We surround ourselves with hands, minds and hearts.

The larger a vehicle is, the more power the engine that drives it must have. 

In companies, it is the people who constitute this engine, those who work every day to achieve their objectives, those we commonly call "team".  

Of course, an engine must be cared for and geared to achieve its optimum performance and top speed. The parallel within a company cannot be any different. 

At Grupo Álava, we are proud of the team of people that make up the company; it is one of the great values that our employees perceive. Very different people and all of them perfectly cohesive, close and inclusive, coming to understand the company as a second family.  

In the face of the Covid19 pandemic, our team did not remain impassive. There were no more interdepartmental conversations during work breaks, many employees did not coincide in video calls, new employees did not discover the great climate in the company, the personal distance between one another increased considerably. The circumstances were complicated, we were becoming dehumanized and we had to find an action that would change the course of things. The Christmas season brought with it a wonderful idea and last December 1, 2020 we started the activity "Advent Calendar", which would be made by and for people. 

From December 1 to 23, we organized 20-minute interviews with our own colleagues, from Miami to Barcelona, passing through Zaragoza, Lisbon and landing in Madrid. The interviewees told us about their daily lives, their beginnings in their professional activity and in the Group, and more personal details that allowed us to get to know them better, empathize and understand them. 

The interviews were full of anecdotes, experiences and a few secrets. The interviewer felt like a journalist for a day and the interviewee was the protagonist. In short, we felt human and we were close to each other, something we missed a lot. Questions of all kinds came up: soccer, sports, favorite beer brand, professional secrets... We could even title them as: "what you would have asked your partner or your boss over a beer at Christmas dinner". 

They served to relieve the pressure of closing the past year so complex and on the last day we had an evaluation of the knowledge acquired throughout the sessions. Questions related to the interviews were asked and prizes were awarded to the best.  

In addition to fostering staff motivation and teamwork, this activity allowed us to get to know our colleagues better, even those with whom we had no regular contact. We are especially grateful to the organizing team, a reference point for proposing ideas, implementing them and following them with great enthusiasm.