In Pesquería, Mexico, a group of employees took part in an activity that was a little unusual: cooking their own hamburgers. The end result? Enjoying the synergy between learning and great flavors.

The invitation to join in was very tempting: taking part in an outdoor hamburger-grill contest—in fact, it’s hard to top that! This was the Burger Master contest organized by the Aliados group from HR for a total of eighteen participants from the Pesquería team in Mexico.

With the explicit objective of creating and strengthening links between participants, boosting teamwork and stimulating emotional intelligence skills such as leadership, communications, decision-making and conflict management, the Burger Master contest was divided into different stages. These were organized into a simulation of a typical working day: task development, overcoming difficulties, reacting to unexpected events and, finally, the presentation of the product—meaning the hamburgers—to the judges who were tasked with evaluating and choosing the best burger.

“We were three teams of six competing against each other. All from Monterrey, a mix from the offices in San Nicolás and the plant in Pesquería. We began with an integration activity to warm up, and then there was a whole rally of tasks prepared for us: before we could even begin making the hamburger, we had to participate in games and challenges to earn points so we could access the market and select the ingredients,” explains Karla Martínez, Commercial Specialist.

And so it was that at the start, they introduced themselves, started bonding and finding things they had in common but, above all, they got to know each other. After all, the true wealth of the meeting lay in gathering together collaborators who might be from the same area but who’d never actually been working together in the same place at the same time to reach the same objective.

Karla was in charge of the grill on her team, where all the roles were shared: “Many of my teammates were people I’d only just met, although some I’d spoken to before, but there we were all together, in a very different set-up. They gave us sixty minutes to cook the hamburger on charcoal and prepare the dish. We had bread, meat, spices, veggies and hot sauce to play with!” After half an hour, they were unexpectedly given a box containing a secret ingredient that they had to incorporate, forcing them to rethink their strategies: "We got a sweet potato, another team was given a pineapple, and the third team got mushrooms."

Edgar Cobos, Health, Safety & Environment Sr. Supervisor, felt that he was part of a cooking team but that at the same time was something so much bigger: "Taking part in the Burger Master contest obviously left me with a great aftertaste!—and it also taught me about persistence, teamwork and trust. We knew nothing about each other’s real skills, which led, unintentionally, to the creation of an atmosphere of mutual trust where each of us made our greatest effort to achieve the best possible result.”

"During the activity, a jovial and camaraderie working environment blossomed, where there were job titles, categories or positions: the group worked as one, respecting the comments and contributions made by each one of the members, and thanks to this we obtained some really great results,” adds Gustavo García, Maintenance Engineering Aux. Technician.

“Beyond the contest ranking (we came second), the recipe and the food, which we loved, it was really cool to do this activity as it helps us to get to know each other better, and find out all the things we have in common. At the end of the day, the only way to get things done is to work together. Each person’s contribution makes a difference,” summarizes Karla, a burger griller for one day, but a member of a great team every day.