Registered Company No: 10274976
Here's how the process works.....
We are the exclusive distributor of the Helping Hands Program (also known as “Build A Hand Activity”) within the UK and one of very few in Europe. It’s a corporate activity unlike any other and is guaranteed to change the way that employees see their work and give them a renewed sense of energy and purpose.
The Helping Hands Program has been successfully used to enrich team building days, executive “away days”, strategic planning meetings and recruitment assessment events. As a philanthropic activity, Helping Hands is a great way to help your business meet its Corporate Social Responsibility objectives.
For those of you who have not heard about this particular activity before, take a look at this video.
Some other considerations
Facilitated Programs
Recycling
There are a range of spare parts and tools that are distributed as part of this activity. These spare parts are returned, along with the hands and are recycled for the next group that builds the hands. This ensures that nothing goes to waste and that the impact of our resources and efforts is maximised within our global community.
Team size
Helping Hands works best when there are 3 people in each group. Having smaller numbers ensures that each person has to take an active role in building the hand. Organisations can choose to have larger teams involved in the activity, but we find that this is less than ideal.
Duration and integration of the activity into your agenda
The activity takes between 1.5 to 3 hours to complete and is the perfect conclusion to a 1 day off-site or workshop. Participants are left feeling energised, inspired and filled with a sense of purpose. Our advice would be to not try and stretch this activity out to take any longer than this. Keep it as a high impact component of your broader agenda and make sure that you spend the rest of the time getting through other content as you wish.
Batch size
When you purchase this activity, there is a lot more that goes with it then just the hand. There are videos, spare parts, tools and materials to help bind participant hands. For this reason, the hands are normally distributed in standardised kit sizes of ten. If your organisation only has need for a smaller number of hands, we can discuss how to meet this need.
Facilitation
Professional facilitation, as always, is key in ensuring that you get the most out of the activity. We have a team of facilitators that have all received specialist training in delivering this particular program and bring with them a deep understanding of people and business. We will work with you to co-design your bespoke program; ensuring that Helping Hands yields maximum impact and is aligned to your organisation’s mission, vision and values.
Activity Kick Off
At the start of the activity, participants are provided with a bag of parts. They typically feel a little overwhelmed and are usually
less than motivated to participate as memories of pointless and annoying team building activities from their past flood back to them.
We then show a video which normally really impacts participants! All of a sudden, they realise that the activity they are engaged in
today has a purpose. They realize that if they work well together, they will literally be changing someone’s life on the other side of the world…..
Needless to say, at this point normally energy levels immediately increase!
The build
In groups of 3, the teams then go about building the hands. There are detailed instructions provided, so all groups are set up for success.
As an added challenge, normally participants bind one of their hands during the build process to further build empathy with the eventual
customer.
Often individual participants will take on unique roles within the team and, as with any team, there will be interesting team dynamics
that emerge to debrief at the end of the activity.
Decoration of the packaging
Each hand is put into a container which has been uniquely decorated by participants. This is a critical component of the activity.
Some people will feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of building a hand and will prefer to use their artistic skills during the exercise.
The Help Desk
During the activity a Help Desk is setup, where participants can go to ask technical questions if they are having trouble assembling the hand. The person behind the Help Desk needs to be fully trained in building the hands before the activity commences. The Help Desk will only ever make suggestions or re-direct participants’ thinking. They will not provide an instant solution; encouraging solution focussed work from participants.
Completion and photographs
Once groups complete the task, they bring their decorated bag up to the front of the room and have a photo taken with it as a team. This photo is then put with the hand so that the recipients can see a picture of the people that made their hand for them.
Activity debrief
It is critical to ensure that there is a detailed discussion at the end of the activity. This activity can be a particularly emotional and exciting experience for many people and we find that you just need to provide people with the space to share this with their fellow team-mates. A thorough debrief is also important as it ensures that participants are reminded of the unique challenges that their organisation faces. As with most team building activities, the range of behaviours or mind-sets that can be debriefed at the conclusion of this activity is diverse and depends on what your organisation’s objectives are. This is where expert facilitation can really make the difference!
Once the debrief is completed, a “post build” video is played. This video really drums home how much of a big difference the hands that have just been made will make to their recipients. It also is a fantastic way to complete the activity as it ensures that all participants are left energised and with a renewed sense of purpose.
Quality control
Once the activity is completed, all hands are shipped back to the company that designed them to ensure that they are built properly. This company does a range of quality checks and then ships them to where they are needed most.
Feedback from recipients
Wherever possible, pictures of the actual recipients, holding the hands they have been given (along with their uniquely decorated packaging) find their way back to us and we then post these pictures on our Facebook page.
For those of you wondering about the kind of difference that this activity makes, why not check out the following video.