Purpose Boosts Engagement

A new e-learning system has been made available for employees and volunteers, which is accessible from both work and home computers, reducing potential constraints around accessibility and enabling learners to engage in learning activities at a time that suits them. The system also enables the Trust to address concerns about cross infection, which prevent people with CF meeting each other, and ensure we adopt an inclusive approach to learning. The Trust recently developed an NVQ level 3 award in Volunteer Management for our employees to better understand best practice standards of volunteer management. The programme has been so successful that it is now offered to other organisations and the take-up is encouraging.

'Introduction to Management' programme provides support to new managers on becoming more comfortable in their role as managers. Recently, the Trust invested in a year long development programme for its senior managers, to facilitate better collaborative working. Peer coaching, action learning and 360 degree feedback were integral parts of the programme, which is based on NLP (Neuro- Linguistic) techniques.

One initiative the company have found to be particularly effective in enhancing the wellbeing of their people has been our Up For Fit team. They provide fresh fruit, organise sporting activities and social events. A combination of both sporting and social elements is the annual beach games which they have taken part in for the last three years. It provides people with an opportunity to exercise, socialise and develop relationships with their colleagues in a fun yet competitive atmosphere.

Annually, each year Line Manager at Compassion UK can submit nominations for team members who have contributed in an outstanding way. The formal rewards are given on an employee receiving outstanding on their appraisal. The financial gift for last year was a £250 cash bonus. The company also allow informal rewards up to the amount of £25, which is in the form of a voucher.

Each of the Columbus Senior Management team has worked at Columbus for more than 10 years. The Managing Director, 17 years, the Service Director 15 years and the Consultancy and Sales Director have both been employed by Columbus for over 10 years. They are all passionate about Columbus as a company, the employees and the customers. Throughout that time as the company has grown there has been a common goal around driving continuous improvement into all aspects of the company. The latest goal sums this up, “Employees and Customers for Life”. The management team continuously seek feedback from employees and customers, through surveys, roundtables, face to face meetings, suggestion boxes and brainstorming, and they act on the results. All of the team are extremely approachable and their door is always open. A key initiative for the team at present is a mentoring programme for other managers so that they can gain greater insight in to business and to help them with their career aspirations.

The company have spot bonuses for a job well done. . Deal Flow, cross selling reward programme, enables employees to benefit personally from any work they refer outside their own team. Personal bonus incentive plans.

Staff have been involved in: Belfast Marathon - 23 staff members took part to raise money for charities including The Welcome Organisation and one of residential homes (De La Cour House) Residents Funds - £1,632 was raised for the Welcome Organisation & £264 was raised for the Residents Fund. Over 60 staff have taken part in the Treasure House Project, a project with the Northern Ireland Museums. This project is about reducing social isolation amongst older people & promoting social inclusion, learning & development of new skills & improving social networks. The Women's Tech Project - In partnership with Women's Tech, the Association delivered a programme called “Tea and Drills” which is a taster programme for those interested in developing skills for employment within the construction industry. This has now developed into an £850,000 funded Programme called SPEC (Supporting People: Empowering Communities), funded by the European Social Fund and Department for Employment & Learning.

The company's learning motto is Be the Best I can. The Cheval Promise is: 30 minutes of learning - every colleague - every week.

As part of their on-going commitment to developing their staff, and ensuring they have the right people to take the business forward, Cestria have created the Stepping into Management Programme for staff who have high performance in their current role along with the ambition and commitment to work towards their first managerial role. The objectives are: To improve internal succession by developing a pool of high potential individuals, to provide a structured, challenging and rewarding development opportunity that will help to develop some of the core skills, knowledge and experience required to be an effective manager. To further enrich the current performance of high performing members of staff a number of their staff are involved in the HDN Mentoring Programme. The Mentoring Programme offers the opportunity for staff members to access an external Mentor for one-to-one professional development support and to attend Mentoring Workshops focused on a variety of career development topics. . As well as the HDN mentoring programme they have also launched an Internal Mentoring Program for staff who would like to mentor or be mentored by existing Cestria staff members. All staff have been given the opportunity to work alongside and gain experience of the role of another individual, and gain an insight into a particular work area through job shadowing. Cestria are keen to support staff to develop skills and/or gain qualifications which contribute to the achievement of agreed personal and career goals. Recently, with the help of funding, 10 people gained a nationally recognised qualification.

The PayBack Foundation Ceridian UK established their own registered charity, The PayBack Foundation, in 1997. Colleagues are passionate about the Charity, as they know that 100% of all donations go directly to PayBack grant recipients. They feel a connection with the charity as the company share the details of where all of the donations go to. The company help local disabled and disadvantaged children! Colleagues are always thinking of bigger, better and more unusual ways of raising funds. In 2015 the company participated in 3 Tough Mudder events, 2 10k runs, a half marathon, Adare to Survive, a 12 hour Boogie4PayBack as well as the more usual cake bakes, small change donations and more. MacMillan Coffee Morning as well as supporting PayBack, Ceridian also supports a number of nationally recognised charitable events. Each year the offices bake cakes for MacMillan coffee morning, with all donations going to this worthy cause.

CDI AndersElite is fully committed to the provision of quality training and development to enable all staff to meet the business goals and objectives. The job mapping templates is a great example of how the organisation supports employee development; they currently have this in place for recruiting / sales function and are in the process of developing for other areas of this business. This enables staff to easily identify where they fall within the job mapping with regards to experience, performance, qualifications and training and where their development areas are which may be requirements for promotion. These ‘gaps' then becomes the basis of their development plan. A huge part of the employee development is through the undertaking and achievement of professional qualifications. The company believe they offer a "Best in Class" training offering as all of their training is delivered by industry leading organisation who are deemed to be the market leaders in their respective field. Year to date over 70 members of staff have undertaken a professional qualification and it is anticipated this figure to grow over the next 12 months. Finally, the company have recently introduced an apprenticeship scheme and have targeted every office with taking on two apprentices. Apprenticeships are a tried and tested way to recruit new staff and provide the company with a future workforce. It encourages a culture of learning and provides a strong foundation to the staff base whilst demonstrating our commitment to employee development at all levels.