Giving Something Back - The extent to which employees feel their organisation has a positive impact on society
Giving Something Back focuses on the organisation’s social responsibilities. If key factors such as ‘Leadership’ and ‘My Manager’ are performing well, it can influence the improvement of all the other factors, boosting your overall engagement.
Continuous learning and development are an integral part of the culture at OAG where managers act as mentors helping staff to gain professional skills or relevant experience and everyone is encouraged to dedicate one paid day per month for self-development.
In addition to weekly wellbeing webinars and regular wellbeing surveys the firm organised a wide range of fun events to boost team spirit with virtual activities including horse racing, a Family Fortunes game show, photo competitions, a Quarantine Kitchen OAG cook-a-long, and quiz nights.
Throughout the pandemic OAG has continued to support charities by taking part in virtual fundraising events including a week long Christmas Jumper Day for Save the Children where staff were encouraged to get creative and jazz up an old jumper to help the environment and children at the same time.
During the pandemic the company introduced the Naked Treat Box, as a way of boosting community and rewarding one another. Everyone gets to nominate one person every quarter and write them a message of appreciation which goes in the box containing locally sourced goodies.
Every year Naked Wines sends six budding future leaders on a four day Happy Leadership course. Two employees who attended the course have since been promoted to Head of Partnerships and Head of Continuous Improvement. Two rising stars have been supported to study for an MBA at the local university.
Employees get one day paid leave a year to support the local community from volunteering to giving blood and cleaning up local beaches. It also raises money every month for winemaker Carmen Stevens to run a soup kitchen for disadvantaged children in South Africa.
Moneypenny still runs on the family ethos embedded by its sibling co-founders. Everyone treats each other with the same respect, from director to visiting delivery driver. Everyone rolls up their sleeves: from CEO Joanna Swash manning reception or CTO Pete Hanlon picking up laptops for people when everyone moved to remote working.
The company had an 81.5% internal promotion rate last year, with 103 new roles created, of which 84 were filled internally. Moneypenny says: “We learnt so much from our last survey in 2018, which highlighted a concern by staff about personal development. We launched our Leadership Development Programme and 163 people participated in 2020.”
Company co-founder Rachel Clacher set up national charity WeMindTheGap to provide support and opportunities for young people. Moneypenny adopted 26 different species of animals and raised £1,170 after a Chester Zoo appeal and its charity committee, Raising Pennies, gave £1,000 to a local foodbank, hospital and the Salvation Army.
The recruiter sees its business success as intrinsically linked to its ability to attract, develop and retain brilliant people. Each manager is measured and compensated against a selection of criteria, which includes their ability to achieve this – and the company is constantly looking to improve.
The company relaunched its values during lockdown with none of the management team or board involved in setting the tone of the organisation. These are strength in diversity, stronger together, challenging the status quo, and we never settle – a commitment to exceptional delivery.
Wilton & Bain helped to raise funds to provide laptops to needy children for home-schooling during lockdown. Many families didn't have access to the basic equipment that was required, with Ofcom estimating that more than 1m children weren't able to get hold of a laptop, desktop or tablet at home.
In the Know' sessions take place weekly with a different presenter, either internal or external, doing a 30-minute presentation on a specific area. This is used for knowledge transfer and product overviews, and allows employees to get some insight into areas of the business they may be less familiar with.
The online resource EAP Care first is available to all employees, offering information and advice on a wide range of personal and workplace issues. Liquidlogic staff can also access Healix private healthcare for medical support as part of their benefits package.
In line with the firm's environmental policy, staff are encouraged to keep printing to a minimum, turn off electrical items when not in use and use the air conditioning responsibly. Energy saving lightbulbs are fitted throughout the offices and waste is sorted for recycling.
Managers send weekly status reports to the senior team and directors. Manager, customer and staff feedback is taken seriously. Last year the company set out a five-year strategy, outlining where it was going and how everyone had a part to play in getting it there.
The senior management team is heavily involved in talent nurturing, supporting career growth and development by mentoring employees and allowing everyone to reach their full potential. It also promotes family-friendly working hours, including flexible working, which was appreciated by staff during the pandemic.
Learning Pool is committed to behaving ethically, focusing on its local communities and on the development of continuous environmental initiatives to reduce its carbon footprint. As an online enterprise, it empowers customers to help create a more sustainable world by using its technology.
The firm created a new job title for its 30 secretaries who were feeling undervalued. In collaboration with them, it came up with a title that worked better for them and a pathway that formalised progression.
Kilburn & Strode is working on a transparent pay grid for its team of IP administrators. Last Easter all staff received a £25 gift card to buy something that would enhance their wellbeing.
Last year, the firm partnered with The Access Project, which helps disadvantaged young people gain access to university. Staff volunteer as tutors. The project found the programme boosted GCSE results by more than half a grade in the tutored subject and increased the chances of getting a place at a top university four-fold.
KGA implements the relevant actions that it gathers from each company survey. The last survey that was run was a feedback questionnaire on the KGA Community, where employees were able to share their thoughts on current communication strategies and on what they would like to see. This resulted in newsletters providing more uplifting content.
All employees receive a bonus based on personal and company achievements. In addition to this, all sales employees have an incentive scheme and earn commission payments based on their sales. To keep KGA people safe everyone completed a home-working risk assessment and there were appropriate Covid-19 evaluations for the office.
The Kenneth and Susan Green Charitable Foundation was formed about 10 years ago and KGA is a long-term partner of Look Good Feel Better, an international charity that provides free workshops and services for individuals struggling with the visual effects of cancer treatment. Kenneth has served on the Board of Trustees for over 25 years.
The Leadership Development Programme is Karmarama's flagship training scheme, developed in-house by the HR team. It is designed to help managers build and develop their personal leadership skills and always receives fantastic feedback. The agency plans to roll it out again this year, virtually.
The weekly Assembly (all-hands meeting) was digitised from week one of the pandemic, so all staff members heard CEO Ben Bilboul and other business leaders deliver a combination of light-hearted announcements and presentations, as well as more serious business topics.
In 2020, an survey showed that colleagues wanted to see Karmarama do more to fight the climate crisis. So Green Karma – with a goal to minimise the company's impact on the world and maximise efforts for the world – was formed. With the support of the, Green Karma committed the business to be net carbon-zero by 2025.
Through the pandemic, the leadership team has provided daily updates as well as weekly catch-ups for those on furlough. It has provided additional training for furloughed staff to help them keep active and avoid mental health decline. Their salaries were also topped up to 100%.
For its software and development teams, iVendi listened to feedback and chose to conduct a trial on remote working for the foreseeable future. This means that half of the company's workforce is now remote working and it appears to be working well.
Two days of paid leave have been offered to employees to volunteer in the local community and there has been a big uptake during the pandemic. One volunteer spent the time building a website for a charity to give them online presence. The company facilitated staff donations to food banks as well as providing toys.
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