At The Midcounties Co-operative, openness is one of their key values. They try to be transparent with each colleague about what benefits there are to being employed by Midcounties. One way they can see this is by logging onto their colleague portal and viewing their Total Reward Statement (TRS). Their TRS shows all their benefits over the year including salary, uniform, health benefits, service awards, training, discount savings and more. TRS were launched in 2013 and was supported by a huge communication campaign and is backed up by ongoing poster campaigns at sites. They've chosen Savvy Sam as the face of Your Benefits and created a brand to have consistency in their communications to colleagues. Sam is a friendly reminder of what is available to colleagues and where to find their benefits. Sam's website has been set up for each colleague to provide a place where they can get discounts with external businesses online, read about Society news, see what events are coming up, hear about new benefit schemes, enter monthly competitions and chat to other colleagues across all of the businesses on the forum.

The organisation looks after and manages 3,000 acres of Triassic Pebblebed Heaths which enables over 500,000 visits a year by the local community at no cost to them. They gave over 270 local school children a chance to visit the Heaths and learn about its "240 million year old Triassic past", even meeting their own 240 million year old Triassic repile - the Rhynchosaurus! They also use wood fuel to heat their office and they are rolling out this green energy approach to other buildings this year. They have installed a 50kw solar PV array next to one of their business parks to encourage use of solar power by their business tenants and they have just applied to install a 4 mega watt scheme next to a larger business park in Exmouth to power all the businesses with renewable energy. They also provide "ride to work stabling" at Bicton Arena for employees who wish to travel to work by horse.

They are fortunate enough that they have two opportunities a year where the entire organisation comes together in London. Although they have increased their staff force by a large amount in the past year, the leaders still value the importance of spending time as a whole organisation. This year in April was the 4th anniversary and they held an event to celebrate. The event began in the afternoon with all staff being split into groups and rotating round a carousel of different sessions. Each session was led by a different group of staff. Each local leadership team led a fun and interactive session, such as a quiz or a treasure hunt, around how their office works and their local area. They also had a session with the senior leaders with the opportunity to ask them any questions staff wanted answered. Another enjoyable session was a ‘getting to know you' game to mix all staff together and find out some interesting things about people they didn't know before. This all lead up to the social in the evening where they all came back together for some food and drinks and opportunity to just relax. They had some entertainment provided by some of the local choirs who sang beautifully and even wrote their own Challenge Network version of a Les Miserable classic. They ended the evening with karaoke and dancing at a local bar which was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

Each new starter has a departmental induction which involves spending time in the various departments to understand how their role fits with the team. We ran a "Wanted Programme" where the successful candidate was awarded with our management trainee placement. As a management trainee, the team member spends a few months within each department in the hotel to have a comprehensive understanding of the hotel operationally. They receive one to one coaching sessions with the Hotel Manager and also participate in our Management Development programme. They receive reviews in each of their departments in order to track the progress they have made. The hotel is also partnered with Purple Cubed who administer the appraisal process and also conduct training sessions within the hotel. The Talent Toolbox appraisal system enables the organisation to identify and place greater focus on development needs.

The company has both a football and netball team and provides sponsorship to these teams for kit etc. They provide the ability through their IT systems to work from home to facilitate flexibility for employees to take home deliveries or who have travel difficulties. Last winter, employees worked from home during the snowfall rather than risk travelling to the office and those stranded at the office were taxied home by the MD in his 4x4.

In 2011 SwiftKey introduced special effort awards. These are peer nominated awards made to employees who have 'gone the extra mile', for example to meet a demanding deadline or just for a job extremely well done. There are no restrictions on who can nominate who; SwiftKey wanted to encourage wide adoption of the scheme and a culture in which all employees think about how they can recognise the contributions of their peers, whether 'junior' or 'senior' to them and whether part of the same department or a different department. All nominations do require at least one seconder, to ensure that they are appropriate for the scheme and to prevent unfair bias. They believe the scheme is both unique and effective because it doesn't rely on a restricted or formulaic choice of gift (such as a cash bonus or shopping vouchers). They get to know their employees and their personal interests and values, so that they can select a well-considered gift that's particularly meaningful to them. This also encourages people to nominate their colleagues, because they know that the gifts are carefully selected. Examples of gifts that they have previously given are jazz show tickets for a music fan; a copy of a hard-to-find author-published book on 'Arch Linux' for an enthusiastic software engineer; a hamper of locally brewed beers for a CAMRA member; and a 'go pro' camera for a tech enthusiast who's always got a new geeky project on the go.

Sweatshop believes running is a force for good. They know that they are able to help provide support for runners of all abilities. If you have never run before but want to start, or run but have no one to do it with, they can help by giving people a place to come to, free of charge, where you will have a chance to go running with supportive and friendly staff at Sweatshop plus other runners to share this experience, with a real community feel. They have created the Sweatshop Running Community, the SRC. It's an entry level running group within every store and runners are incentivised for regular participation. The Running Community doesn't just stop at this entry level running group with many stores offering a variety of running groups for all abilities. With over 20000 registered members in 3 years and over 2000 people running with them every week, they are the largest (and probably most inclusive) running group in the country. The community is growing as is the recognition and appreciation from their runners for providing this free community group. For many it has transformed their lives, enhancing healthier lifestyles with both mental and physical benefits.

The senior management team work incredibly hard to demonstrate that their staff are valued within the organisation. Examples of this include an open door management style; regular walkabouts to chat and communicate with staff; being visible to staff in all locations, by doing regular visits to satellite offices and field workers and organising an annual away-day event for all staff which is purely about meeting colleagues and having fun away from the office.

Somo try to understand what the issues are, get a team together from all areas of the business to come up with ideas on how they can address them and try to agree how improvements can be measured.

Although Seymour House scored quite well in this category last year, it is an area that as a company they are looking to improve on. They are currently building a team section within their intranet which will incorporate links to health campaigns, healthy eating and wellbeing initiatives.