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.
When a director joins the company they spend time on the shopfloor getting to know the business and meeting people across all sites for a wider understanding of the business and to increase approachability. All senior managers post updates and interesting facts about their roles on the in-house platforms.
Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Yapster, its in-house comms platform, were useful tools in helping drive engagement while the bulk of the Flat Iron workforce was on furlough. Weekly quizzes, Zoom Friday beer meetings and cooking competitions with everyone voting for their favourite dish became a weekly event.
Pre-pandemic, Flat Iron had selected Bread and Water for Africa, which helps to provide food, education and healthcare to some of the world's most deprived and vulnerable children, as its lead charity. Its second principal good cause was Cool Earth, which fights climate change – the company being conscious that beef production is part of the story.
Fair Ways believes the key to successful, motivated and engaged teams is having an inspiring and supportive leader. In addition to the management development training programme, which includes external training and coaching sessions, there are regular drop in masterclasses on topics from culture and supporting organisational change to coaching for managers.
During lockdown in place of the usual monthly staff lottery which has a £100 prize, Fair Ways introduced a quarterly lottery where employees can win a £1,000 for a holiday of their choice. Staff can also now choose how they would best like to work in the future.
During the pandemic Fair Ways set up internal and external Help Squads to support vulnerable members of staff and the local community. Fair Ways staff helped colleagues or their families with shopping and picking up prescriptions and organised the donation of over 1,000 items to local food banks.
After carrying out a project on collaboration within the business, in which every employee had their say, it launched multiple communication channels. It found some people preferred to listen at work and others to discuss, some to read and others to watch, and adapted its approach accordingly.
Mental and physical wellbeing have been at the centre of everything Everflow has done for its employees since the pandemic began. Mental health courses, informal virtual get-togethers and quizzes were supplemented by a cycle-to-work scheme and encouraging exercise during daylight hours for those working from home.
The company calculates that by being exclusively paperless, it avoids using 2 million pieces of paper a year on traditional billing and envelopes. It also helps the environment by providing smart meters and giving advice to customers on saving water and preventing blockages.
For the first time, Equinix has been named as one of Fortune Magazine's Most Admired Companies – those with the strongest corporate reputations based on a poll of top executives, directors and analysts. Its EBX (Employee Business Exchange) forum enables nominated representatives to discuss strategies and ensure transparent, effective communication with employees.
Staff interest groups quickly sprang up on Yammer with people sharing personal moments, fun photos, and, of course, communicating about the business. Zoom quizzes and virtual drinks continued hallway conversations. The MD hosts two coffee catch-ups a week with his team and encourages others to do the same.
This year Equinix donated a total of £54,339 to 205 good causes. Food was gifted to The Chapel in Surrey, which went to 150 families; staff backed a joint project between St Mary's Church in Ash Vale and a local coronavirus support group; and raised nearly £1,500 in October's Race Against Hunger.
The Women at EngageTech group was launched to reflect the growing number of females in the business. As well as a chat channel for regular socials and catch-up calls the group meets once a month to discuss relevant issues and more women are consequently now involved in late stage interviews.
The new Mental Health & Wellbeing Committee organise activities including cooking, book clubs, yoga and strength classes and Strava running and cycling clubs with prizes as incentives. Employees are also encouraged to use their flexi-time to get away from their desks and go on walks and runs.
During the pandemic EngageTech staff were given time off to support the NHS volunteer scheme, delivering medicines and acting as a social point of contact for people shielding. For Mental Health Month employees picked a daily fitness challenge and secured sponsorship, raising more than £5,000 for various mental health charities.
A RISE values system – do the Right thing; make a positive Impact; keep it Simple; and always Evolve – shapes the EKM culture and attract the best new talent, recruited mainly using job boards, LinkedIn, and by scouting Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduate fairs.
Employees can recognise their colleagues in a “Wheel of Heroes” initiative, to tell them how appreciated it was when they helped out. Names go into a draw and the winner gets to spin the Wheel of Heroes for prizes of anything from £1 toilet roll to £100 or a day's holiday.
EKM has donated to various charities over the past year, including Save the Children. The company also works closely with local schools and CEO Antony has given speeches by video link to classes on building your own business.
Training has been ongoing throughout the pandemic and has included virtual continuing professional development sessions, seminars, Lessons Learnt and best practice workshops. EDGE has focussed on sharing short lessons delivered by different disciplines, sectors and individual team members and all employees have been actively encouraged to identify topics for training.
A 120 day free subscription to Peloton was offered during the national lockdown, giving staff access to online classes from yoga to boot camp. Social activities from WhatsApp office group chat/jokes, to virtual quizzes, running and cycling, virtual after work drinks and breakfast clubs have helped boost health and wellbeing.
In addition to fundraising, staff are involved in a range of community and volunteering activities. During the pandemic, one member of staff volunteered for night shifts as part of the team constructing The NHS Nightingale Hospital in Birmingham and another served as a sergeant in The Special Constabulary.
The Society held its annual awards night in May via Zoom and sent everyone a box of treats to enjoy during the evening and even roped in the partners of Employee of the Year and Manager of the Year to surprise them with champagne and flowers.
The Society launched a wellbeing campaign, challenging staff to doing 30 minutes of exercise for 30 days, creating some healthy competition and it also provided weekly open Tea and Talk sessions with an independent counsellor. Support is also available from 14 mental health first aiders.
Employees responded to the local NHS Heroes campaign by putting together care packages for their local hospital and each branch supported one care home locally sending a box of goodies to entertain and treat the residents. Employees have also been supporting the vulnerable in the community.
The company encourages employees to gain chartership or industry-recognised qualifications. Staff are offered support and 1:1 sessions, with defined goals and objectives set. Those who wish to develop to leadership level can apply for bespoke training to achieve this. Formal appraisals include cloudThing's own CRM performance metrics evaluation.
Regular check-ins and events keeping teams connected include after-work virtual pubs and games, a book club, and wellbeing and yoga sessions. Managers' wellness is also not neglected. Team leaders have a direct comms support channel for personal and workplace conversations with the board and their peers.
All the in-date food, coffee and tea that was left behind when people started home-working was donated to a Black Country foodbank. cloudThing aims to achieve ISO:14001 certification by the end of 2022 and to be carbon neutral, both in itself and in the services it supplies, in five year's time.
To spread some Christmas cheer, the firm held an online Christmas party which involved a wine tasting for employees and their partners. All employees also received a hamper, a John Lewis voucher and a thank you note in appreciation of their hard work in 2020.
To boost morale, get people together and help support each other and share experiences, employees set up a range of fitness, cooking and cake-making clubs. People can drop in to Weekly Cake Tuesday on Teams, an open forum for staff to share news.
Employees volunteered their time to help out in the kitchen at Winchester Churches Nightshelter on a regular basis last year. At Christmas, Clevertouch employees also raised £250 to provide the residents of two moving-on homes with everything they needed for a festive feast.
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