What are companies doing with regards to 'My Company'

The International Tennis Federation's Christmas Party was organised around a fun team building event instead of simply going to a restaurant or bar. They have organised a team event in the style of Masterchef where all staff have to work with people they don't usually work with and there is a competitive edge to it too. Additionally, across the Federation, a number of charity fundraising events have taken place, including entering the Corporate Challenge in July plus various other social events which are open to everyone and included representation from all Federation departments.

The International Tennis Federation's culture encourages a healthy work/life balance with flexibility offered around sickness and recovery periods, working time flexibility if needed and support from managers at all levels around physical activities, particularly taking part in lunchtime sporting activities. A daily lunch allowance is provided to all employees for use at on site restaurant facilities or a sandwich ordering service which encourages healthy eating, with a wide variety of both hot and cold food options plus other healthy options such as fruit available. Sports facilities are available onsite, some free and some subsidised, and include use of tennis courts, gym, swimming pool and fitness classes. Their location also encourages activities as they are a few minutes from Richmond Park. Employee safety and wellbeing is taken extremely seriously and a taxi is provided to transport employees to the nearest mainline station at the end of each working day, which is particularly helpful during the darker winter months. 24-hour security is provided around the office which is reassuring for those working or visiting out of standard office hours, a common occurrence within an international organisation. The International Tennis Federation also offer a free employee assistance prorgamme, full medical checks - at some levels and they have in the past paid separately for private counselling or therapy for team members.

The company have a 'Celebrating Success' awards evening. There is an annual Christmas party and a lunch time hog roast event. Company wide initiatives are fully supported and it is encouraged that teams have regular team events. Most departments/teams within the last 18 months have had away days which have included army-type assault courses, chocolate making, Belbin team activities including facilitation by a Belbin facilitator, drumming workshop, Haka taught by a Maori warrior. These have taken place off-site away from the office.

Interchange and Consort Hotel's cultural values were identified by colleagues across their business, through a CEO sponsored project. Their SMT endeavour to ensure that business decisions are congruent with their values and that all colleagues are supported in, and recognised for, displaying behaviours in line with their values. Their main meeting rooms and CEO's office prominently display their values, and these are referred to during discussions. Many business visitors are given an overview of their values along with a set of “values cards” - business cards displaying their values. Every candidate is told about their values in the early stages of their recruitment process, and selection always includes questions related to these values. The company have ongoing values nominations where colleagues can nominate each other for behaviours in line with their values. Nominations are displayed on their Intranet and in their atrium, a prize draw is used to recognise nominees every few months and annual values awards are judged and presented by our SMT.

The first themed week to be held as part of Shine, was Giving Back Week – a topic specifically identified as an area of importance to employees. Giving Back Week in July was launched by an introductory email to all staff from the CEO, Dean James. It encouraged everyone to get involved and prompted many staff to make full use of both their personal and team community giving days. The contact centre in Oban maintained the gardens at a local parrot sanctuary, the compliance team transformed a community space in Leeds, planting flower beds and litter picking, Derby colleagues spent the day in a local school, passing on CV and interview advice and the Midlands management team cleared pathways, chopped wood and fed the animals at a city farm.

The first themed week to be held as part of Shine, was Giving Back Week – a topic specifically identified as an area of importance to employees. Giving Back Week in July was launched by an introductory email to all staff from the CEO, Dean James. It encouraged everyone to get involved and prompted many staff to make full use of both their personal and team community giving days. The contact centre in Oban maintained the gardens at a local parrot sanctuary, the compliance team transformed a community space in Leeds, planting flower beds and litter picking, Derby colleagues spent the day in a local school, passing on CV and interview advice and the Midlands management team cleared pathways, chopped wood and fed the animals at a city farm.

In 2013, Informa became more focused on the issue of mental health in the workplace and all their UK HR directors have now received Mental Health in the Workplace Training. As one in four British adults experience at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any one year, Informa believe this is a valuable focus for them and also becomes a business issue. Flexible working is also supported around the Group and they have had a flexible working policy in place since 2006. Between 2012 and 2013, the proportion of Informa employees working part time increased from 7.5% to 8.6%. In a 2012 survey on flexible working, out of 141 respondents, 112 gave Informa a top rating of creating work/life balance and 84% said they couldn't continue working without the flexible working policy.

The Informa Awards recognises the achievements of individuals and teams across the entire Informa Group worldwide. In previous years, this has been held at Claridges, where they stream the award event live to all employees globally via the intranet. This year's awards will be held at the Shard, London's iconic 87-story skyscraper. Key categories are Employee of the Year, Leading Innovation, On Brand, Intercom, Show me the Money, Unsung Hero, Acting with Responsibility, Leading Innovation Excellence, Customer Satisfaction, Leading the Way and Teamwork.

Through customer feedback imago realised the customer journey could be enhanced by improving the effectiveness of the processes and relations between their sales and operations functions. In order to address this, they invited the lead from each customer ‘touch point', 14 in total, to a meeting, dinner and overnight stay at Burleigh Court, their four star hotel. One of the main topics for discussion focused on identifying areas for improvement, especially in terms of communication and understanding, between the various teams involved in the customer journey. This company wide team building exercise served to bring all the appropriate people together in a positive, non-confrontational environment and gave them the opportunity to consider issues with their colleagues in the wider team, to air concerns and to discuss imaginative solutions. The event was a huge success. People began to view issues from a different angle and to understand the impact of their role on other teams. In particular, they gained a better understanding of how customers experienced the journey through their organisation. They began to think more as a whole team working together to improve the customer experience, rather than working in isolated units where they didn't always have the opportunity to engage with other teams or understand the impact of their roles on others. Using the outcomes of this team building exercise, this work has been used to remodel the processes and teams to improve the customer experience which will also increase staff engagement and motivation and ultimately company success.

Through customer feedback imago realised the customer journey could be enhanced by improving the effectiveness of the processes and relations between their sales and operations functions. In order to address this, they invited the lead from each customer ‘touch point', 14 in total, to a meeting, dinner and overnight stay at Burleigh Court, their four star hotel. One of the main topics for discussion focused on identifying areas for improvement, especially in terms of communication and understanding, between the various teams involved in the customer journey. This company wide team building exercise served to bring all the appropriate people together in a positive, non-confrontational environment and gave them the opportunity to consider issues with their colleagues in the wider team, to air concerns and to discuss imaginative solutions. The event was a huge success. People began to view issues from a different angle and to understand the impact of their role on other teams. In particular, they gained a better understanding of how customers experienced the journey through their organisation. They began to think more as a whole team working together to improve the customer experience, rather than working in isolated units where they didn't always have the opportunity to engage with other teams or understand the impact of their roles on others. Using the outcomes of this team building exercise, this work has been used to remodel the processes and teams to improve the customer experience which will also increase staff engagement and motivation and ultimately company success.

As one of our core values is to be human, they ensure that the way in which they live the values is done so in a human way too. All new team members attend induction sessions from departments across the agency, allowing them to meet the wider team and get a better understanding as to how the agency runs day-to-day. They run a new starters lunch that also includes a long serving team member, with their CEO and CFO so that new team members can meet the senior team members in a relaxed, yet exciting venue. They get together as a whole agency every quarter to spend time together and hold quarterly company meetings as well as regular team meetings with their direct team. One such event was their Momentum roadshow lead by their global president where teams worked on various client problems alongside team members they never usually work together day to day.

One of the initiatives they introduced in 2012 to give something back to their staff and thank them for their ongoing hard work was their sports and social club. The club aims to provide a happy and healthy working environment, with plenty of opportunities for people to relax, enjoy something new or favoured past time in the company of colleagues, friends and family. As a company they acknowledge their duty of care as an employer to provide their staff with different ways to improve their health and well-being but, with the sports and social club, took this one step further to empower staff with ownership and an increased range of activities that staff truly enjoy. Employees are regularly asked which activities they would like to be offered by the company, which are then all employee organised. iCrossing contributes between 50% - 100% of the cost. These complimentary and subsidised activities, open to all, aim to promote a healthy and balanced working life. We've been sailing to the Isle of Wight, gone go-karting, regularly take part in football, basketball and volleyball leagues, visited the opera, comedy, plays, then music festivals, beer festivals, poker nights, gone Back to the Future at the Secret Cinema and chilled out with yoga and massages.

The Health and Wellbeing group are a sub group of ICAS' main staff committee which aim to support staff to maintain a healthy lifestyle and will therefore focus on issues of concern to their employees. Following on from the success of the Global Corporate Challenge they again sponsored as many of their staff who wished to participate in the 16 week, GCC event. This year they had 28 people in four teams, one more than last year. The aim of the challenge is to improve staff health, wellbeing and performance at work. The teams covered either walking, swimming or cycling, an overall distance of 33,213km over the 16 week period. In the feedback received 91.4% now exceed the 10,000 steps recommended. They promote healthy eating and supply fruit to their offices for all their staff to enjoy on a fortnightly basis. While they provided tea, coffee and water to all staff, following requests, ICAS have now added herbal and other decaffinated teas to this selection.

The Health and Wellbeing group are a sub group of ICAS' main staff committee which aim to support staff to maintain a healthy lifestyle and will therefore focus on issues of concern to their employees. Following on from the success of the Global Corporate Challenge they again sponsored as many of their staff who wished to participate in the 16 week, GCC event. This year they had 28 people in four teams, one more than last year. The aim of the challenge is to improve staff health, wellbeing and performance at work. The teams covered either walking, swimming or cycling, an overall distance of 33,213km over the 16 week period. In the feedback received 91.4% now exceed the 10,000 steps recommended. They promote healthy eating and supply fruit to their offices for all their staff to enjoy on a fortnightly basis. While they provided tea, coffee and water to all staff, following requests, ICAS have now added herbal and other decaffinated teas to this selection.

Hunter Adams' Managing Director leads from the front in every aspect of their business. His style of communication is open and transparent and he has openly shared the business strategy with all employees. For the past two years Hunter Adams' number one strategic objective has been the retention of the team and the Managing Director puts employee engagement at the forefront of the agenda to ensure they continue to do this. He provides honest and transparent monthly business updates on how they are performing to plan and invites comments and questions from the wider team that he is happy to answer in an open forum. He is passionate about communication and engages with the wider team using a variety of communication mediums. His drive and energy acts as a real motivator to the team and his commitment to growing and developing the business is evident from his actions. The development of the team is also one of his priorities to ensure that Hunter Adams attract, develop and retain the very best HR talent in the markets they operate in. He was instrumental in the creation of their own HR Academy helping to develop their own talent. He empowers his Leadership team and challenges them to be accountable for the growth of their service area whilst providing an entrepreneurial vision for the future growth of the organisation.

Hunter Adams social committee put together a wide range of events with several of them focused solely on the wellbeing of their team. They have entered teams into several 10k races. Their main charity event was a kayaking expedition with a total combined distance of 96 miles. Managers have set their teams pedometer challenges and have organised local hill walking trips. The team also take on personal challenges such as the London Marathon and two of the team have successfully completed the trek up Kilimanjaro. Hunter Adams encourages their team to be fit and active and live healthy lifestyles.

By creating an environment that is informal and friendly, and where people genuinely love coming to work because they get on with the people and like doing the work.

Hugo & Cat are a straightforward company where great people really count. For the right people there's a real opportunity to make a difference and to be given real responsibility. Their structure is non-hierarchical, and they listen to their staff to create an environment and culture that everyone has helped shape.