Kay Pennington, former group spa manager at Center Parcs’ Aqua Sana spas, has launched a new venture – a workshop programme called Resilience & Power.
It aims to help professionals channel their inner strength and resilience to be better leaders and has three focuses: spiritual, physical and scientific, involving group activities and exercises, and individual learning.
The workshops draw on Pennington's personal experiences, from overseeing six destination spa's and over 800 staff at Aqua Sana, where she worked for eight years, to overcoming trauma in her personal life.
They will focus on positive psychology using scientifically backed techniques to help attendees to strengthen their focus, channel positive self-esteem and restore a feeling of personal power.
Pennington, a previous winner of Leader of the Year at both the Professional Beauty Awards (2020) and World Spa & Wellness Awards (in 2021), said the company was born out of a desire to help people work through trauma and understand more about what causes each individual to react in the ways they do.
“In the severity of a recruitment crisis, along with increasing mental health challenges, we need to consider the future of employee happiness,” said Pennington.
She has begun working with professionals in the spa market but said the workshops are applicable to any industry.
Pennington is initially looking to work with five sectors: spa operators who require support for their teams; managers and senior leadership groups; business executives that require one-to-one sessions; sales teams and product houses; students and apprentices; and wellness organisations and social groups.
The workshops are built around the concept that feelings and emotions are a huge part of what drives business and will challenge attendees to stop to think about how their teams feel and how they themselves understand how they feel, how they communicate and how they stay connected authentically.
The exercises in the workshops will support individuals to help unlock emotions and rediscover purpose through reflection, future goal setting and identifying personal strength characteristics.
