My Company

Huler

Staff have access to a learning and development budget, which can be used to improve soft skills or role-specific skills, and to gain formal qualifications. Employees are given protected time to learn, grow and develop and e-learning modules are tailored to meet their needs.

In the past 12 months, Huler has raised more than £3,500 and supported charitable and community initiatives. Team members climbed three of the UK's tallest mountains for the Dougie Mac and Katharine House hospices. The company is also donating 500 square meters of woodland to the National Trust as part of its environmental strategy.

Huler wants to ensure staff feel as through they have a voice and the company fosters a friendly and open work environment. It offers different avenues for employees to share their opinions and feedback in a safe environment. Staff are encouraged to give "in the moment" feedback to their managers, peers and the people team.

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Technology

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Wolff Olins

The company salary-benchmarks roles annually to keep employees' pay in line with the industry. It means staff who have been with Wolff Olins for a long while do not need to jump ship to get better pay. It doesn't negotiate on salaries to avoid promoting a "those who shout loudest win" culture.

Wolff Olins makes a financial contribution to the Brixton Finishing School, in London, which aims to increase diversity in the marketing, advertising and communications industries. It runs training programmes for underrepresented communities. The company's staff give their time to create content for courses and to mentor students.

Quarterly company meetings have become a global forum, where strategy is shared, work showcased, staff successes recognised and progress in terms of the organisation's principles demonstrated. A pass-the-mic section allows staff to share personal inspirations. Regular informal open-mic sessions with food and drink give staff the chance to ask questions or seek clarification.

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Marketing & Media Agencies

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Action Tutoring

A diversity and inclusion working group has made important improvements. They include winning an 'Altogether Better Inclusive Recruitment Grant' from recruitment agency, TPP, which has led to a review of the charity's recruitment practices. It has also created a trans and non-binary FAQs document to increase understanding among staff.

There are regular opportunities for group training and development at team away-days, as well as e-learning throughout the year. Some staff also have external coaches or mentors. As part of the appraisal programme, staff must complete learning and development plans which are used to create the organisation's training budget.

The communication platform, Slack, is used to keep staff informed and in touch with each other. Informal communication is promoted through social channels such as "elevenses", a gardening group and a book club. Guests are invited to team meetings to encourage mixing between departments and lunch-and-learn and tea-break calls bring people together.

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Education & Training

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Sphere Digital Recruitment

Staff turnover is below the industry average — 18%, versus an industry average of 40%. Sphere believes that the clarity and transparency it ensures with regard to training, progress, commission, pay and incentives helps to retain employees.

Past charity events include a "sleep-out" to raise cash for the homeless. This year, Sphere is also staging events including a sky dive, games night and fancy dress days in aid of Roald Dahl's Marvellous Children’s Charity, which helps seriously ill children. It also ran a campaign to support Ukraine and donated £5,000.

Sphere offers enhanced paternity pay, flexible working hours and 3pm finishes on Fridays. Quarterly and twice-yearly pay reviews are based on targets and are not at the discretion of a manager, in order to eliminate bias.

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Recruitment

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Understanding Recruitment

Understanding Recruitment has been trying to attract more women, particularly more experienced female employees by looking at benefits offered, such as maternity — and paternity — pay, flexible working, and part-time positions. It has also joined Women in Recruitment, an initiative that helps with attracting, developing and retaining female talent.

Each team has a budget for a "wellness day" so they can enjoy an activity and a meal out together. Unlimited holiday is offered to staff who have been with the company for two years, and after five and 10 years they can take a sabbatical.

At Director’s Question Time, employees can submit questions anonymously, via an online platform about the present and future plans for the business, on topics such as growth, development, career paths, and benefits.

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Recruitment

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YPO

Family and friends of staff join in at the annual Family Fun Day, which includes children’s games, raffles, refreshments, a local radio DJ, a tombola, an arts and crafts table and Santa’s grotto. Money raised goes to charity. Staff achievements and successes are celebrated on the day with an awards ceremony.

A social-value strategy has been launched, along with a group to manage and coordinate the business's contribution. Its environmental role focuses on reducing and minimising any negative impact of YPO's operations on the environment. It will include a climate-change strategy to help meet net-zero targets.

The board and senior leadership team demonstrate the company values of "we care", "we are helpful" and "we are straight-talking" by having an open-door policy for staff, and staff suggestion scheme. Board members take part in walk-abouts in the warehouses so that the operations team can ask them questions directly.

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Not For Profit Body's

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Daniel Owen

Knowledge accrued within the company over the years has been compiled on a new e-learning hub. It means new recruits can supplement one-to-one learning with a programme that they complete at their own pace and can revisit at any time. It allows them faster access to the nuances and finer details of the job.

All staff have access to training programmes from day one. Continuing development courses are used to reinforce knowledge, as well as to provide a forum for them to voice their own ideas.

Monthly wrap-ups are used to celebrate teams' successes and encourage communication about shortfalls and lessons learnt. These are vital to create a strong team, leading to robust bonds between teams and, ultimately, the entire business. Managers also benefit from quarterly meetings together, with interesting brain-teaser challenges thrown in for fun.

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Recruitment

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Roche

It is an expectation when working at Roche that staff dedicate 20% of their time to personal development in whatever capacity suits them and the organisation best. It could take the form of studying, shadowing or online courses.

Senior managers role-model the organisation's principles of "integrity, courage and passion" and encourage a collaborative environment to empower and inspire colleagues. They have demonstrated these principles by moving away from a traditional hierarchy to stimulate organic organisational innovation and change, by adopting the philosophy that everyone can be a leader, regardless of role.

Roche runs a bi-weekly pulse survey in one division. As a result, teams are having better discussions and are able to change their approaches and processes quickly and easily. A diversity and inclusion audit has enabled the company to understand better the lived experiences of staff and ensure its strategy is appropriate.

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Manufacturing

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University of Birmingham Guild of Students

The online reward and recognition scheme enables staff to send a thank-you card to a colleague who they feel has gone above and beyond. There are employee- and team-of-the-month awards. Individual staff receive an extra day's leave and team winners are given a half-day each.

The guild has been judged as excellent in the National Union of Students Green Impact awards for the past few years. Participating in the scheme allows the organisation to benchmark itself against other student unions and continue to develop its understanding of environmental issues and how it can affect change.

One of the organisation's values is inclusivity, and senior leaders demonstrate their commitment to it by sitting on the diversity and inclusion committee and playing a leading role in promoting inclusive practices. Being supportive is another value and senior leaders aim to help and encourage staff through regular one-to-one meetings.

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Education & Training

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Torchbox

Torchbox increased its annual leave allowance this year and introduced flexible bank holidays to allow people more control over their work-life balance. It has also introduced a holiday buy-and-sell scheme to give people with different lifestyles the time away from work that they need.

Lattice, a performance-management system, provides a framework and the tools to guide managers in how to work in a positive and consistent way with their teams. A learning library comes with each tool, providing tips and resources. The new head of human resources is tasked with reviewing the management structure and ensuring clarity within roles.

The company launched its first Torchbox academy for entry-level roles. It aims to appeal to candidates from diverse backgrounds and encourage people to apply regardless of their backgrounds by using a CV-less approach. Information about this approach was posted in a wide variety of places to target a larger pool of candidates.

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Marketing & Media Agencies

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Pride Powers Performance

Huler

Wolff Olins

Action Tutoring

Sphere Digital Recruitment

Understanding Recruitment

YPO

Daniel Owen

Roche

University of Birmingham Guild of Students

Torchbox

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