The Memory Box: May 2013

I'm so excited to share with you a recent event that I worked on at Randstad, it's for the first Randstad Award in Hong Kong.

Please visit www.randstadaward.com.hk if you would like to find out more information, or you can send me an email and I am happy to share with you.

The Randstad Award started 13 years ago in Belgium as a research survey on employer brand attractiveness, and this year Hong Kong and 17 other countries participated in this survey. The survey asks the general public which employer they would like to work for.

So on 17 April 2013, we presented the award for Hong Kong's most attractive employer to the winner and celebrated some of the top companies in Hong Kong at a gala dinner right on the shore of Victoria Harbour. Here are some of the highlights!

Watermark staff setting up the long tables

Planning the gala dinner started in January 2013 and we had to quickly decide on a venue before anything else can go ahead. After considering hotels, restaurants, public buildings etc, in the end we selected Watermark as it's in an interesting location with reasonable pricing.

the inspiration board - lots of gold & blue!

boxes of materials for set up

Not only did we have to find the venue, but after that in the following months, we found guest speakers, panelists, invited guests, put together the production crew, photographers, videographers, entertainment, master of ceremonies and many other vendors. This event definitely would not have been successful without their help.

Set up time was extremely tight, but the production crew really got to work and put everything together very quickly. We did our own table decorations and as the tables were quite small, we didn't have to do much to fill it up! I actually prepared too much! :P

Sound test

Set up almost done

Table decoration - gold puppet confetti (guests loved to play with this at the table),
table cards/names were all the 18 countries and their top 3 winners

Each guest received a gold puppet USB with a copy of the report

All neat and in line, ready for guests

Randstad Award Trophies - these are specially designed by Dutch designer, Marcel Wanders
Each trophy is a huge magnetic ball in the middle and all the gold little puppet/men stick on due
to the magnetic attraction, it's one of the coolest awards I've seen and they are almost like dumbells -
makes for quite a workout on the arms!

The Watermark entrance is through a dark tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel is a photo backdrop where they can take a photo with a life-size gold puppet (similar to the gingerbread man). Early guests were able to enjoy a cocktail or two and some yummy canapes.

This is one of my favourite photos
simply stunning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and the whole space open up floor to glass ceiling

Guests start to enter and take their seats

Once guests were seated, we got the evening underway with a video, introduction by our MC - Desmond So (our "celebrity" for the evening!), welcome by our Director - Brien Keegan, and a video from our CEO - Ben Noteboom.

Desmond So (master of ceremonies)

Brien Keegan (Director, Randstad)

The evening's programme was spaced out nicely and meal courses were served in timely intervals. When guests were enjoying their meal, we also heard a great buzz of conversation from the tables - which is a great noise to hear at any event!

Other than our guest speaker - Emma Reynolds, who shared her insight into the new world of attracting and retaining talent (HR is the new Marketing), we also had 3 guest panelists who shared how they have implemented employer branding at their organisations.

That night we presented 6 awards,

Best Workplace Culture - Disneyland