Mott MacDonald utilises two primary groups to listen to the views of employees. To promote professional excellence, a Young Professional Excellence (YPE) network exists across all of the company's business units. This network creates a learning culture among the company's younger staff. YPE promotes two way communications and ensures that the views of their young professionals are fed back to senior management. As the YPE networks are representative of Mott MacDonald's business units, the Groups can be targeted depending on the nature of the query on which the company is seeking views. The other channel which MacDonald uses is staff councils. These allow effective two-way communication between the company and staff at all levels. In doing so, they provide a forum in which company policy can be explained to staff. They are held on a quarterly basis and minutes are posted on the company's intranet to ensure all staff have access to on going discussions.

The senior management team at Mott MacDonald has produced a video called Moving Forward, aimed at giving their staff an insight into the opportunities and challenges the company is currently facing and where they expect to be going as a company for the next five years. The video started with a reminder of how the company fared in the past 12 months and looked at the new reality impacting the business and the challenges it brings. To make it as easy as possible for everyone to see the video, the company hosted the production on their internal e-learning site as well as making it available on DVD for staff outside the office. To ensure maximum awareness was generated for the production, an email was sent out from the Group's chairman well as notices appearing on the intranet encouraging all staff to view it. Feedback from staff showed this approach was welcomed and included positive comments about how sincerely and well the senior management came across.

Morningstar have partnered with the City of London and a charity based in the city fringes to provide teenagers in deprived areas with an opportunity to visit a City office, go through a workshop with employees on City careers, practice interviewing, learn more about career paths in a financial company and take part in work experiences and internships potentially leading to a permanent role.

Morningstar's flat non-hierarchical environment, casual culture and open architecture encourages and fosters open communications at all levels of the organisation. The company actively encourages questions, ideas, and debates and state they aren't likely to hire individuals who aren't curious question askers. Morningstar have an open upwards communication policy where employees are invited to write, call or meet senior management regularly. The company organises breakfast sessions with senior management, town hall meetings with their CEO and founder and country meetings, social events and seek employee feedback through several different surveys.

At Metaswitch, a line manager is an individual's Personnel Manager and is responsible for their wellbeing, engagement at work and their career. Weekly status meetings are a key element of this role and it guarantees one-on-one time every week between the manager and employee. Managers are trained to be able to manage their people effectively and this means using careful judgement and thought when making decisions about the employee and agreeing all key decisions with their line.

At Metaswitch, a line manager is an individual's Personnel Manager and is responsible for their wellbeing, engagement at work and their career. Weekly status meetings are a key element of this role and it guarantees one-on-one time every week between the manager and employee. Managers are trained to be able to manage their people effectively and this means using careful judgement and thought when making decisions about the employee and agreeing all key decisions with their line.

Mercedes-Benz UK have 600 e-learning programmes on-line for employees to access as well as Ashridge's Virtual Learning which all employee have access to.

With all Mercedes-Benz products there is a 'Blue Efficiency' version that is specifically environmentally friendly. The UK environment benefits from the vast amounts of research that is continually undertaken to ensure vehicles are as environmentally friendly as possible. The company actively allows employees to support National Charity Days e.g. Wear it Pink and Comic Relief.

Mercedes Benz Retail regularly hold road shows for all their staff to ensure they are kept up to date with the business performance and reminders about their core values to ensure that they are all pulling in the same direction. The top line results will be communicated to all staff with the more detailed results being disseminated to each department/site to ensure action plans can be put in place to act upon the feedback where appropriate. Mercedes Benz Retail have always looked at the results and created action plans to address the feedback provided to ensure that employees realise that their feedback is very important and is acted upon.

Mercedes Benz Retail offer their Technicians the opportunity to spend one week's work experience with the Mercedes Benz F1 Grand Prix team.

As a multi-national corporation there are many initiatives that focus on giving back. In fact Medtronic have a Medtronic Foundation which provides over US$60 million in grants and donations to charities and causes over the last year such as the Japanese Tsunami but it is the motivation and enthusiasm to give something back at a local level which makes us stand out. Every UK employee is given one day paid to volunteer or do something worthwhile for a charitable cause. Around Watford where their UK HQ is based teams have been involved in landscaping gardens for the New Hope Trust. Medtronic are co-sponsors of the Great Watford Walk which most recently raised £12,000, giving Watford Mencap, The Peace Hospice and Watford New Hope Trust £4000 each. Sometimes an employee comes up with a great idea which Medtronic are able to support. For example, one of their customer service team suggested running a curry and quiz night for a local girl who was trying to raise money for a defribillator. Forty employees turned out for a curry and quiz night paid for by Medtronic and all proceeds generated from the tickets went to little Maisie's campaign.

The new leader of the UK organisation is UK & Ireland Vice President, Jackie Fielding and she has brought a fresh approach to communicating with employees. Jackie only took the position in November 2010 after 19 years working for Medtronic in a range of business roles. She had brought a fresh approach to how she communicates and engages with employees by focusing on listening to the views of employees and communicating in a very open and honest way. Jackie holds monthly ‘have your say' sessions with employees where employees can meet with her informally over coffee and discuss any concerns or views they may have on the company. These are very open sessions and often employees share things with Jackie they would not share with the direct manager or function leader. From March to May Medtronic experienced a Global Restructure which affected teams in the UK. This was an unsettling time for many people but throughout Jackie communicated regularly and openly using a blog on their Intranet, face-to-face meetings and weekly round up emails to let everyone know what was going on. Where she was unable to answer a question she would explain why and make sure as soon as she was able to respond she did so straight away. This open and honest approach to communicating during what was a tough time for the company was very well received.

In March of this year Medicare First took part in a fund raising event for "Red Nose Day". Employees were requested to wear at least one item of red clothing and contribute to the charity. The day was a great success with some very interesting displays of inventive red items of clothing, some of which could only be displayed momentarily! Good fun was had by all and the money raised went to a very worthwhile cause.

Managers are able to experience the highs and the lows because they operate a hands on management style. Encourage and motivate their teams to win the quarterly incentive awards. Engage team members in how their input will benefit the Company's profits and how their behaviour/skills will lead to the Company becoming the best practice model within the recruitment industry. Managers would not ask their team to undertake a task which they would not do themselves. Encourage, motivate and provide their team with the skills and information to achieve their set targets and to acknowledge their efforts and outcomes.

The Christmas Party is a major event in Matchtech's company calendar. At a time when many businesses have been keeping a keen eye on costs, expenditure on staff social activities has been reduced or even cut. Their business has prided itself on maintaining their social activities. Matchtech pay for all their staff and partners to attend the black tie party and awards ceremony. This involves arranging for their staff from their four UK offices and one German office to converge for the occasion at the Guildhall in Southampton. It is the event in the company's social calendar.

The managers show much greater flexibilty. It is now commonplace for staff to be working from home on some occasions, to be given opportunities to leave the business earlier on a Friday if travelling away for the weekend. The managers create and agree development plans with staff on an annual basis. The managers feedback the vision to their teams and quarterly objectives are created in line with the plan. The managers review competencies with each of their staff at least once a year.

Following the Marks Sattin Mid-Year Review, employees participated in 'The Apprentice Challenge', followed by drinks and snacks. This was a half day event that saw all Marks Sattin employees in the UK and Ireland come together in London to celebrate the company's achievements and participate in an Apprentice themed challenge. Employees were split into groups and tasked with appointing a team leader, then followed clues to different areas of London and carried out challenges to earn points. Each team was given £50 for any purchases required and evidence such as photos and receipts had to be supplied for each challenge. Prizes included bar tabs and dinner at Michelin star restaurant for the entire team.

Following the Marks Sattin Mid-Year Review, employees participated in 'The Apprentice Challenge', followed by drinks and snacks. This was a half day event that saw all Marks Sattin employees in the UK and Ireland come together in London to celebrate the company's achievements and participate in an Apprentice themed challenge. Employees were split into groups and tasked with appointing a team leader, then followed clues to different areas of London and carried out challenges to earn points. Each team was given £50 for any purchases required and evidence such as photos and receipts had to be supplied for each challenge. Prizes included bar tabs and dinner at Michelin star restaurant for the entire team.