Harrogate Neighbours Housing Association provides accommodation for around 60 of the North Yorkshire town’s elderly residents. Heath Lodge is a 28-bed residential home, while Greenfield Court has sheltered housing for up to 52 people.

The level of care all residents receive is of a high standard but the Association’s Chief Executive, Sue Ullmann, felt that a lack of communication among members of staff can sometimes affect the way the Management Team works, and potentially causes problems in the day to operation of the organisation.

Sue had already met Richard Hoyle of MR Dynamics at a seminar where she had been particularly impressed with what Richard and the rest of his MRD colleagues had to offer in the way of team motivation, morale and communication. As a result she invited MRD to run a one-day ‘awayday’ team building exercise in a Business Centre in nearby Knaresborough.

"The idea was to get people to know each other better outside a work environment which is why we deliberately took a day out!" said Sue. "There were nine of us and MRD were very good in getting everyone involved a number of different exercises and open discussions. We were also able to confront and discuss our individual strengths and weaknesses through MRD’s Insights personal profiling.

"Personally I found Insights fascinating but also slightly unnerving as to how accurate it is!" Sue added. "It was an excellent day, with even those people who had been sceptical at the start becoming much more positive and enthusiastic the more they got involved. We hope to do something very similar in the not too distant future…with MRD, of course…once we have had chance to address some of the issues that arose from the day and then review progress further down the line."