My Company - The level of engagement employees feel with their job and organisation
My Company is what we call an ‘output’ factor, it focuses on people’s ‘love’ and ‘pride’ in working for your organisation.
Now unfortunately you can’t directly make people feel these emotions, but when all of the other seven factors are doing well, people will be far more likely to experience that love and pride ultimately improving the My Company factor as a result.
Every month two staff exemplifying the company values are presented with champagne and shopping voucher by chief executive, Enrico Sanna, at the all-company update and Fora has a “Team Takeover” every fortnight where different departments create some entertainment for the company on that day
As an alternative to its annual ForaFest weekend away, the company sent staff food and drinks and organised a pizza cook-along, cocktail making class and interactive activities including musical Bingo. It also announced the winners of the Golden Palm awards for outstanding contribution.
Fora encourages biodiversity by building bat boxes, beehives and bird houses and ensures plants in its gardens are bee friendly. Fora only buys food or toiletries that are free from palm oil as well as local produce from ethically sourced suppliers and it uses renewable energy for its electricity.
The council offers internships, work experience placements and apprenticeships, which can lead to a full-time job. It recently initiated a scheme with the University of Kent to develop a talent pipeline for the planning department and successfully recruited newcomers into graduate planning roles.
The organisational development team has delivered a full learning and development programme over the course of the pandemic, opting to embrace online methods and rolling out Zoom and Skype training. Managers asked for feedback and found that many people preferred the virtual learning experience.
Staff can get discounts at hundreds of retailers and hospitality venues through a Reward Gateway account. Winners of the authority's popular quarterly recognition scheme, who are nominated by colleagues for their commitment to key values such as Customer First, also receive £25 vouchers.
When a director joins the company they spend time on the shopfloor getting to know the business and meeting people across all sites for a wider understanding of the business and to increase approachability. All senior managers post updates and interesting facts about their roles on the in-house platforms.
Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Yapster, its in-house comms platform, were useful tools in helping drive engagement while the bulk of the Flat Iron workforce was on furlough. Weekly quizzes, Zoom Friday beer meetings and cooking competitions with everyone voting for their favourite dish became a weekly event.
Pre-pandemic, Flat Iron had selected Bread and Water for Africa, which helps to provide food, education and healthcare to some of the world's most deprived and vulnerable children, as its lead charity. Its second principal good cause was Cool Earth, which fights climate change – the company being conscious that beef production is part of the story.
The organisation showed its work family it cared during the pandemic with paid days off to recognise the contribution they had made, thank you days focussed on fun and wellbeing plus treat bags accompanied by a note of appreciation from Chief Executive, Marcia Sinfield.
FHA has always invested significantly in training and development even in challenging periods and last year it introduced a Leading Change Programme, open to all while 30 staff took up the opportunity to increase their skills and qualifications through apprenticeship programmes.
Teams have had coffee mornings, quizzes and opportunities to just talk about how they are feeling with support from Time to Change Champions and they have been encouraged to take a walk during their breaks to appreciate nature with WhatsApp groups featuring different activities and beautiful views from across Wales.
Fair Ways believes the key to successful, motivated and engaged teams is having an inspiring and supportive leader. In addition to the management development training programme, which includes external training and coaching sessions, there are regular drop in masterclasses on topics from culture and supporting organisational change to coaching for managers.
During lockdown in place of the usual monthly staff lottery which has a £100 prize, Fair Ways introduced a quarterly lottery where employees can win a £1,000 for a holiday of their choice. Staff can also now choose how they would best like to work in the future.
During the pandemic Fair Ways set up internal and external Help Squads to support vulnerable members of staff and the local community. Fair Ways staff helped colleagues or their families with shopping and picking up prescriptions and organised the donation of over 1,000 items to local food banks.
After carrying out a project on collaboration within the business, in which every employee had their say, it launched multiple communication channels. It found some people preferred to listen at work and others to discuss, some to read and others to watch, and adapted its approach accordingly.
Mental and physical wellbeing have been at the centre of everything Everflow has done for its employees since the pandemic began. Mental health courses, informal virtual get-togethers and quizzes were supplemented by a cycle-to-work scheme and encouraging exercise during daylight hours for those working from home.
The company calculates that by being exclusively paperless, it avoids using 2 million pieces of paper a year on traditional billing and envelopes. It also helps the environment by providing smart meters and giving advice to customers on saving water and preventing blockages.
The Women at EngageTech group was launched to reflect the growing number of females in the business. As well as a chat channel for regular socials and catch-up calls the group meets once a month to discuss relevant issues and more women are consequently now involved in late stage interviews.
The new Mental Health & Wellbeing Committee organise activities including cooking, book clubs, yoga and strength classes and Strava running and cycling clubs with prizes as incentives. Employees are also encouraged to use their flexi-time to get away from their desks and go on walks and runs.
During the pandemic EngageTech staff were given time off to support the NHS volunteer scheme, delivering medicines and acting as a social point of contact for people shielding. For Mental Health Month employees picked a daily fitness challenge and secured sponsorship, raising more than £5,000 for various mental health charities.
A RISE values system – do the Right thing; make a positive Impact; keep it Simple; and always Evolve – shapes the EKM culture and attract the best new talent, recruited mainly using job boards, LinkedIn, and by scouting Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduate fairs.
Employees can recognise their colleagues in a “Wheel of Heroes” initiative, to tell them how appreciated it was when they helped out. Names go into a draw and the winner gets to spin the Wheel of Heroes for prizes of anything from £1 toilet roll to £100 or a day's holiday.
EKM has donated to various charities over the past year, including Save the Children. The company also works closely with local schools and CEO Antony has given speeches by video link to classes on building your own business.
The Society held its annual awards night in May via Zoom and sent everyone a box of treats to enjoy during the evening and even roped in the partners of Employee of the Year and Manager of the Year to surprise them with champagne and flowers.
The Society launched a wellbeing campaign, challenging staff to doing 30 minutes of exercise for 30 days, creating some healthy competition and it also provided weekly open Tea and Talk sessions with an independent counsellor. Support is also available from 14 mental health first aiders.
Employees responded to the local NHS Heroes campaign by putting together care packages for their local hospital and each branch supported one care home locally sending a box of goodies to entertain and treat the residents. Employees have also been supporting the vulnerable in the community.
The management team has weekly meetings to discuss all operational aspects of the business including the impact of Covid. In April, the company appointed an education and training lead who works across the whole organisation assessing and addressing development needs.
The business likes to send physical things through the post to remind people that it appreciates them. This includes small birthday presents, quarterly deliveries of a director-chosen gift – a bottle of wine, chocolate, beauty products, dependant on individual preferences. Several sets of hand-packed care boxes also went out.
Development was ongoing for all staff during the pandemic and was, in fact, strengthened to levels higher than previous years. This included training with the company's tooling partners; LinkedIn Learning; in-house courses; lunch-and-learn sessions; and staff obtaining formal qualifications such as Six Sigma and Prince 2 certification.
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