Annually, HRV leadership takes time to recognize and thank the women who work at the Company’s headquarters office in Moon Township, Pennsylvania, for their dedication and efforts over the past year. The event typically consists of an off-site lunch, comments from company leadership, and a show of appreciation in the form of a small, but meaningful gift to each attendee.
“I am so very appreciative of what all our employees do throughout the year, and as a DBE/WBE, we take time to especially thank the women among the office staff,” said HRV President H. Rochelle Stachel. “This year, I wanted to express my appreciation in a completely different way by creating an event that would provide a team-building opportunity, which also allowed us to be creative, express ourselves, have fun, and form closer personal relationships.”
HRV enlisted the support of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based craft studio Hobby Prodigy, designers and coordinators of special “make-and-take” events—the perfect environment to accommodate the HRV Women’s Team-Building/Recognition event.
Once grouped into teams, the Hobby Prodigy event leader provided the HRV women in attendance with minimal instruction and a few clues on their “project,” which was to create a series of three wall hangings that collectively represent HRV’s logo. Each team had to plan, design and construct their section of the final artwork using only materials in Hobby Prodigy’s craft studio.
“Being in the company of Hobby Prodigy’s professional crafters could have made us feel a bit intimated to embark on a large-scale crafting exercise,” added HRV Recruiting Manager Kori Amos. “I underestimated how great the end result would turn out—we were all extremely happy and impressed with what we made, and had a great time doing this together.”
The final artwork now hangs in a conspicuous area of HRV’s headquarters office, in sight of the office reception area for both office visitors and employees to enjoy. The piece is also a conversation starter, as participants openly recall how applying teamwork helped them overcome the challenges of creating the individual parts of the artwork that ultimately needed to look like a single piece while bringing all the teams closer together.
“This event was a great bonding experience with my colleagues,” said HRV’s Concrete Operations Manager Sarah Hurr. “HRV values the importance of interpersonal relationships and this celebration brought together such strong, beautiful woman—it was lovely to see us all come together to create an amazing piece of art to display in our office that signifies a team collaboration.”
“I’m really quite proud of the way the teams jelled during the event,” concluded Rochelle. “Our ability to essentially start from scratch, plan and make our individual creations, and bring them all together in the end is truly symbolic of the key takeaway for me—we’re better as a team.”
