What are companies doing with regards to 'Giving Something Back'

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Financial Services

Shepherds Friendly

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A group was set up for parents during the pandemic so they could share ideas on home-schooling and keeping their youngsters entertained. Letters and sweets were sent to the children, thanking them for supporting their parents while they worked from home.

The mutual's employee rewards include performance-related bonuses and pay rises, extra holiday on birthdays and instant recognition awards. Sometimes staff do something that deserves an immediate response, so managers are able to offer on-the-spot rewards such as chocolates and gift vouchers.

Shepherds is working on making the business kinder to the environment. Initiatives include ordering fruit from a company that promises to plant a tree for every basket purchased. The number of letters sent out last year was 14,000 fewer than in 2019, thanks to digitised communications.

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Recruitment

Severn Angels Healthcare

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Management performance is assessed on a six-monthly basis. The key performance indicators include: rate of productivity, response rate to feedback, relationships with external interested parties, working environment of the organisation, planning and risk management, and amount of profit.

Every team member was asked to contribute to the weekly Zoom meetings and the company took their comments into account when planning or implementing policies. This helped to ensure wellbeing was monitored so action could be taken if anyone was struggling to cope with work or the challenges of Covid-19.

The company supports Severn Angels Housing & Support, a charity that provides accommodation and support for homeless people to enable them to be more independent. It focuses particularly on women in the West Midlands and Worcestershire. Staff have organised fundraising raffles and donated clothes.

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Scarf

The senior management team lead by example, by living the organisation's values and principles. They demonstrate this through their behaviour and how they interact with staff. They have a friendly, honest and open approach and staff have regular opportunities to engage with them and ask them questions.

Scarf has introduced a further learning support policy which encourages staff to take courses that lead to a recognised educational or professional qualification. The organisation loans employees up to £1,000 in course fees.

Last year, Scarf set up a support fund for householders struggling with fuel debt. The Heat Fund has distributed more than £7,000 to help residents heat their homes, mainly through buying prepayment meter credit.

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Not For Profit Body's

Salix Finance

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To help staff return to the office, Salix hired parking spaces near its HQ to allow those with a car to drive in. Also it gave staff a £500 bonus to put towards something to help their mental wellbeing, such as yoga classes, while transitioning from working from home.

Salix has an unusually high number of female employees: the chief executive and 60% of the managers throughout the organisation are women. Just over a quarter of staff are from BAME backgrounds, with the workforce including staff from all over the world.

Staff were allowed to spend at least one day a week volunteering to help local individuals and community groups during the pandemic. The chief executive clocked up 280 hours of being available to shop and collect medicines for vulnerable adults who were sheltering.

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Technology

risual

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Fortunately, risual did not have to make any Covid-related redundancies, and staff on furlough – whose pay was topped up to 100% – remained actively engaged with the business via team meetings, company update calls and daily catch-ups, along with investment in their personal development. All colleagues took part in virtual social events too, such as quizzes and competitions.

With the 2020 Olympics postponed the virtual risual Olympics was born, formed of cross-divisional teams that sparked communication. The company encouraged all employees to be mentally and physically active during the pandemic, hosting varied activities from running, walking and cycling to reading books, watching films and a guess the baby challenge.

The risual founders took the company's social responsibility a step further in 2020, forming a charitable foundation. Work towards its aim of giving back to people, communities and businesses has already begun with the launch a careers club, designed to help people get back into work by deploying risual employees' knowledge and experience.

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Utilities

Recycling Technologies

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Recycling Technologies has a lot of staff from overseas with no family in the UK, so the company provided support such as food deliveries and information about local activities they could enjoy during lockdown. Staff on furlough had a buddy to stay in contact with.

An apprenticeship scheme was launched during the pandemic, with seven recruits in the first cohort. The company ran virtual internships over the summer for 12 students and took on seven one-year placement students. Each staff member has a training budget that can be spent on professional courses or academic qualifications.

Recycling Technologies has changed its internet search engine to Ecosia, which spends 80% of its profits on planting trees in some of the harshest environments on Earth. During lockdown, the company supported local care homes with a postcard scheme for residents who could not receive visitors.

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Recruitment

Randstad UK

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In December Randstad launched a weekly lockdown wellbeing programme which includes managers forums on wellbeing topics and expert speaker sessions on issues such as resilience, stress, bereavement, and financial wellbeing. It also runs peer forums on topics such as working parents and lone workers.

Randstad offers attractive salaries and a competitive commission structure for recruitment consultants. For shared service/head office employees, it offers a bonus scheme ranging between 2.5% - 7.5% of total annual salary. Other perks include a medical cash plan, income protection, gym membership discounts, discounted cinema tickets and your birthday off.

Randstad has banned plastic cups at its head office and has provided all employees with a reusable travel cup to cut down waste. Its printing suppliers are committed to balancing out its environmental impact by planting trees and have planted 1,000 “Randstad” trees last year, reducing the firm's carbon footprint.

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Utilities

Pure Planet

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Pure Planet provided full IT kit for those who needed it during lockdown, and even paid for desks in some cases. Once the initial lockdown lifted 10% of employees could come into the office, under safe social distancing guidelines, if they wanted a change of scenery or peace away from flatmates or family. Everyone gets the same parental leave and pay – regardless of gender, identity or sexual orientation, or whichever way they become a parent.

Along with an employee assistance programme and trained mental health first aiders Pure Planet has a Slack channel focused purely on mental, physical and financial wellbeing. Resilience-building videos by an external trainer and free remote yoga sessions have been offered company-wide. 80% of staff took part in a virtual walk from London to Lapland, adding their steps daily to a calculating app.

Pure Planet pays to carbon offset the commute of all employees – a policy that has remained in spite of the transition to remote working since March 2020. Company benefits are environmentally friendly, such a cycle-to-work scheme that includes e-bikes, a green car leasing scheme that supplies only electric vehicles and hybrids and an ethical pension fund.

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Financial Services

Premier

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A management development programme, which was delivered in person helped leaders evaluate their own performance and strengthen their skills. Our online platform offers modules to support managers lead hybrid teams and support all employees with their wellbeing. All managers are provided with annual employment law training from our solicitor at JEL.

In the last staff survey in December 2020, 95% of staff agreed senior leaders provide a clear vision of the direction of Premier and 97% agreed they understood the company values of integrity, efficiency, and trust. CEO Alastair Aird says he has “never worked with a leadership group that trusts each other so implicitly”.

Premier raised funds during the first lockdown for the Cavell Nurses Trust, the charity supporting UK nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants, both working and retired, when they're suffering a personal or financial crisis often due to illness, disability, domestic abuse and the impact of the coronavirus.

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Marketing & Media Agencies

Potato

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The company is passionate about creating digital products that are truly purposeful and effective, and the contribution of individual Spuds is regularly acknowledged. Potato also says: “As our head of the business, MD Phil Wright has been a rock, and he and our leadership team have received much positive feedback.”

Benefits include an enhanced pension scheme; Bupa; an employee assistance programme; and access to NABS, the support organisation for the advertising and media industry. Parental leave is above statutory; there is life assurance and group protection insurance; and corporate accounts cover wellbeing and mindfulness coaching by the likes of Headspace and Fidlleaf.

Potato donated food to NHS Heroes at University College London and matched staff donations to several funds in the wake of the death of George Floyd. It continues to support and promote black-owned organisations and initiatives through the agency's online presence

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