CIPD/People Management Magazine Webinar: Making Change Sticky
In a recent webinar for People Management, CIPD, we were invited to walk through a case study of how Laughology supported HSBC in embedding their new performance framework. Joined by Jason Reynolds, Head of UK Learning at HSBC, Stephanie shared how the programme used playfulness, humour and interactive activities to help embed their new performance framework.
The numbers tell their own story: 469 people attended out of a potential 500, and the sessions were entirely voluntary. People chose to come.
We applied techniques rooted in humour, play, real-world scenario work, and conversations, rather than simply “two reviews a year”. We shifted focus onto routine check-ins, coaching dialogues, and practical behaviours. We helped create buzz, momentum, and excitement — because the moment you’re the one saying, “this is mandatory,” you’ve lost half your audience. Instead, we made it something people wanted to come along to.
The webinar walked through how this design translated into engagement and behaviour change, and how organisations can think differently about the way they roll out frameworks. It’s not about rules, it’s about connection.
If you missed it, you can watch it here.
Mental Health and Wellbeing Training with Tottenham Hotspur FC
Tottenham Hotspur are flying high in the Premier League at the moment, which we’d like to put down to Laughology’s support.
In truth, though, the men’s first team have been doing their own winning thing, whilst we’ve been helping people from the wider organisation with their resilience, coping and problem-solving skills.
When the call came, who better to deliver a FLIP It Thinking session than lifelong football fan Sarah Creegan? She may not be a Spurs fan, but she can remember celebrating that Tony Parks UEFA cup final penalty save; Ossie Ardiles singing, ‘Spurs are on their way to Wembley’ and Glenn Hoddle allegedly insuring his legs for a whopping amount of money. Anyway, we digress…
Well, slightly. At Laughology, we work with a wide range of organisations, from banks and construction to education and sport. And we always match our people with yours. If they don’t already know the industry and its challenges, they spend a lot of time and effort getting to understand it. They ask the curious questions and bespoke content to your needs.
Back to Spurs and their commitment to supporting great mental health and wellbeing across the organisation. The people who attended Sarah’s session are the ones who keep things ticking over successfully behind the scenes, away from the pitch. For example, they might be dealing with IT hitches or taking frontline customer calls (which can be quite shouty on a Monday morning!)
The group chats in the session were open and honest, with people sharing their own strategies for solving problems, as well as discussing those suggested by Sarah, and there were a lot of laughs – as you’d expect with footballing folks.
We’re hoping to work in closer partnership with Spurs in the future, especially if there are going to be more UEFA victories, sing-along Wembley songs and, who knows, maybe a title challenge…
Psychological Safety Conference Keynote with VMO2
It’s not very often these days that Lead Happiness Consultant, Dave Keeling, gets to go to a venue he’s not been to before ( and he’ll go anywhere), so it was with great excitement that he ended up at Ashorne Hill in Warwickshire. A curious place – think Cub Camp but four stars.
In addition to earning his knot-tying badge, Dave’s reason for being there was to run a session with People Leaders and Managers at VMO2. The morning’s conference keynote focused on the topic of psychological safety and how leaders and managers can help create an environment where their teams thrive, not just survive, are more confident to speak up and collaborate, and are less afraid of making mistakes.
The session was jam-packed with tips, tricks and techniques to promote positive conversations, thinking and action around topics such as:
- Growth mindset – the key to slowing down in order to catch up
- The art of collaboration – and how all the answers are already here, it’s just what curious questions aren’t we asking
- Warm connections – the effect of understanding the stories of the people around us
- Power of words – how making what we value centric to our decision making helps to navigate through uncertain times
- E2C2 – a template to have effective conversations and to positively challenge
The audience cogitated, conversed, and collaborated for two hours and left having laughed, learned, and explored practical techniques they could discuss and implement with their teams.
Meanwhile, Dave bob-a-jobbed off to his next venue – which he’d been to several times and knows they do a cracking club sandwich.
DEI Training with Toyota for National Inclusion Week
There are many reasons why the Laughology team is called into workplaces to deliver our ‘It’s Only Banter’ workshop. Often, it’s because the company would like mandatory training for all of its employees, particularly in light ofthe new UK guidelines regarding sexual harassment.
Sometimes, it’s because something has happened and it’s felt that people need a reminder about what is and isn’t appropriate behaviour and language at work. And, at other times, it’s to reinforce new company policies and ways of working.
Very occasionally, it’s for none of the above, which is what happened recently at Toyota. They invited anyone who was interested to come along to one of two ‘It’s Only Banter’ sessions with Sarah Creegan, as part of their DEI training offer for National Inclusion Week.
Not because anyone had made a faux pas, just to help people think more about banter and humour and laughter in the workplace. As well as how to kindly challenge anything that doesn’t feel right, and how to have trickier conversations.
Table chats were open and honest, with people being happy to share their thinking and examples. Fun was had with the interactive activities. And people said that they’d learnt and reflected a lot, with feedback comments such as these:
‘Very enjoyable, good to take a step back and consider my current situation.’
‘Really lovely and engaging session, very knowledgeable and insightful.’
To find out more about what Toyota had to say, click here.
If you would like to book a consultation with Stephanie or one of the team to chat through your challenges, we can talk through ideas and solutions with you. Please get in touch with stephanie@laughology.co.uk or Doug@laughology.co.uk
