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Thakeham funds and encourages all employees to attend a regular health screening through Nuffield health. The organisation has trained Mental Health First Aiders and champions and also provides access to an in house counsellor at no cost for employees. They can see the counsellor in the office, via teams/zoom or at her practice off site.
The leadership team uses a range of channels and digital to share information and encourage feedback from employees. The CEO and CSO shares regular video messages. The videos are unscripted to maintain authenticity. The videos are easily accessible on smart devices and all comms activity then comes together in its weekly newsletter to all staff.
The organisation has implemented technology so that people can join team and board meetings remotely and in person at the same time. Thakeham also has a working group covering all departments who meet every 2-3 months to discuss ideas, thoughts and suggestions that are fed back to senior leadership so that actions can be implemented.
SMS offers a number of different forms of leave depending on an employee’s circumstance including compassionate leave, fertility treatment, miscarriage, bereavement, and other unfortunate or unforeseen circumstances. Paid time for dependents - emergency cover, unpaid. It has 2023 increased our paternity leave package to two weeks of full pay.
SMS has continued to ensure engagement with its people. Organisational clarity has come from the CEO, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief People Officer having regular contact with employees via short video updates, e-mails, texts, pulse surveys, and five employee resource groups. The organisation’s mission, vision, and purpose were communicated via annual performance and development reviews.
It has also recently introduced a bespoke management development programme (MDP) - which has been designed to ensure its managers and team leaders have the core skills and competencies needed to perform their jobs successfully. The programme consists of a number of managerial, coaching, and developmental modules.
They have a Moving on Together Group, a group of staff from across the organisation who champion team interaction and communications. They group new leads on the annual staff event and have developed a communications framework based on staff feedback.
They work closely with Mencap by providing garden space for their service users to build and establish a vegetable garden. The produce they grow is used in the hospice kitchen and food waste from the kitchen and cafe is composted for use in the garden.
To improve employee engagement they introduced a monthly 'ideas hub' to generate discussion and feedback on what is going well and what is not going so well within the organisation. During these hubs, staff were encouraged to identify and introduce the topics for discussion.
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