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

Arthouse use various mechanisms to ensure that their messages are communicated throughout the business. They have many projects running at any one time and ensure that they include various areas of expertise to run the project in order to bring both a different skill set but also help people to learn about more areas of the business. They feel that this helps to reinforce their messages of communication and growth/development as Arthouse are constantly testing people to learn different things and instilling in them the nature of their business. Arthouse operate a top down communication chain whereby they proliferate key messages from Board to Management Team Meeting to Wider Management Team Meeting to Team Meeting to 1:2:1's to Individual Projects/Individuals. Twice a month, they run briefings whereby the whole business is presented to from one/a couple employees. Arthouse task each of these presenters with sharing knowledge about the business and the area they work within and thus underpinning the culture of open communication that they have here in the business. They have very keen on encouraging activity within the Social side of the business. Using mechanisms such as Yammer they have been able to embrace the social scene even more and encourage the fun in the workplace. Arthouse run a quarterly company newsletter which they fill with messages from all parts of the business and from all of their principles. They operate approximately 16 away days per year across the whole company where staff are offsite completely for focussed workshops.

Arthouse use various mechanisms to ensure that their messages are communicated throughout the business. They have many projects running at any one time and ensure that they include various areas of expertise to run the project in order to bring both a different skill set but also help people to learn about more areas of the business. They feel that this helps to reinforce their messages of communication and growth/development as Arthouse are constantly testing people to learn different things and instilling in them the nature of their business. Arthouse operate a top down communication chain whereby they proliferate key messages from Board to Management Team Meeting to Wider Management Team Meeting to Team Meeting to 1:2:1's to Individual Projects/Individuals. Twice a month, they run briefings whereby the whole business is presented to from one/a couple employees. Arthouse task each of these presenters with sharing knowledge about the business and the area they work within and thus underpinning the culture of open communication that they have here in the business. They have very keen on encouraging activity within the Social side of the business. Using mechanisms such as Yammer they have been able to embrace the social scene even more and encourage the fun in the workplace. Arthouse run a quarterly company newsletter which they fill with messages from all parts of the business and from all of their principles. They operate approximately 16 away days per year across the whole company where staff are offsite completely for focussed workshops.

Managers work the closest to their teams, so they need to be able to have supportive conversations and look out for signs of stress or a general change in their behaviour; therefore Managers regularly have effective one to one's with their colleagues. The company also provide an Employee Assistance Programme for counselling, as well as all round physical and mental health care through health assessments. This covers areas such as weight, blood pressure, nutrition and diabetes. At these appointments employees also discuss exercise plans either for the gym or at home and ARM also signpost them to their Physiotherapist if required. The company also provide resilience training to help people cope during stressful times. ARM are also currently working on a wellbeing intranet page, where all global information will be held here, for example EAP, charities, daily desk exercises, mindfulness and a place where people can leave an anonymous questions if they don't want to talk about their stress to their Line Manager or the People team.

ARM support over 170 organisations in their communities. In 2015, the company donated £2,297,285 to community initiatives at varying scales around the world, from large projects with UNICEF to supporting small local charities. This represents 56% of their total cash and time corporate responsibility spending. ARM support a range of different charities with the purpose of supporting those most in need, including homelessness, addition, poverty, abuse and mental health. In particular their work in the UK with The Prince's Trust saw more than 80 ARM people volunteering a total of 345 hours during the first year of a new partnership, helping to inspire some of the UK's most disadvantaged young people through STEM. Colleagues helped deliver motivational 'Get Started with Technology' courses, 'Workplace Insight' days and 'Presentation Skills' workshops. 'Get Started With Technology' helped support 111 young people to take on immersive learning projects in areas ranging from robotics to apps and also transformed their prospects in life by building key employability skills and confidence.

Adviza are currently fundraising for Help for Harry, who is the son of an employee who has Duchene's Muscular Dystrophy. The family need adaptations made to the home to help Harry live there comfortably, so the company have undertaken a number of activities to support this fundraising. Towards the end of 2015 Adviza also set up 'Against the Grain', a furniture upcycling social enterprise to support young people who are NEET. These young people have very limited opportunities for progression and due to low academic achievement and limited basic skills are unable to find work. The organisation's social enterprise employs them on a traineeship where they learn carpentry, upholstery, painting and sewing skills in order to produce beautifully restored furniture. Furthermore, Adviza have recently recruited two prisoners to join their staff team. Whilst finishing their sentence they are working with the organisation on providing support to their fellow prisoners on opportunities for training within the prison, as well as employment and training post release.

The CEO delivers a session on the Adviza Vision and Values at all inductions for new staff. She also telephones five staff each week to find out how they are getting on in their job and listens to any feedback about the organisation. She even sends emails, cards and notes to thank staff for excellent work that demonstrates the organisational values. The CEO and Chair did a roadshow for staff to launch the Adviza five Year Strategic Plan. Other senior staff ensure that they are visible and accessible to all staff. They are very approachable and staff feel able to contact them directly at any time. The CEO and Senior Managers also have a positive relationship with the relevant Trades Union, working with them informally to identify particular issues and consulting through the appropriate committee structure when appropriate.

The Breathe Team are responsible for the Social Investment Fund 'breathe investment grants', or ‘BIG's', where funding is available to small scale community projects across all the neighbourhoods up to a maximum of £2000. Since the fund was introduced Adactus have supported over 750 community projects, totalling in excess of £800,000. This year the company has £225,000 available to bid for across the Adactus Group. Each project must demonstrate how it supports a specific theme and the applications are judged by Adactus residents through the Adactus500. The company's Environmental Budgets support a number of community projects, such as community gardens, allotments and biodiversity projects such as Bee Keeping. Adactus hold different dress down days within the company to support a range of charities. They have completed food bank collections and sponsored sporting events, such as the Wigan 10K and Born Survivor to raise money for an Employee's son who required a sports wheelchair. The company's giving nature is uncapped, with 30 packs being made up for a local school to deliver to another school in Sowetto and 300 shoeboxes being delivered to a Manchester homeless charity. Adactus's employability programme ‘Step Forward' is to support residents and their families into training, employment and learning. The company is engaged in a range of programmes to tackle worklessness both internally and with other providers for their general needs housing stock, hostels and supported housing. The Adactus Young Unemployed Persons Project, jobs clubs, gradate schemes, apprenticeships and a work experience programme all add to Adactus's continued commitment to getting people into employment, with the team taking referrals directly from residents and also from other departments.

Having recognised that due to their roles within the business 200 remote workers didn't have access to the company intranet, which contains employee news stories, events, interesting articles and topics, Adactus's marketing team developed a Newsletter which is now emailed to remote employees on a monthly basis. The company's Equality Street Team also meets regularly and is designed to champion equality and diversity within the business. They meet to agree events and to come up with innovative ideas to ensure people are aware of their responsibilities. The events mentioned have included a transgender person coming into the group to discuss their experiences of the process and how friends and colleagues can support them, holding a Cake Stall at the Guide Dogs Open Day, visits to a local Mosque, Coin Counting at Trafford Centre and tenants from projects making Aids Awareness ribbons to sell within the workforce Education packs for a school in Sowetto. To help promote their Equality Street Group and show their support of the LGBT community everyone took part in the Manchester Pride event this year. Adactus had a walking entry made up of 40 employees and their friends and family from across the organisation. To promote the event afterwards a video from the day was play at the CEO briefing sessions, which everyone within the company attends twice a year. Along with this Adactus have the CEO monthly newsletter, voice meetings, Senior Management lunches and employee lunches with the Senior Team. The Asset Management department has a lot of lone workers who the company likes to bring together as much as possible in the form of awaydays, so they can meet with their colleagues, share their experiences and receive communication and updates. The last one was fun based to try and ensure interaction between different trade groups. It even had a sports day theme, with people competing against one another in a range of events.

4Com plc's Senior Management Team have been part of the organisation for many years and still like to promote a family feel, despite a continuous increase in its staff base. There is a constant commitment to engagement at all levels and rewarding staff for the contribution towards the success of the business. The business has a culture of 'Excellence at Everything' and there is always the investment of funding or other resource-support for training, research and development, as well as any infrastructure required to do the very best they can. The Best Companies survey acts as a benchmark regarding engagement and wellbeing of staff is at the forefront of everything 4com do. The monthly 'Free Food Friday', company update and staff awards engage staff at all levels and the lunch that follows gives them exposure to senior management. The Chairman and MD Daron Hutt was present at Tough Mudder South West to witness 41 members of his staff tackle the gruelling course for charity, seeing first-hand the camaraderie and all-round effort required to be successful. Every three months a video card is produced and posted to employees and their families detailing the company's achievements over the last quarter, what the next quarter holds and any charity/community updates. This is particularly useful for those remote workers who rarely get the opportunity to attend the 'Free Food Fridays'.

4Com plc's Senior Management Team have been part of the organisation for many years and still like to promote a family feel, despite a continuous increase in its staff base. There is a constant commitment to engagement at all levels and rewarding staff for the contribution towards the success of the business. The business has a culture of 'Excellence at Everything' and there is always the investment of funding or other resource-support for training, research and development, as well as any infrastructure required to do the very best they can. The Best Companies survey acts as a benchmark regarding engagement and wellbeing of staff is at the forefront of everything 4com do. The monthly 'Free Food Friday', company update and staff awards engage staff at all levels and the lunch that follows gives them exposure to senior management. The Chairman and MD Daron Hutt was present at Tough Mudder South West to witness 41 members of his staff tackle the gruelling course for charity, seeing first-hand the camaraderie and all-round effort required to be successful. Every three months a video card is produced and posted to employees and their families detailing the company's achievements over the last quarter, what the next quarter holds and any charity/community updates. This is particularly useful for those remote workers who rarely get the opportunity to attend the 'Free Food Fridays'.

ZPG's Leadership Team are heavily involved in the induction process for new starters. The CFO attends the company's Sales Conference and helps the remote teams understand the values, focus and mission of the business. The Leadership team also run, "An audience with..." sessions, which help provide those who are interested with a greater understanding of, and insight into, other areas of the business and is great way for those within the Leadership team to share their knowledge. The HR Team, including the Group HR Director, have designed and run a first day induction to help staff understand the company's culture, values and ways of working so they can quickly integrate into the company. To ensure they hire people who fit their culture and values and develop onward through their career they utilise a psychometric tool, which provides us with indepth profiling and interview questions.

Staff have access to fresh fruit and healthy snacks in both kitchen areas. They also offer ergonomic office furniture and IT equipment to ensure everyone is comfortable in their working space. Yoga and Pilates classes are offered onsite to all staff 3 times a week. The company also has a football team.

Zone encourages a collaborative culture, where open conversation is at the heart of what they do. As a result of growth over the last 12 months they have placed a huge emphasis on making office space as dynamic as possible. A newly acquired state-of-the-art office for the Bristol team has provided a fun, open-plan space which has helped shape the Bristol team's identity and boost morale. They have redesigned the London office to create more breakout spaces and informal meeting spaces. In both locations, a large kitchen space and numerous meeting spaces have encouraged more regular informal interaction between teams. This year they also launched an internal instant messaging portal, powered by Slack, which all employees have signed up to and are encouraged to use across teams and locations to encourage constant knowledge sharing and team interaction.

All staff use TimeZone, the proprietary timesheeting and project management tool, to record the projects they are working on. This gives the company a real-time overview of everyone's workload, giving managers and the leadership team a good overview of any challenges to work/ life balance. TimeZone is also used to generate all of our project estimates and resource implications, which gives good forward visibility about resource requirements. They use this data to inform freelance and permanent recruitment strategies, and where unusually heavy demands are unavoidable, they offer time off in lieu. Also offered wellbeing benefits such as healthcare, bike-to-work scheme, on-site massage, early finish every pay day and winter flu jab which is taken up by over 70% of staff. They provide fruit, toast and a coffee machine in the kitchens, alongside FairTrade coffee, organic milk and herbal teas.

The second Wellbeing Event organised by YourCash was held in October 2014 for all employees. The company invited a number of guest speakers from various companies to talk to staff about their wellbeing needs. The event ran over three days with different topics and guests attending each day. The topics included; blood pressure checks, general lifestyle advice, stress management and counselling, nutrition advice, health coaching, holistic health coaching, Confidence with colours advice and belly dancing sessions. Healthy breakfast snacks were available throughout the three day event to all staff. The feedback received from employees regarding this event was very positive. Following on from our Wellbeing Event held in October 2014 the employee feedback gathered was that staff would like to have a series of sessions. Therefore, we engaged the services of a Life and Fitness Coach for a 12 week period earlier this year to provide weekly talks twice a week, on site, on a range of life and fitness issues. The topics covered included: Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner ideas, Goal setting, Desk Exercises, The importance of Protein, Natural Living, Office Nutrition, Stress Management, Positive Thinking, To do Lists, Top Apps, Gadets and Tools, Why Core is important, Why it is important to move while at work, The importance of sleep, The Importance of calories and How to deal with things when they are not going well. Overall feedback received from those employees who attended the sessions was very positive with a number of people deciding to sign up with the coach to continue their fitness and lifestyle programme in their own time.

YourCash provides all staff with the opportunity to be rewarded and recognised on a monthly basis. The unique approach awards 100% attendance for staff. This reward consists of entering all employees with 100% attendance within that month into a prize draw for a ‘Recognition Award'. An employee is randomly picked to have an additional paid half day holiday in addition to their normal standard holiday entitlement. This reward is announced through an email to the winning employee and to the rest of the company.

In June this year YCH took part in a #ChallengeYCH scheme. In support of the charity, Mencap, a 5 day challenge of soil clearing, wall mending, tree cutting, fence erecting and flagstone laying commenced to create a new area for the children and adults who use the centre. Over 30 staff were involved at some stage of the project often working way beyond their contracted hours to ensure the challenge was successfully completed. Mencap have congratulated YCH on having improved the lives of those who attend the centre. The YCH Sports Bursary Scheme has been launched this year to provide funding support for people within our communities who may be excluded from sporting activities for reasons of cost. Potential beneficiaries may include individuals who are wishing to engage in a sporting activity for the first time, or those who are already established within their sport but are hoping to progress to a higher level. The objective of the Bursary Scheme is to provide support to those who are prevented from achieving these objectives, due to their personal financial limitations. Most recently a member of staff has asked members of YCH to support the charity, Young Epilepsy. The staff member has a personal connection to the charity and his request has been fully embraced by the CEO who is personally promoting the work of the charity and selling the charities goods to raise funds. The CEO has selected this this charity for his next marathon.

In June this year YCH took part in a #ChallengeYCH scheme. In support of the charity, Mencap, a 5 day challenge of soil clearing, wall mending, tree cutting, fence erecting and flagstone laying commenced to create a new area for the children and adults who use the centre. Over 30 staff were involved at some stage of the project often working way beyond their contracted hours to ensure the challenge was successfully completed. Mencap have congratulated YCH on having improved the lives of those who attend the centre. The YCH Sports Bursary Scheme has been launched this year to provide funding support for people within our communities who may be excluded from sporting activities for reasons of cost. Potential beneficiaries may include individuals who are wishing to engage in a sporting activity for the first time, or those who are already established within their sport but are hoping to progress to a higher level. The objective of the Bursary Scheme is to provide support to those who are prevented from achieving these objectives, due to their personal financial limitations. Most recently a member of staff has asked members of YCH to support the charity, Young Epilepsy. The staff member has a personal connection to the charity and his request has been fully embraced by the CEO who is personally promoting the work of the charity and selling the charities goods to raise funds. The CEO has selected this this charity for his next marathon.

As a Christian organisation, World Vision UK encourages everyone to live their faith in the workplace and this helps to reflect the values of the organisation. People are free to speak their mind and give clear and accurate feedback. There are 17 senior leaders in the organisation, including The Executive Leadership Team (ELT), and they meet regularly to ensure alignment. All leaders are encouraged to lead an All Staff Devotions at least once a year and the ELT meets together on a weekly basis for a time of prayer and devotion. Directors attend drop-in meetings, along with the CEO, during which staff are invited to ask questions of the Senior Leadership. This encourages transparency in the way the organisation is run and how decisions are made. Each senior leader holds regular team meetings and one-to-ones with their direct reports; operating an open door policy and offering pastoral support for those in their teams. Leaders at World Vision do not ask of others things they are not prepared to do themselves and although some people have more authority and responsibility than others, the culture is not hierarchical.

World Vision UK have a dedicated development programme for new and experienced managers and leaders, that aims to develop and support them in carrying out their roles within the organisation. The programme includes The Leadership Development Programme, which is designed to provide World Vision UK with a cadre of leaders who are aligned, equipped and enthused to deliver their organisational priorities, by consistently living out the company's values and Christian identity against a set of core behaviours. The Motivational Manager is a modular programme developed to support managers, at all levels, to become highly effective people managers and enable them to manage and lead their teams well. People Management Skills Workshop - a number of workshops are provided throughout the year that up-skill new managers in the use of the company's people management systems, and the way we do things, e.g. recruitment and performance management. Coaching: all senior managers are given the opportunity to receive coaching with a qualified external coach. In addition, internal mentoring and/or coaching is available for people managers at all levels. HR Business Partner Meetings: HR Business Partners provide support to all people managers through monthly one-to-one meetings. These meetings provide managers with the opportunity to seek advice, discuss development within their teams and raise any concerns they may have regarding people management. Acting Up & Secondments: when opportunities arise, managers are encouraged to act up into more senior positions and/or take up secondments into roles, which will enable and encourage their personal and professional development.