In 2022, we had a huge increase in the amount of teams globally switching from other providers and opting to use Kairos as their communications and operations platform. This encouraged our team to delve into the why behind the reasoning of some of the biggest brands in world sport, competing in leagues such as the English Premier League, the NBA, MLB and NHL, decided to explore and implement Kairos. We soon realized that apart from a modern and intuitive platform, language and localisation were important elements of building a culture of belonging, understanding and trust – all a huge factor in swaying those decision-makers to make the simple transition to Kairos.
Teams are made up of athletes from different nations, cultures and traditions, and understandably, staff and management wanted to provide an authentic environment for athletes and staff to communicate in. An elite sports team allows for athletes to come under one roof and represent one establishment with rich history and core values, all while allowing those individuals to work towards one goal, collectively. For us, it was important that their communications & operations platform reflected that same level of versatility that would play a key role in an optimal performance environment.
Kairos allows teams to come together on the one app, whether it be in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Dutch or German. Allowing Kairos users to benefit from the versatility of the app; wherever they are, whatever their goal.
The 3 whys:
- Inclusion & belonging 🤝
Inclusion and belonging play a huge role in successful team environments. While we know a sense of belonging can take some time to build, at Kairos we facilitate a smooth transition for each athlete by providing a layer of inclusivity in our app. Ideally, we’re erasing those early stages of fragmentation when athletes are finding their voice in a team. Fostering an environment that grows team connectedness is important for us. It means the core messaging isn’t lost and the key points are delivered to each individual while they play their important role in the club’s ecosystem and ultimately, performance.
- Understanding 💡
Our priority at Kairos is the performance of the athlete. We want to ensure the athlete understands the information being communicated to them – in a seamless, effective and familiar manner to enable them to execute their role as part of the transformational environment.
Receiving key information at the right time is so important for athletes, whether that be training schedules, travel itineraries, physio bookings, performance data, game strategies or files and folders on the opposition. Important too for staff is being able to retrieve objective information from the athlete in a manner that is seamless for both, such as menu choices, travel routes or ticket requirements. Kairos also creates an environment for subjective information to flow, with 1-1 messaging and wellness based data that can be of significant value to performance staff – all allowing the athlete to seamlessly focus on what matters: game-day.
- Action before strategy 🤝
In November, we curated a Masterclass at the Leaders in Sport Performance Summit, ‘Where Strategy Meets Execution’. One of our speakers, Matt Crocker, Director of Football Operations at Southampton FC said that to execute on transformational change staff and management have to build trust and relationships first, through quick wins – “action before strategy”. This struck a chord with us – we know how Kairos helps staff to build rapport with athletes, but we quickly realized that one of the biggest reasons that Kairos works so well is as a result of the trust that we have built with current customers. Through strong relationships with our customers we have not only built the best in class platform but we are able to respond quickly and continually to customer needs and wants. The world of elite sport is constantly changing and we too need to continually adapt so that we and our customers retain that edge.
As said by James Hume, “The art of communication is the language of leadership”. Through working in partnership with some of the biggest brands in elite sport and showing leadership in our field of expertise, we are providing a vital and continually evolving platform that allows for the effective facilitation of a culture of belonging, understanding and trust to drive high performance and success.
Diversity Mark award Kairos with Bronze accreditation
We are delighted to share that we have achieved our Bronze Award from Diversity Mark. An organization committed to empowering organizations who are navigating the Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) landscape in the workplace.
This accreditation will see Kairos take the relevant steps in transforming workplace culture and attitudes for the benefit of all employees, future employees, stakeholders and clients of our platform. Through committing to building a more diverse and inclusive workspace, Kairos seeks to attract and retain a deeper pool of talent that will in turn help our team to thrive all while contributing to the local economy.
A special thanks to Nuala and Emma of the Diversity Mark team who helped guide and direct us over the course of our application process as a company totally new to this environment. They commented, “Diversity Mark are delighted that Kairos have been awarded the Bronze Diversity Mark Accreditation. The independent assessment panel noted Kairos’s understanding of the key role diversity and inclusion can play in their business and it was refreshing to see such commitment so early on. Congratulations to the whole team on this robust achievement.”
Having achieved this accreditation, our next task is to work on the actions from our application which will see us evaluate our current internal structures in the hope of evolving Kairos as an inclusive, diverse and equal employer not only in Northern Irish but across our growing global workforce.
Kairos COO, Gareth Quinn on the achievement, “We’re delighted to receive our Bronze Diversity Mark accreditation. We wanted to commit to this journey early as a company so as to help shape and define our culture, enabling us to compete at our best globally. We work with elite sports teams across the world and our customers represent a rich diversity across staff and athletes and it is important that the Kairos team has diversity throughout the team so as to be able to continue to evolve what has become the world’s leading communication and operations platform for elite sports teams.
Through creating a safe, supportive and inclusive workplace environment for our current employees, we can pursue a Diversity & Inclusion strategy that aligns with our local and global goals, helping to consolidate our position as a distinctive and meaningful place to work.”
You can learn more about Diversity Mark here 👉 diversity-mark-ni.co.uk
