Building culture and a palate with Chef Leveque
APRIL 30, 2021A strong company culture is a cornerstone of AlphaGroup Medical Communications. We build upon this philosophy by engaging our employees in activities that help them to grow professionally and personally.
Conceived by AlphaGroup co-founder and partner Stephen Douthwaite, we launched an internal team-building program playfully called the Department of Fun. Douthwaite’s vision was to entertain, motivate, and retain a team focused on the company’s founding pillars of success—Precision, Integrity, and Passion. The transition to “Work from Home” ignited additional creativity from the Department of Fun as it launched new activities that serve as a virtual lifeline for maintaining connectivity and training.
This week, Executive Chef Laurent Leveque of La Fava Restaurant launched what we plan to be an ongoing guest cooking series with a highly visual, fast-paced, multifaceted demonstration of two seemingly simple recipes—tuna tartar and goat cheese bruschetta. Leveque’s virtual cooking class—for which ingredients were made known in advance so that our students would be ready to go—challenged our team to closely follow precise details in order to achieve a vision while enjoying Leveque’s infectious passion.
Executive Chef Laurent Leveque leads AlphaGroup’s virtual cooking series
The finishing touches to Chef Leveque’s tuna tartar
“Master skills from a master chef parlay into building business techniques such as storytelling and effective communications,” Douthwaite said. “Chef Leveque’s expertise and panache exemplified how highly demonstrative ‘bite-sized’ details translate on all platforms in today’s virtual world.”
Avec plaisir, our team of scientists and medical affairs professionals enjoyed a master culinary experience and learned to slice, dice, and plate at warp speed by leveraging skill sets critical in the workplace. An added bonus … a five-star dinner was served at home following class!
Other interactive exercises the AlphaGroup Department of Fun has hosted this year include Coffee with Strangers, Book Club, Recipe Swap, Music Quizzo, Etiquette and Manners Team Competition, Virtual Field Day, and the inaugural AlphaGroup Awards. What’s next? Engaging, culture-building lessons in work and life events, and … drum roll please…The Great Escape to South Carolina in October.
Stay tuned for what’s unveiled next as we continue to explore new techniques for engagement, enlightenment, and levity while we strengthen our foundation and pillars for success in medical, scientific, and HEOR communications.
Iesha Lewis-Crofoot shares her final goat cheese bruschetta