What are companies doing with regards to 'Leadership'

TMW have an on-going programme of leadership development for the Management Board, comprising of up to 5 full off-site away day sessions over a period of 12 months, devised specifically to help create a more cohesive, empowered leadership team. Content typically covers everything from interactive sessions in the work environment, through to external team-building activities from treasure hunts to fact-finding exercises. Their Summer party last year was also heavily weighted on team building, as they had different groups working together creatively to produce the best photos during their ‘Instagram hunt'. The company also hosted a Pumpkin carving competition on Halloween, where each department had to work on carving a pumpkin together – and the quality of what was presented was outstanding!

TMW's founding partner and Group CEO, Richard Marshall, has an unusually honest and open style which makes people feel empowered and truly part of the business. There's a TV series called Back to the Shop Floor but in truth, Richard spends as much time on the shop floor as he does in Executive Board meetings! If, for example, a pitch opportunity comes in and it's all hands to the deck, Richard throws himself at it without any questions. This inspires respect from those around him and a desire to go the extra mile for him. He genuinely cares about people in the business and has a knack of knowing most of the detail of what's going on. He's also very intuitive, quickly spotting when things aren't quite right, either at the level of an individual or more broadly, in business matters. He's been described in an article in the trade press as 'one of the nicest people in the business' and most of TMW would agree with this.

All of the Directors, in both offices, sit in the open plan space with the wider team at The Test People. This allows for collaboration and communication and a closer relationship with employees. The Senior Management Team are prominent sources of expertise in the TTP Community and also the wider testing community. The SMT commitment to the values has also recently been illustrated by the agreement to include the company values in the new Talent Management framework, which will soon be launched. This will ensure that the values are prominent and reinforced by all of the company's managers to their teams during performance chats. The main way in which the SMT promote their values is to lead by example. At Director level, there is a strong commitment to creativity and ensuring TTP are at the forefront of new initiatives within Testing. Senior Management also empower their teams to work autonomously and find new solutions to complex technical and testing challenges.

All of the Directors, in both offices, sit in the open plan space with the wider team at The Test People. This allows for collaboration and communication and a closer relationship with employees. The Senior Management Team are prominent sources of expertise in the TTP Community and also the wider testing community. The SMT commitment to the values has also recently been illustrated by the agreement to include the company values in the new Talent Management framework, which will soon be launched. This will ensure that the values are prominent and reinforced by all of the company's managers to their teams during performance chats. The main way in which the SMT promote their values is to lead by example. At Director level, there is a strong commitment to creativity and ensuring TTP are at the forefront of new initiatives within Testing. Senior Management also empower their teams to work autonomously and find new solutions to complex technical and testing challenges.

In September 2014, The Marketing Practice took the whole company to the Bluestone National Park, Pembrokeshire, Wales for a superb 5* 2 day team build event; themed "The Purple Dragon Games". They had 4 house teams and created a magical, memorable 'Harry Potter' adventure, starting with a sorting hat event to decide their houses. The spirit of the theme ran ahead of the games, during the games and created stories and memories that will live long in staff's memories. Zip wire, tug-of-war, archery, a blind fold assault course, shelter building, ball hurling and forest battles are just a few of the activities during the days. Add to that a BBQ in a ravine and a fancy dress gala dinner where their favourite magical tunes played into the small hours, it is fair to say they had a fabulous time, learnt new things about each other and discovered new skills within themselves.

In September 2014, The Marketing Practice took the whole company to the Bluestone National Park, Pembrokeshire, Wales for a superb 5* 2 day team build event; themed "The Purple Dragon Games". They had 4 house teams and created a magical, memorable 'Harry Potter' adventure, starting with a sorting hat event to decide their houses. The spirit of the theme ran ahead of the games, during the games and created stories and memories that will live long in staff's memories. Zip wire, tug-of-war, archery, a blind fold assault course, shelter building, ball hurling and forest battles are just a few of the activities during the days. Add to that a BBQ in a ravine and a fancy dress gala dinner where their favourite magical tunes played into the small hours, it is fair to say they had a fabulous time, learnt new things about each other and discovered new skills within themselves.

Jenrick believe the term work life balance is an out dated expression, due to the fact that they now live in a world where they are constantly connected through their mobile, email and other electronic devices. As such, Jenrick believes that the expression ‘work/life integration' is a far more appropriate term to describe a modern working environment, simply because an individual's personal life and work commitments will constantly overlap. For this reason, they seek to enhance the wellbeing of employees by being flexible in their approach to working hours. For example, employees who are parents often need to adapt their working hours so they can attend school events such as morning assemblies, sports days and parents evenings. Jenrick are always accommodating when circumstances like this arise. They're not clock watchers and have built a strong culture of trust where it's more about getting the job done, rather than set working hours. They know that if people deal with their personal issues at the time, this will result in them being much more focussed and effective in their work.

Through schemes such as ‘Jenrick's Helping Hand' and the ‘Jenrick Charity Photo Calendar', the company donates in excess of £2,000 per year to charitable causes nominated by staff and the local community. The ‘Helping Hand' charity initiative is run each year and enables any member of staff to nominate a charitable cause that they would like Jenrick to donate £1,000 towards. Once all the nominations are received, an online voting system enables every individual member of the company to decide which cause they believe merits the award. For every additional pound given in personal staff donations Jenrick also doubles the amounts. Every year, The Jenrick Group create a ‘charity photo calendar competition' allowing candidates, clients and their own staff to enter in photos based on a theme. The competition is now in its sixth year and has already raised thousands of pounds to a large number of charitable causes. The final 12 winning photographs are featured in Jenrick's calendar and each winner receives £100 to donate to a charity of their choice. These schemes are so unique to Jenrick, and for a company of their size, it's quite remarkable how much money they have raised over the last few years, often raising awareness for lesser known charities. It would be very easy to 'follow the norm' and nominate a designated charity each year, however, because Jenrick's values are built around ‘People', having two schemes that allow individuals to nominate charities very close to their hearts adds far more meaning.

Financial Planning Manager and Head Office working groups are groups that represent views of all regional teams and Head Office teams to act as a sounding board and help implement new initiatives. These groups have been responsible for the implementation of many new activities to make working life better at SFS. Every quarter briefings are run for Head Office staff by senior management to give an update to all staff on what is going on within the business. It demonstrates the values in which the business is run on and keeps everyone informed of how the business is performing and what its key priorities are.

Andrew Barker joined SFS over 22 years ago as their Technical Manager and has subsequently worked his way up to become Managing Director in 2011. Due to his experience of working in SFS, Andrew has extensive knowledge of the whole business and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by staff in each area. With this in mind, he maintains open engagement with his staff at all levels and has launched many innovative staff engagement initiatives such as License to Grill where staff can ‘grill' him in team meetings and License to Chuck. Andrew is committed to attend every Financial Planning Manager Roadshow nationwide and is a guest at department team meetings once a year. He also holds quarterly business update briefings to all HO staff and issues a monthly update email with his personal thoughts. Upon his appointment to MD, he abolished the MD's private office and remains seated with his colleagues. Andrew asked for this room to be used for study purposes to help staff who want to gain further qualifications to enhance their career. Andrew is well liked by many staff due to his ability to engage with people on all levels. Whilst he is already well respected for his knowledge of the business, he is well known for encouraging a ‘fun element' to working for SFS by organising many staff events and competitions and with his references to popular culture, which he often demonstrates in his presentations to staff. At previous conferences, Andrew has taken part in a comedy video and the outtakes often sees him at the end of a joke, and for this, amongst many other things he does, he is respected by staff for not taking himself too seriously and they see him as very approachable.

Salford Royal operate an annual Staff Awards scheme which last year saw more than 200 individuals or teams nominated for being compassionate, supportive and dedicated to providing excellent patient care. More than 600 staff attended their most recent event, which saw awards for Collaboration, Administrative worker, Doctor, and Team of the Year. Staff nominated people within the award categories and they then vote for their preferred winner when the shortlist is announced. The Patient's Star Award gives patients and relatives the opportunity to nominate a team or individual who had gone above and beyond the call of duty to provide exceptional care, support or treatment. The shortlist is then put to the public vote in the local paper.

Salford Royal operate an annual Staff Awards scheme which last year saw more than 200 individuals or teams nominated for being compassionate, supportive and dedicated to providing excellent patient care. More than 600 staff attended their most recent event, which saw awards for Collaboration, Administrative worker, Doctor, and Team of the Year. Staff nominated people within the award categories and they then vote for their preferred winner when the shortlist is announced. The Patient's Star Award gives patients and relatives the opportunity to nominate a team or individual who had gone above and beyond the call of duty to provide exceptional care, support or treatment. The shortlist is then put to the public vote in the local paper.

In October 2013 Robin Partington & Partners introduced an employee benefit trust element into their limited company structure. Any member of staff who is with them on a permanent appointment and after one year's employment is entitled to call themselves a Partner of the firm. Once a Partner, they are eligible to receive dividends, if the Company makes profit in excess of that needed to be retained for future growth and investment. Their dividend structure is based on a points system whereby members 'earn' more points (thus a larger share of the pot) for increased salary and length of service.

To assist in giving structure to their team members development, Robin Partington & Partners implemented a career guideline which has six levels within their Company and each level has nine grades, split equally between ‘Arrivals', ‘Duty Free' and ‘Departures' . Each level has a Job Description that explains what is expected from that role. To explain the method to their madness…Arrivals is for those who have just moved into a new level and are getting used to the respective role and responsibilities, but are not yet proficient or adept and are busy finding their feet. Duty Free is for those who are comfortable in that role and are busy banking experience and expertise with Departures being for those who are ready to move up to the next level and are busy acquiring the necessary launching skills for that move. Robin Partington & Partners believe that the levels and job descriptions they have in place provide a clear and transparent structure for the practice, encouraging a strong sense of ownership of projects and the Company as a whole. They take professional development very seriously and hold performance appraisals twice annually to provide an opportunity for all their staff to review their performance from the previous year, and consider opportunities to develop and grow in the year to come, including any help, support or training that the Company can provide. Robin Partington & Partners have designed the process to help their team to think about their role using a combination of self assessment and peer feedback to encourage real, meaningful and helpful conversations….it is always good to find the time to talk. They have found that regular reality checks work for all concerned, the individual and the Company, helping to ensure that skills are recognised and individuals are valued at an appropriate level within the Company, using the job descriptions as a guide. They do their best to avoid any potential mismatch between expectation and reward. Their performance appraisals are intended to be simple, engaging and painless, but do require time and careful thought to get the most out of it. A combination of self-assessment and peer feedback encourages real, meaningful and helpful conversations, so that you know where you stand, what is expected and what to do next in order to progress.

Since their last engagement survey Powertecnique have implemented a dress down Friday policy to allow staff a more casual day in the office. This has improved morale without negatively affecting productivity. A win win! They are also currently in the process of investigating improved private health & pension offerings for their staff. A company wide pay review is also due to be commenced as pay was raised as a concern from the latest survey.

Their managing director does his utmost to engage with staff at all levels in a friendly manner. He's not afraid of being the butt of a joke & their regularly published internal newsletter (PowerNews) often leads with a terrible picture of Darren.

Junior consultants are given rewards such as tailor made suits, watches and pens when they achieve certain milestones in their career. This has proven particularly successful allowing them to feel successful and to have visible reminders of their success. These rewards are very sought after. They have also run incentives for colleagues around additional training and enhanced training personal budgets for individuals which have proven popular.

Potensis's internal coaching is very strong. New starters receive 6 months of training and development with a buddy/mentor, formal training, training assignments, weekly reviews and personal projects. This scheme has been really well received by their new starters and has allowed them to hire people with no previous recruitment experience.

Overbury have various channels for feedback and continuous improvement. The most direct is through Delivering Exceptional Experience Tours. These are run fortnightly and give members of staff an opportunity to visit their sites and see how sites are being managed and run. The tours facilitate and promote the sharing of ideas and best practice. Another important source of feedback comes from their clients. Customer Experience Questionnaires (CEQs) are completed on every job and the feedback is shared across the business so others can see what the client has liked and not liked. Ideas can be filtered to management through team meetings, forum meetings or in ad hoc one to ones. Culturally they consider themselves to be an open organisation where innovation and challenge are encouraged. This is manifested physically in the open plan nature of each of their offices.

As an organisation with little hierarchy the CEO Chris will regularly work directly with delivery teams preparing for bids and/or act as a point of contact for clients to build senior relationships as required. As part of normal practice the teams hold regular meetings that Chris will always make himself available for. In addition Chris, and his Board support their Induction Programme facilitating discussion on the company's core values. At a more strategic level Chris provides oversight and guidance to the team MDs as required but more importantly provides the space and resources for them to deliver against divisional and group targets and objectives. Chris focuses on initiatives that cut across teams and helps prioritise activity across Overbury to best support team delivery and maximise resource efficiency. This is managed through a business forum governance structure.