The past few years have seen incredible revolutionary technological advancements that established global connections thanks to the Internet. Everyday lives are changing before our very eyes. Digitalisation has brought about comprehensive transformation, and this is bound to continue: people are changing in their very essence.

If we add to the above the challenges of the increasingly dynamic modern way of life, such as the swiftness of change, the shifting of boundaries between the private, public, and professional spheres, the contemporary ways of communicating either withing our families or on the job, this prompts a call to active change in our values as well as in the learning of new skills. Adequate training is the path that ensures considerable improvement in the said process.

We do not have to look far to read about a certain lack of values. Transparency is indeed one of the changes of the modern times that, on the one hand, results in many benefits, but, on the other hand, points out to the considerable shortcomings of the existing system on the path to oblivion.

IT IS TIME FOR A NEW ERA THAT WILL PLACE PUT AHEAD OF MATERIAL THINGS!

When we established GO GREEN, we placed sustainable orientation in the broadest sense of the term among the Company’s core values. Sustainability is a key element of our strategies and activities, but also of all our relationships and attitudes, i.e., towards our employees, partners, customers, and the environment.

Values dictate the way we humans perceive life. It is therefore crucial that businesses pay attention to every individual, listen and hear what they have to say, to consider their personal traits in the organisation of work, and to support their growth.

Enhancing employees’ knowledge is arguably one of the best investments to better the future of a company, as it positively impacts the sentiment in the business environment, the collaborative relationships, efficiency, performance and productivity and the overall atmosphere, all of which reflect on customer satisfaction.

GO GREEN is aware of these implications. In the past five years, we have organised several group training sessions and personalised coaching sessions for all our employees, some addressing actual business situations.

WE ONLY HAVE ONE LIFE WHERE ‘LIFE AT WORK’ IS INTERTWINED WITH ‘LIFE AT HOME’

GO GREEN’s primary focus is on the ultimate excellence in services for our customers provided on our behalf by individuals precious to our Company. We therefore wish that working for us became part of each employee’s career vision and an opportunity for personal headway, growth and improvement of skills that are useful – professionally, as part of our team and in the private sphere.

 

HAPPY INDIVIDUALS ARE AT THE HEART OF A COMPANY’S GROWTH

The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions has since 1990 been monitoring the working conditions and satisfaction employees across EU Member States and Slovenia ranks poorly – it occupies the 26^th place among 31 countries. Only a good ten per cent of Slovenian employees express they are very happy with their job and working conditions (Universal Excellence Magazine, September 2014, Year 3, Issue 3).

Employees’ satisfaction and motivation are closely linked to happy customers and their undertaking’s business performance. This is because at their heart, companies are people. To address this aspect, GO GREEN has since 2018 been collaborating with the Fast Forward, Learning & Development company.

The training challenge we have set for ourselves was clear: how does do we ensure long-term top quality and even upgrade the well-established excellence of services in the field of travel, transportation, tourism, car hire for companies or individual clients from Slovenia and the wider region? Considering that the key elements of our offer are premium chauffeured transportation services, comprehensive creative solutions for business meetings, other MICE events and marketing solutions, it goes without saying that our top-quality services revolve around people.

Achieving goals in companies always begins with a happy individual, who must have his or her own (higher) goals, knows the goals of the company and is also able to recognise the goals of his or her co-workers in the team. This can prove to be quite a challenge in practice.

The above calls for skills that are not second nature to most people – they are to be learnt, trained, and maintained. A company basing its services on people should be able to recognise such potential and foster their development, supporting the bonding of team members. This is the reason for us embarking on the path of employee training.

 

5 YEARS, 5 TRAINING PROGRAMMES, GROUP WORKSHOPS AND COACHING SESSIONS

In the five years of actively implementing training programmes, GO GREEN has addressed very specific challenges: the awareness and importance of the connection between individuals and their fields of work, the efficient management of work assignments, personal responsibility and proactive personal development that will have a holistic impact on the individual’s life.

In the times when exceptional events, innovative meetings, modern and environmentally friendlier vehicles we use to provide our services have become increasingly complex, coupled with the Covid-19 pandemic business eclipse that surprised us all, we were even more determined to actively pursue employee training.

As we faced with difficult circumstances and uncertain prospects for the Company and its employees, the knowledge gained from our group workshops and coaching sessions proved to be precious: it provided new insight into the tremendous value of knowledge, introspection, and ways to make the most of our advantages. It helped us understand the situation at the time, our inner workings, and our colleagues. This new knowledge and insights efficiently paved our way ahead.

After five years of training, we find ourselves in top shape. We know and can do more, full stop.

To date, we have implemented no fewer than 5 programmes of group workshops and individual coaching one-on-one mentorship) sessions, and we are very proud of the results.

Our group workshops focus on the activity of individuals within a group, on the functioning of the entire team, and the understanding of diversity, while coaching involves a mentor (coach) working in-depth with an individual.

The latter approach is based on the understanding of the individual, the recognition of the strengths and weaknesses in personal traits, which will then inform the setting of short- and long-term goals. Coaching sessions will then pursue the goals thus set, and personal development, allowing the individual to better harmonise the personal and professional spheres, improve focus, responsibility, efficiency, productivity in the workplace, overall wellbeing of the individual and, as a result, the company’s interpersonal environment.

 

EDUCATION IS LEARNING WHAT YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW YOU DIDN’T KNOW
(Daniel J. Boorstin)

The five-stage learning programme that GO GREEN carried out across seven half-day workshops (group/individual) covered the bases from the field of general personal and professional growth: the strengthening of self-awareness and the awareness of others, personal excellence, the recognition of values, self-management, work ethics, the management of time and conflicts, the strengthening of emotional intelligence, the improvement of emotional culture, coping with uncertainty (the pandemic, personal resilience, stress, trigger recognition, etc.).

During the past two years, we then proceeded to focus the training on increasingly demanding topics and skills: managing challenging conversations and learning to use new tools and structures to do so, efficient feedback, clear, respectful and open communication and the understanding of interpersonal differences and similarities to improve cooperation.

IN KNOWLEDGE LIES THE POWER OF THE INDIVIDIUAL, OF THE TEAM AND OF THE ORGANISATION

Having achieved our first goal, i.e., the increase of the level of self-awareness and the awareness of other team members, we are now ready for new goals that will go deeper, but especially to apply them in practice, as practice presents hundreds of challenges every day. This, along with the noticeable tangible improvements that the said training programmes have brought to the Company, prompts us to continue with such workshops and coaching sessions in 2023.

What is it that GO Green Team is now better at?

We team members have become a better version of ourselves. That also includes in dialogue and in working with our colleagues. We are more efficient in team meetings and in our line of work, we notice that our interpersonal interactions are more attentive, and we are proud of our novel approaches to communication. We have a better understanding of ourselves, our personality types and the different roles assigned to us within the team. If we could always say we collaborated very well within the team, our collaboration today is exemplary, with each employee being even more proactive.

Thanks to the new knowledge and skillset, each employee can embrace his or her role in the company in a different way, with the overall working environment and business results at GO GREEN improving before our very eyes. Armed with our newfound curiosity, each morning, we march ahead to meet new personal and business challenges.