Tony Barradale: Talkfests just got healthier

Employers find exercise, not alcohol, is helping staff to bond and lift their game.

3/12/2015: Mount Lofty House General manager Tony Barradale. Mount Lofty house is a more holistic venue for conferences . Kelly Barnes/The Australian.

If a company wants to increase performance, productivity and output, advisers will point to improving engagement among staff.

Perks may be one thing — and everyone loves a good few days away at the expense of the company — but healthy and holistic conferences are proving to be one way to start people talking in a relaxed atmosphere away from office settings and sterile convention rooms.

Conference organiser Tony Barradale, who runs Mount Lofty House in Adelaide, says the days of boozy love-ins are over.

“We see delegates walking around, sitting on a bench having a coffee and talking and communicating,” Barradale says.

“If you’re able to do yoga, go for a walk in the garden or have a hit of tennis, it’s about relationship building, and business is so much about relationship building.”

Barradale has been in the conference and events industry for the past 20 years, including at Freycinet Lodge in Tasmania and the Kingfisher Bay Resort on Fraser Island.

He says businesses are looking closer to home as the Australian dollar falls, and rather than spending big bucks on overseas conferences, they are looking for venues within an hour or two of a city, offering anything from day spas to yoga to cooking classes.

“If you take yourself back to the 80s and 90s when it was about eating and drinking, it’s now about the quality experience,” he says.

“It’s about improving staff wellbeing and then they can contribute more. It’s about how you can make your conference more productive. It’s about getting the best out of people and if it’s a holistic environment and people are more peaceful, you get more done.”

Mark Hoppe, the Australian and New Zealand managing director for credit insurers Atradius, wanted to try something different from hotel-style conferences.

In December he took his eight-member management team on a five-day camping and hiking trip west of the Blue Mountains, and the remaining 60 staff came for the final two days.

The venture cost close to $200,000 and involved staff hiking for up to an hour and a half at a time, interspersed with three-hour discussion sessions in locations on a property. Each night they slept in tents supplied by the company and later donated to the Wesley Mission, and chefs cooked healthy meals.

“The first day was looking at yourself, where you’re at, are you getting the most out of your potential and your people,” Hoppe says.

“It was very honest among the leadership team, before we moved into business conversations. You’re only as strong as your people and if you develop your people you develop your business.”

Hoppe said the company could not organise such events each year, but it had a successful year and had support from its European owners.

He said the company had not wanted just another talkfest.

“We have people who have been here a long time and saying before we went ‘how do we make sure we do things we say we’re going to do’,” he says.

Having the conference in a less formal environment also meant junior staff felt they could speak up about matters and contribute.

“People got to know each other and said what’s important to them and how they felt,” he says.

“There were real actions coming out of it, not just words. And there were wins along the way.”

Hoppe says in the weeks following the conference staff were more enthused and buoyant, particularly leading up to Christmas when people traditionally wound down.

One staff member told him after the trip that he had spent five years considering a postgraduate course, and had enrolled after the experience.

Professional Conference Organisers Association president Barry Neame says change has been under way for about seven years, and companies and employees are looking for better outcomes at events and time away from the office.

“They don’t have the big boozy dinners, and there is a greater propensity for people to be offered networking and collaborative opportunities,” Neame says.

He says dinners have turned into networking functions where people can find their own groups to network with and collaborate, with less focus on alcohol and eating fatty food.

Neame says companies want healthier food so their staff feel more productive and energised, and they want exercise, whether it be yoga, morning walks or cycling tours before breakfast.

“The feedback we’re getting is better from participants; they enjoy it more, they’re getting more out of the conference, they can stay focused, they don’t have a hangover the next day and they’re more productive,” he says.

“Companies are always looking for more return on their investment and so are the employees. It’s better productivity and a bigger bang for their buck.”

Neame says the key is communication, with collaborative spaces and new ways to get people talking. When they sit at a desk all day, they appreciate being able to network in a healthy environment.

While he says alcohol will never be eliminated from conference dinners, the challenge is for venues to keep up with changing needs and provide healthier options.

Don O’Rorke, Consolidated Properties Group’s executive chairman, will take his 20 staff to Vietnam for their annual conference later this year.

“The list of things includes morning beach yoga, cooking classes, spa treatments as well as work sessions,” O’Rorke says.

“We’re going to an area that isn’t a nightclub district of New York, we’re going to a relatively isolated beachfront resort. People do drink, there’s not some puritan theme, and there’s work interspersed with activities but some sessions include health and wellbeing.”

O’Rorke started his company in 1979 and says the initial yearly conferences centred on drinking, but there has been a recent positive change towards work-life balance and health.

“Our core philosophy is to have a balance and a balanced person will have a better outcome and that theme runs through our conference,” he says.