you don’t use a recruitment firm, are one reason for creating a workplace which people don’t want to leave. And that is before you factor in the time, effort and cost of training someone.
Yes, there are definitely good reasons to look at bringing in new people, new ideas, new perspectives, but there are countless good reasons for wanting to maintain a strong core of people who you know, like and trust, and who are good at doing what you need them to do.
We also know that change is not just a constant today; the pace of change is increasing, along with the complexity of those changes. From AI to America, and from trade and tariffs to conflict and climate, we are all faced with having to respond and adapt to constantly shifting sands and constantly evolving threats and opportunities.
All of this means that it is not simply enough to have people who know what they need to do today; you need to be able to help the people in your company or organisation be ready and able to deal with the next change or challenge they face, and to do so in a way which leaves them stronger and better placed to deal with the next challenge or change which you can guarantee will be coming hot on the heels of the last.
So, what on Earth does any of this have to do with flowers?
That’s a fair question but let’s take a step back for a moment and consider what the common theme across the points above is.
The answer to that is people. It is people who you need to retain, and it is the people in your company who will need to respond to challenge and change.
And this is where flowers do come in. You see, flowers and floral design can play three key roles in enabling you and your business to support your people and so face up to and overcome those challenges.
The first role is in retention. The thing is that there is a relationship between the people who work in a company, and the company itself. And, like any other relations, we all need to feel valued and appreciated in order to feel happy in that relationship because, if we don’t feel that, then we will soon start to look for new relationships where we do get that feeling. And one way to let your people know that you value and appreciate them is to give them an opportunity to step away from the day to day role and do something different one afternoon, such as a floral design workshop. Just simply giving people a chance to try something different, something they might not choose to do, or might not have the money to do, can be a fantastic way of saying thank you and giving back.
It has also been proven that experiences can produce a longer lasting enjoyment than physical gifts. This is because, unless the gift has an enduring utility and value, the ‘hit’ you get from receiving it is very much like a sugar hit; you get the short term high but after it you are left with something you don’t need, don’t use and actually might not have wanted. Conversely, experiences create a much deeper sense of fulfilment, especially when they give people a chance to try out something new and something which requires them to overcome a challenge.
And this brings me onto the second role which floral workshops can play. Because, as the saying goes, a break is as good as a change. Giving your people a chance to step away from their work, even for a single afternoon, can give them the space and break to get a bit of breathing space in a stressful workplace which they may not have taken themselves.
Wellness is not just a ‘nice to have’ option today; we all recognise that it is essential to look after ourselves and our people. Dedicating time to enable people to reset is one way to help them be more productive in work.
And the third role which floral workshops can play is in helping to bring your team closer together. Everyone has things which they are naturally good at, or things which they have become good at through practice and experience. And, in a workplace, it is likely that there is a mix of experience and knowledge and that is likely to be reflected in the levels or positions and roles which people have.
However, it is likely that most if not all of your people will never have turned their hands to floristry, let alone traditional floristry skills and, as such, it is likely that a floral workshop may put some of your people outside of their normal comfort zones.
It is precisely this challenge which is where floral workshops can help, and this is in a few ways:
Firstly, it creates a much more level playing field where even the most junior person in your team has a chance to be an equal with their peers and seniors. This levelling up opens up relationships and breaks down barriers; it puts the human aspect back into the workplace relationships and opens up the lines of communication across your team. And once people start talking more, they start sharing ideas and sharing information and it is those ideas and that information which will help your team to spot more opportunities and more easily face and overcome challenges.
This challenge also forces people to think differently and see different perspective. And that different way of thinking can find and provide analogies for challenges and opportunities in work. Now, I am not saying that creating a hand-tie bouquet will enable you to find the solution to an engineering problem (though you never know!) but it is a proven technique that focussing on a different challenge can enable your brain to find a solution to something you have been unable to resolve when thinking about it directly.
Lastly, it is not unusual for people within a workshop to offer help to others when they get something but the other person doesn’t. Again, just with opening up relationships and overcoming challenges, this chance to help something in the team overcome a challenge in one setting enables people to more readily ask for and offer support in other settings.
I know all of this may seem like a lot, and it may not be that every corporate workshop opens leads to each and all of these benefits. Similarly, not everyone will experience the same benefit from it. But I do know from experience that it is surprising just how much an afternoon away from the day job can give to a team and, if they take nothing else out of it, they will always go away with a beautiful floral arrangement to take home.
But if you recognise any of the threats or challenges I have outlined above, be it retention or readiness for change, then you might want to consider taking the time to see what benefits a floral workshop may bring to your company and your team.
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