What are companies doing with regards to 'Leadership'

One Way have an induction training programme, progressive career path, regular one to ones, annual appraisals, internal training workshops and external training which are organised as appropriate relevant to role, an online HR system with logbook detailing training and development for each team member.

One Way is a respected and rapidly growing recruitment company for the construction industry, with specialist expertise in the built environment, rail, civil engineering and heavy plant. They place top quality construction professionals, technical and management staff, and trades and labour roles right across the UK. They are building an enviable reputation for uncompromising professionalism and integrity, setting new standards for the industry. Their strength is their ability to match the right people to the right jobs. They take the time to understand thoroughly what they are looking for, and then use the extensive database and industry knowledge to find exactly the right combination of skills, experience and accreditations. They are known in the construction industry for being thorough, well prepared and professional. Every candidate is carefully vetted for their eligibility to work and compliance with required standards. Each Team Member is given a Welcome Folder when they join the One Way Team which includes details of the company's Unique Selling Points, Core Values and Cultural Values.

NIX offer the following support to their Managers: Job Shadowing Internal Coaching / Mentoring. Specifically, a managers' forum takes place at the board meeting in which all managers are invited to discuss any concerns they have and to run ideas past each other and also seek the experience and expertise of other management team members. Board meetings take place once a quarter. Training in specific areas is offered by the management team as a whole to one another. Reviews are set Annually for all staff members regardless of grade. All staff are encouraged to discuss any concerns, or provide praise for any member of staff regardless of where they sit on the hierarchy.

Nix Communications offers discounted BUPA health insurance policies to staff after a period of employment of 12 months. Wellbeing is important to NIX for all its staff. Various activities including ‘Tone Up Tuesdays' take place in the office. A member of staff is also a qualified Personal Trainer so she leads the sessions. They also run Lunchtime Fit Clubs. An open and communicative approach is adopted to the mental wellbeing of their employees allowing staff members to talk and discuss any concerns or workload issues to members of the management team, without prejudice. A recent addition to the NIX office, is a Shiatsu Massage Chair, this chair is the real deal and cost several thousand pounds. It is free to use and is positioned in NIX's breakout area, along with all the movies, PS4, Pool Table, Sonos Music, and arcade games machines! They always have music in the office which everyone can change. The company have a fantastic breakout area and encourage people to use this. They also encourage people to be active, providing people with headsets so they are not tied to their desk when on calls.

Collectively Needlers respect and treat everyone fairly; they hold team meetings which encourages working together and provide opportunities for people to put forward their ideas. In these sessions they also provide performance feedback, recognise individual efforts and those who are ‘going the extra mile', for example, they will send congratulatory emails highlighting which value the individual has demonstrated. They invest in people by providing training courses, such as NVQ's, excel courses etc. They also like to check-in on each team, just spending time just asking how they are, what they've been up to etc. so that it creates an open and approachable culture. Alistair has a very visible presence within the organisation and is central to the positive culture, plus the organisation is small enough that he is able to speak to each member of staff on a daily basis.

Collectively Needlers respect and treat everyone fairly; they hold team meetings which encourages working together and provide opportunities for people to put forward their ideas. In these sessions they also provide performance feedback, recognise individual efforts and those who are ‘going the extra mile', for example, they will send congratulatory emails highlighting which value the individual has demonstrated. They invest in people by providing training courses, such as NVQ's, excel courses etc. They also like to check-in on each team, just spending time just asking how they are, what they've been up to etc. so that it creates an open and approachable culture. Alistair has a very visible presence within the organisation and is central to the positive culture, plus the organisation is small enough that he is able to speak to each member of staff on a daily basis.

The overall reward package at Moorhouse is unique because it is completely open and transparent. Salaries are set according to market rates, at the same level for everyone in a grade peer group and are published and available to all staff. Salary rises are awarded to all staff in the grade according to changes in market levels or to specific individuals on promotion to the next grade. New recruits are hired at the same salary as everyone else in their grade peer group. There are four bonus schemes. All employees are eligible for two bonus payments. The first is the Company bonus which incentivises collaboration by rewarding the business performance of Moorhouse. The second is the Personal bonus which recognises individual achievement by rewarding performance against objectives. Two further bonus schemes are in place for eligible staff. The Sales bonus which rewards contributions to business development to those involved in the sale of new client engagements. The Utilisation bonus rewards consultants for billable hours. The policies and processes around the four bonus scheme are published and distributed to all eligible employees. Potential bonus awards are clearly communicated at the start of the financial year so that everyone understands how their contribution will be linked to their reward. Individual eligibility is accessed and communicated at six month intervals through the performance review process. Bonuses are paid every six months, so reward is linked to achievement in a timely manner.

The overall reward package at Moorhouse is unique because it is completely open and transparent. Salaries are set according to market rates, at the same level for everyone in a grade peer group and are published and available to all staff. Salary rises are awarded to all staff in the grade according to changes in market levels or to specific individuals on promotion to the next grade. New recruits are hired at the same salary as everyone else in their grade peer group. There are four bonus schemes. All employees are eligible for two bonus payments. The first is the Company bonus which incentivises collaboration by rewarding the business performance of Moorhouse. The second is the Personal bonus which recognises individual achievement by rewarding performance against objectives. Two further bonus schemes are in place for eligible staff. The Sales bonus which rewards contributions to business development to those involved in the sale of new client engagements. The Utilisation bonus rewards consultants for billable hours. The policies and processes around the four bonus scheme are published and distributed to all eligible employees. Potential bonus awards are clearly communicated at the start of the financial year so that everyone understands how their contribution will be linked to their reward. Individual eligibility is accessed and communicated at six month intervals through the performance review process. Bonuses are paid every six months, so reward is linked to achievement in a timely manner.

The “Health angels” group is Marketing Sciences Unlimited's health and wellbeing team, who run health assessments several times a year to encourage staff to do a self-assessment and log with the company's EAP online programme. This provides hints and tips about lifestyle, exercise and diet that will impact on people's wellbeing. The team also organises lunchtime walks and tours to get people away from their desk in a social environment. Recently they organised guided tours of Winchester Cathedral and Winchester College. The company have shower facilities that enable staff to cycle to work and exercise at lunch time, with a large number of staff taking advantage of the cycle to work salary sacrifice scheme. They are involved in an annual Creston Cycle Tour and always have volunteers join for all or part of the weekend, supporting or cycling with colleagues from other agencies. They have run mindfulness training, which was well received, and put on weekly yoga or Pilates classes that anyone can join. Marketing Sciences have a large breakout room with kitchen facilities and seating. This leads out to a balcony area and staff are encouraged to have lunch away from their desk and use the communal area to take time out on a daily basis. They have access to training for managing workloads that staff can choose to attend and the company have previously organised an external consultant to talk about mindfulness with staff.

Marketing Sciences have monthly whole service meetings, in addition to regular team and individual meetings, where everyone gets together at the end of the day for drinks and nibbles. Directors and others provide a brief update of what has been happening and what is coming up within the business. As part of this they collect “shout-outs”, where colleagues and clients provide praise for a job well done, which is highlighted at the monthly meetings. They also have quarterly “values awards”, which recognises achievement and anyone who is working in accordance with company values and going the extra mile. The values are communicated and discussed with all staff via one to one meetings, as part of appraisals and on top of this all new joiners are given all information necessary. Meeting rooms are named to reflect the company values. Finally the Managing Director meets all new starters to provide an overview of the company and share the values.

In November 2014 HomeServe launched its ‘2020 leaders' programme. The programme links directly to the 2020 strategy and offers an 18 month development programme to the 200 leaders that manage the front line customer facing teams. The programme is made up of a series of classroom events that develops the knowledge, skills and behaviours to be successful leaders, for example influencing, coaching and performance management. These classroom sessions are coupled with e-learning, action learning sets and work based assignments to embed the learning and measure the success of the programme outputs. Along with this each delegate has received 360 feedback at the start of the programme. In August 2015 HomeServe also began a Succession Planning exercise, which is undertaken every six months to identify key talent and offer appropriate additional development plans. HomeServe measure Managers and Leaders through pre and post skills assessments. Personal Development Reviews have also now shifted to focus on behaviour and development of leadership skills rather than technical. Lastly, the company now have a Leadership competency framework at all management levels.

HomeServe have supported over 150 community groups across the West Midlands. A share of £35k has also been put towards their partnership with Midlands' newspaper, Express & Star, on its ‘Cash For Your Community' initiative for the third year running. Volunteers across the business gave over 1,750 hours of volunteer time for the Sport Relief 2016 campaign, with HomeServe answering a phenomenal 2,369 donation calls and raising over £72,272 on the night. The company's people volunteered 14,000 hours, served 8,300 meals and made 6,900 food supply bags for The Midland Langar Seva Society, a local charity that provides food for the homeless. They have even provided the charity with a van to distribute food donations that HomeServe contribute to weekly from their own site. The company are also working with Career Transition Partnership and Armed forces, for example the company have recently taken on Gas Engineers who have worked with engineers to gain experience, even resulting in a job offer. To provide further opportunities for HomeServe's P&D engineers, a Level 3 Gas Apprenticeship is also available.

Gopher Money try to embrace a 'Relaxed, high pressured' environment. They appreciate this is a contradictory statement but they give their staff the freedom to manage their own day meaning that to an extent they can come and go without having to log in and out expect for health and safety purposes. Anyone feeling stressed can step out and unwind knowing they can work beyond their contracted hours to catch up if they fall behind their target. In essence a lot of the staff class themselves as 'self-employed' meaning the pressure they apply is at their own volition. As a business Gopher Money are always trying to encourage employees to move away from their desk on breaks and lunches and be able to clear their head ready for work. The existing Learning and Development manager works closely with staff in helping them deal with issues both inside and outside of work such as relationships and stress and personal development. This has seen sickness per FTE continue to improve this and the feedback from those who are working with him is very positive.

Before detailing how the organisation supports and develops its managers it is worth noting that 90% of Team Leaders and Managers within Gopher Money have been promoted from the ranks. This in itself is a clear indication of the value and trust that they invest in all their staff. They support the leadership team by ensuring they are involved in all decisions relating to their teams and offering them along with their teams the opportunity to develop themselves. For example, every Team Leader and Manager within the company bar one is currently undertaking at least one qualification. This is indicative of the need to 'Continue to Progress' and is demonstrated from the top of the company to the bottom. Initially this is done via KPI's not just surrounding performance but also quality and how they feel that their managers demonstrate the company values. Initially they discuss this in one to ones where all aspects of their performance is documented and from here they also complete at least 2 employee engagement surveys per annum where staff are given the opportunity to confidentially express how they feel about all aspects of the business including their Manager. Ultimately low attrition rates are one of the best measures as to how Gopher Money managers are performing as statistics show that employees who leave a company have done so principally due to a change in personal circumstances, rather than being dissatisfied with their role or the way they have been managed. This demonstrates that employee's loyalty to Gopher Money begins with how they are supervised, which has been supported in the results of the employee surveys.

Fichtner have a charity committee within the business made up of volunteers that manage all of the company charitable activities each year. The committee meets once a quarter and sets a budget every year, which is then used to support one main charity that is chosen by the employees, plus a number of smaller and more local charities. This year Fichtner are proudly supporting MIND via their local branch, as well as Cancer Research, BHF and a local children's hospice. Several of the engineering staff also actively involve themselves in the STEM projects with local schools and universities and the company have two 'women in engineering' university societies coming to the offices in September for networking and discussions around careers in engineering post qualification.

All Directors are committed to preventing injuries to both employees and also everyone else that Fichtner work with, hence their adopted policy of 'safety in everything we do'. Directors are committed to providing the highest possible quality of service delivery to their client base, commensurate with the expertise and experience that reside within the organisation. The Senior Team acts with integrity in all of their actions and interactions with colleagues, clients, contractors and suppliers. John the MD has an open door policy and will talk to any of the employees at any point during the day without a prior appointment. He drives health and safety behaviour, sits on the health and safety working group, chairs the monthly team leader's meetings and also the Friday weekly staff meetings whenever possible. He makes himself available to everyone and will provide support and guidance with both work and, where appropriate and with HR support, personal issues as well. John also continues to undertake an element of fee paying project work. Overall Fichtner has a flat structure and is not hierarchical in culture.

Employees are encouraged to raise funds for the Company Charity Account. The business sets employees a fundraising target which is then matched pound for pound by the Company. DPD also undertake various community initiatives, including Work Experience Programmes for schools across the country. This consists of students spending a week in various Departments centrally at the Head Office locations and also DPD Depot Network nationwide, where they will learn about aspects of administration to support the Network Depot Operation. The company also undertake an annual “Decorating Challenge” which, via the company Community Policy, allows every employee one paid day per year to work on a local community activity. The company have spent the last seven years decorating a local school. Due to government austerity measures, this school lost its funding for a rebuild, so DPD stepped in and with the support of their employees redecorated the whole of the Business Studies block. Unfortunately in 2016 the school was flooded so the decorating challenge is now focused on the redecoration of A block.

DPD's Senior Management Team supports a number of its strategic initiatives, which demonstrates its commitment to the values of the organisation, with the main two examples being the Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) Programme and the Corporate Induction. The SMT supports CSR through the work that they do with a local school called Phoenix Collegiate. The SMT attend a ‘Dragon's Den' competition where they meet and review students' business plan ideas that they have worked on during the year. The SMT then give marks on different aspects of the business plan and an overall winner is announced. As part of their Induction Programme new starters are invited to meet the SMT at an event called Corporate Induction, where they have the opportunity to discover more about the business. They are introduced to the company's DNA (core values) as well as meeting DPD's CEO, Dwain McDonald. Each member of the SMT delivers a presentation about their function, followed by a Q&A session to give new starters a better understanding of DPD. Dwain also engages with colleagues within the business through the Winter Conference and DPD's annual business communication cascade called DNA. At the Winter Conference, Dwain cascades upcoming strategies for the business. DPD's DNA is an annual cascade of information to all employees within the company. Its objectives are, like the Winter Conference, to communicate business priorities and strategies. Dwain records a number of videos that are played in meetings throughout the business. The message given is always clear, with key points and a focus on the benefits of the message. Dwain also uses the Company Newsletter to engage with staff, as all employees and pensioners receive a copy. As well as all this Dwain's ethos is about getting back to 'grass roots' and he has spent a day in the call centre and he also spent a day with a collection and delivery driver, all so he could experience these roles first hand.

Darwin have developed a fully embedded learning and development culture. Every member of staff is encouraged to learn and develop at every stage of their career, from Trainee Consultant through to Management. The company call this the Darwin Career Academy. They have enlisted the expertise of an external recruitment training and development expert, who delivers the induction training for new consultants, as well as specific modules that help the recruiters to progress and achieve their own career goals. For Darwin's mid-level staff, they have developed a programme called 'Rising Stars'. Each module is delivered in person by Darwin's CEO and co-founder Paul Kirby. Darwin support Central Services functions to obtain bespoke qualifications to their profession and therefore give access to flexible working arrangements to attend ongoing Continuing Professional Development events. Most recently the company have supported Darwin's Systems Analyst to obtain the Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate qualification and for a member of the HR Team to obtain the Certificate in Human Resources Practice.

Darwin's CEO Paul sits on the sales floor amongst the consultants, this way he ensures that he is constantly accessible all day every day. Paul's sentiment and commitment is fully reflected in the new Darwin strapline; Collaborate and Evolve. The company collaborate with staff to help them evolve within the business. Every six months Darwin hold “15 minutes with Paul”, which takes place over a number of weeks. During this time, Paul travels around the Darwin offices and meets with every member of the business at every level. Staff are encouraged to speak to Paul about any concerns or questions they have and to offer suggestions for improvements to the working environment and business processes. The ideas and feedback is then shared with the board and Senior Management/operations teams who, in turn, take responsibility for driving through the relevant changes. This proves to staff that Darwin value their feedback.