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

CDP is an independent innovation partner who has completed over 1,000 product development assignments for businesses around the world. Members of their team are named inventors on many hundreds of patents owned by their customers. The company are based in two of the world's leading centres for science and technology. Their European office is in Cambridge, a city with an 800-year history in science and creative thinking. Their USA office is in Silicon Valley, probably the world's most successful innovation hub. CDP are happy for anyone in the business to hold up the company values as a mirror to any decisions the business makes and to then hold CDP to this account. Staff do this at the annual strategy day forum. This year the company is making several changes to the way they operate in response to this challenge from the staff, for example in their working conditions, structure and training investment.

CDP is an independent innovation partner who has completed over 1,000 product development assignments for businesses around the world. Members of their team are named inventors on many hundreds of patents owned by their customers. The company are based in two of the world's leading centres for science and technology. Their European office is in Cambridge, a city with an 800-year history in science and creative thinking. Their USA office is in Silicon Valley, probably the world's most successful innovation hub. CDP are happy for anyone in the business to hold up the company values as a mirror to any decisions the business makes and to then hold CDP to this account. Staff do this at the annual strategy day forum. This year the company is making several changes to the way they operate in response to this challenge from the staff, for example in their working conditions, structure and training investment.

CC give their people the freedom to pursue the projects that inspire them and to switch from one specialism to the other if that's where they feel they can do their best work. The company have no interest in trying to mould employees to fit a pre-existing role. Instead, they want free-thinking individuals who'll find original solutions to novel problems. On the back of having such unique employees, CC run a 'Nobel prize' scheme to reward extraordinary staff effort and achievement. Anyone in the company can nominate anyone else directly to the CEO, who in turn makes cash awards with an announcement of congratulations in the company's monthly in house magazine.

CC have an open air lounge area, which provides a quiet and tranquil environment for their employees to relax in, either at lunchtime or during other quiet times. The company also host free weekly yoga sessions after work. To ensure that mental health is looked after as much as physical, CC have a free and confidential counselling line available to all their employees 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. CC actively encourage employees to use this service if they are experiencing stress or other difficulties, whether work related or personal. Cycling is very popular and to ensure CC employees are safe whilst cycling to and from work the company provide reflective cycling jackets so they can be seen easily by other road users. They also provide them with drying facilities, showers and freshly laundered towels. CC organise for the bicycle ambulance to visit the site and undertake work on employee's bikes to ensure they are maintained properly and roadworthy. The company also pays for their time and the employees pay for any parts they use. They even provide a cycle workshop for staff to undertake minor repairs during the day and provide spare bulbs and other small items. CC also offer to pay £100 towards new glassed if needed for VDU work, which is in addition to paying for the eyesight test.

Blue Chip Holidays run companywide business updates and smaller team huddles regularly in the middle of the office to encourage communication. They divert the phones and give everyone the opportunity to be there or dial into a conference number; they know its successful because team members come in on their days off. Blue Chip Holidays took the decision to collate their two offices into one and break down the walls to create a big open plan space to help communication and team work. Face to face communication is encouraged rather than phone calls and email.

Blue Chip Holidays run companywide business updates and smaller team huddles regularly in the middle of the office to encourage communication. They divert the phones and give everyone the opportunity to be there or dial into a conference number; they know its successful because team members come in on their days off. Blue Chip Holidays took the decision to collate their two offices into one and break down the walls to create a big open plan space to help communication and team work. Face to face communication is encouraged rather than phone calls and email.

Because Blue Chip Customer Engineering's mission, vision and values are intrinsically inked to all business activities, they are always on the employees' minds. The mission and vision govern the key business objectives that are set out annually and reviewed quarterly. All new starters are educated on the Company's mission and vision during the induction and all employees receive updates on how the objectives are being met throughout the year. The company values, on the other hand, support the employee performance appraisal and personal development plans tools. These are reviewed quarterly for each employee and therefore every three months each employee revisits how they display the company values in their day to day work and interactions with the customers and colleagues.

At Blue Chip Customer Engineering they hold events such as cake sales and dress down days. The company also regularly organise charity activities within the company to raise money and awareness for various charities, including Cancer Research UK, Macmillan Cancer Support, Parkinson's UK and the partner charity Keech Hospice Care, which is local to the business. There is also employee led fundraising activities and the company support and donates to many employees who undertake such work in their own time, such as Pretty Muddy, Wings of Life World Run and Brave the Shave.

BI Worldwide are presently leading the way through a process of refreshing the values and agreeing, through workshops with employees, what behaviours are driven by each of the values. This will ensure full engagement with the behaviours once they are launched. Furthermore this activity is being led by the MD. On a more regular basis, the company's mission, values and vision are embedded in all internal communications, all in-house training and in all briefings delivered by the Managing Director. Employees demonstrating the core values are rewarded through the internal reward recognition scheme, which itself is overtly aligned to the values. Examples of the above are the Internal Intranet, New Starter Inductions, Company Meetings, ENGAGE emails and Questionnaires.

BI Worldwide are presently leading the way through a process of refreshing the values and agreeing, through workshops with employees, what behaviours are driven by each of the values. This will ensure full engagement with the behaviours once they are launched. Furthermore this activity is being led by the MD. On a more regular basis, the company's mission, values and vision are embedded in all internal communications, all in-house training and in all briefings delivered by the Managing Director. Employees demonstrating the core values are rewarded through the internal reward recognition scheme, which itself is overtly aligned to the values. Examples of the above are the Internal Intranet, New Starter Inductions, Company Meetings, ENGAGE emails and Questionnaires.

Recent fundraising initiatives for Baker and McKenzie's two office charities include a Boss in the Box Challenge, quiz night, inter-departmental walking challenge, 4 participants in the London Marathon, a 10k run, Christmas Jumper Day, abseil and a Bake Off. A Volunteer Day is offered to all staff. Departments are encouraged to use their day either as an individual or as part of a team. Recent group initiatives include a day of boat maintenance with Ahoy!, a day of building refurbishment with City Gateway, and a day of garden maintenance at Richard House. The company organise an extensive pro bono legal advice programme - regular clients include Save the Children, UNHCR, NSPCC, Breast Cancer Care, Oxfam, ARK (Absolute Return for Kids). Around 30 staff are involved in regular school-based volunteering and lunchtime volunteering with homeless charity The Connection at St Martin's. The company provide office space to Amicus (UK charity campaigning for justice for US prisoners on Death Row) and also participate in pro bono legal research and casework for the charity. They also support the Albert Kennedy Trust Youth, a homelessness charity supporting LGBT young people in crisis through sponsoring their annual youth conference. This attracts many and provides a mix of skills development workshops, networking and education to help increase confidence and employability. To ensure internal opportunities are actively promoted to disabled young people. In conjunction with the company's Career Ready partnership, they offered a six-week placement to an A-Level student with muscular dystrophy and covered the cost of a carer to travel to London each day. The scheme has significantly enhanced this young person's career aspirations and employability.

Recent fundraising initiatives for Baker and McKenzie's two office charities include a Boss in the Box Challenge, quiz night, inter-departmental walking challenge, 4 participants in the London Marathon, a 10k run, Christmas Jumper Day, abseil and a Bake Off. A Volunteer Day is offered to all staff. Departments are encouraged to use their day either as an individual or as part of a team. Recent group initiatives include a day of boat maintenance with Ahoy!, a day of building refurbishment with City Gateway, and a day of garden maintenance at Richard House. The company organise an extensive pro bono legal advice programme - regular clients include Save the Children, UNHCR, NSPCC, Breast Cancer Care, Oxfam, ARK (Absolute Return for Kids). Around 30 staff are involved in regular school-based volunteering and lunchtime volunteering with homeless charity The Connection at St Martin's. The company provide office space to Amicus (UK charity campaigning for justice for US prisoners on Death Row) and also participate in pro bono legal research and casework for the charity. They also support the Albert Kennedy Trust Youth, a homelessness charity supporting LGBT young people in crisis through sponsoring their annual youth conference. This attracts many and provides a mix of skills development workshops, networking and education to help increase confidence and employability. To ensure internal opportunities are actively promoted to disabled young people. In conjunction with the company's Career Ready partnership, they offered a six-week placement to an A-Level student with muscular dystrophy and covered the cost of a carer to travel to London each day. The scheme has significantly enhanced this young person's career aspirations and employability.

B3Living believe the key to people realising their potential is being self-aware and understanding what motivates them at work; therefore the organisation have adopted a strengths-focused approach to help staff identify what energises them at work and how they can stretch themselves to achieve peak performance. This is a different mind-set to traditional performance management, which is overly reliant on identifying and working on their weaknesses. A key theme for the Chief Executive Joe Chambers is "One team". B3Living use a strengths based tool in their team development to help teams identify individual strengths and how these map into the strength profile of the team. It helps them to identify how an individual can optimise their strength and how they can improve the team's effectiveness. This strengths based approach also aids in the development, plus it benefits the individual, the team and the organisation.

Last October B3Living launched a new annual staff award scheme. The organisation designed a campaign where they asked staff to nominate one another for a “B3Inspiring Award”. After a consultation exercise the Board have recently reaffirmed B3Living's values of being collaborative, respectful, creative, reliable and excellent. They have decided to use these as the categories to be clear that these are the behaviours they prize and want to encourage staff to model. With 50 nominations a team of Senior Managers selected 15 winners. These winners were announced at the staff conference and were presented with a certificate and gift vouchers by the Chair, as well as a special winners pin badge by Anneka Rice. The pin badges are worn with pride on lanyards and have quickly become coveted items! As the winners were announced at an event in front of the entire staffing group the applause and cheers that they got lifted the roof. It proved to be an uplifting and motivational way of rewarding star staff members for their exceptional performance against organisation values.

Through a review of Personal Development Plans and the Senior Management Team identifying potential Managers in the Association, Axiom engaged the services of a local Consultant to deliver an Introduction to Leadership and Management programme. The aim of the programme was to assist participants in gaining the basic knowledge required by a Manager, to develop basic leadership and management skills and to apply the learning to the participant's job so they become more effective. At the end of the programme all participants were given the opportunity to attend one-to-one coaching sessions with the Consultant to identify any particular areas they would like further help to develop and set goals for the next stage in their personal development. Over a two-year period, the Association has helped 20 employees to develop their management skills. At the beginning of each year every employee is set individual and corporate objectives that are reviewed on a regular basis at one-to-one meetings with their Manager. At regular intervals throughout the year The Board Of Management are also given an overview of the Department Plans and progress made in each area of the business.

Axiom have a wealth of community initiatives in place, such as membership of the Homes for Cathy Group, Cardboard Citizens, Bretton Residents Association Group, week of action, every step counts, foodbank collection, volunteering and charity fundraisers. As a member of the Homes for Cathy Group the organisation has been able to contribute to a series of events to mark the 50th anniversary of the first showing of Cathy Come Home back in 1966. The group are highlighting the continuing needs of homeless people in the run-up to the anniversary of Ken Loach's seminal television drama, which highlighted the plight of a homeless family. Axiom is also organising a range of local events and is working with the Cardboard Citizens Theatre Workshop. The organisation is currently walking its way around the world virtually, raising money for Little Miracles and Axiom Homeless Action charities. So far the company have completed 9,225 miles and even managed to stop off at the Rio Olympics! Axiom also developed the Axiom Academy, which includes Skills and Development Centres at supported projects for the homeless. These were set up in recognition that homelessness rarely occurs in isolation and is often associated with poor educational attainment. It has helped to overcome barriers that these individuals face by ensuring that learning takes place in what is effectively their own home.

Although the senior management team are always looking to meet the business goals, they don't compromise the corporate values in order to achieve them. This is regularly demonstrated, whether it be not hiring someone who wouldn't fit with the values of Aspect, doing day trips to far-flung destinations to help out a member of the Sales team at a particularly challenging meeting or getting involved in any of the community and charity events. Aspect's Board members regularly sit in the Staff Hub to have lunch with the wider company and ensure they are listening to issues and they each host two Director Breakfasts every year, these breakfasts are designed to provide an opportunity for staff to ask questions in a comfortable environment. There are usually around 10 attendees. The CTO, Anthony, randomly selects support tasks to take on in order to help out the IT team when they're busy and keep his skills fresh. Anthony has an open door policy, he chairs the weekly Company meeting, gives quarterly updates on progress against the business plan to the whole company and endeavours to introduce himself to new joiners as soon after they start work at Aspect. They also rope in him to push the beer trolley round the office a couple of times a year.

Although the senior management team are always looking to meet the business goals, they don't compromise the corporate values in order to achieve them. This is regularly demonstrated, whether it be not hiring someone who wouldn't fit with the values of Aspect, doing day trips to far-flung destinations to help out a member of the Sales team at a particularly challenging meeting or getting involved in any of the community and charity events. Aspect's Board members regularly sit in the Staff Hub to have lunch with the wider company and ensure they are listening to issues and they each host two Director Breakfasts every year, these breakfasts are designed to provide an opportunity for staff to ask questions in a comfortable environment. There are usually around 10 attendees. The CTO, Anthony, randomly selects support tasks to take on in order to help out the IT team when they're busy and keep his skills fresh. Anthony has an open door policy, he chairs the weekly Company meeting, gives quarterly updates on progress against the business plan to the whole company and endeavours to introduce himself to new joiners as soon after they start work at Aspect. They also rope in him to push the beer trolley round the office a couple of times a year.

This is Ashford Borough Council's second year of choosing a local charity to support. In 2015/16 the organisation supported Pilgrim's Hospice and this year they are supporting Retreat Animal Rescue. ABC's main fundraising event is their annual staff quiz night, where teams pay to join in and local companies donate prizes for the raffle. Last year the organisation raised £600 and this year £700 on this night alone. Staff donate when participating in fun staff events, such as their bubble football tournament. The organisation also participates in the Christmas tree recycling project that Pilgrim's Hospice run every year. ABC's volunteering policy enables staff to take one day per year to work with a local organisation of their choice. The organisation employs a member of staff to run a Job Club every Monday and will support any resident that is actively looking for work through this. They provide advice on interview skills and techniques, courses and training, support with job searching, voluntary work and job applications, plus careers advice and CV workshops. ABC also work closely with a local charity called Porchlight and fund a part time dedicated member of staff to work with and assist homeless people in Ashford (often including ex-offenders and those recovering from addiction). This year ABC has contributed £30k towards this.

Ashford Borough Council recognise the importance of physical, emotional and financial wellbeing. They run financial seminars, highlight the importance of good mental health and encourage physical activity. Each month their staff magazine has a ‘Wellbeing Wonders' article, which focuses on a different aspect of wellness. Every Spring they also conduct a ‘Workplace Wellness Week'. This year this included mini health checks, mindfulness sessions, cycle checks, free massages, encouragement to take part in ‘On your feet Britain day', body blast classes, information about Mental Health Awareness Week and a lunchtime run. Staff receive a discounted gym membership and every month a company comes and offers staff discounted wellness treatments over the lunch period, from massages to reflexology. They also offer smoking cessation courses annually. ABC's Employee Assistance Programme provides a proactive approach to wellbeing and the organisation also offer face-to-face counselling too (eight sessions and including CBT), couples counselling and telephone counselling for family members. ABC Identify all workplace stressors and conduct risk assessments to eliminate or control the risk from stress. These risk assessments are also regularly reviewed by Managers.