What are companies doing with regards to 'My Team'

Sentinel Housing support all of their people to grow and develop personally and professionally. The company offer a blended approach to L&D, recognising that everyone has a preferred learning style and if they can tap into that the L&D will be more effective. One great example of how the company have supported employee development is a restructure of their front line operations to create a tier of team leaders and to appoint all posts from internal candidates. This came about from staff consultation. Many comments were made that the company's hierarchical structure was too flat so there were limited opportunities for upward career development. Sentinel Housing took this feedback seriously and subsequently restructured their neighbourhood and customer services teams to create 7 team leader roles. The company appointed all posts internally and set up a L&D programme for all to attend. They also developed team leader competencies and a reward structure that gave incremental salary increases as competencies were reached. This has had a hugely motivational effect on the organisation. Firstly it demonstrated that Sentinel Housing do take feedback seriously and it showed that they value their staff and are prepared to invest in them. So the heightened morale extended beyond the individuals who directly benefitted from the restructure. And now some of those people feature in the company's succession plans to be future managers of their business.

Sentinel Housing have a variety of learning & development programmes that support their managers at different stages of their development. This includes formal training, mentoring and coaching and toolbox talks. All newly appointed team leaders and middle managers attend management skills training run by the Corporate Coach Group. This ensures that the company have a consistent approach across all management disciplines. Further training is given to meet individual need. Individual L&D plans are developed and agreed between manager and individual taking into consideration current level of skill and career ambition. Sentinel Housing group also provide training to help us meet our corporate ambitions and strategies. This year the company focused on coaching to improve staff empowerment. For staff to be truly empowered they need to be capable and confident. Coaching reinforces learning and is the best way to build confidence so our staff will take decisions at the lowest level. Monthly toolbox talks are run by the company HR Team. They are a useful refresher for the management skills used less frequently; absence management, capability management, disciplinary & grievance, selection interviewing etc. Sentinel Housing Group senior managers are currently on a leadership programme with Ashridge Business School – ‘Leading the Difference'. The company are identifying the leadership style they need to keep their business highly successful against an external environment that is very challenging for housing associations.

The company have embarked upon a strategic communications programme that makes homeworking real, with clearly articulated benefits for organisations, their customers and the employees that serve them. They are involving their people in this – from videos and company bloggers to contribution to PR activity – and all this is underpinned by an active social media programme.

The company believe that their shift flexibility is a key benefit. Employees have to work a number of pre-agreed core hours, but are then free to select hours that give them a good work/life balance. This means that they have predictability of working hours, but also flexibility if they need to have a special day out with the children or simply make a doctor's appointment. The company's technology also supports shift ‘swapping' which means that employees can reach out to colleagues to swap shifts, giving even more flexibility to achieve the best work/life balance.

Their vision as a business is to become a global provider of investment property brands, renown in each market they serve for their ability to successfully align investor returns with brands that exceed end users' expectations. Their values centre around their team members being committed to excellence, always demonstrating integrity and showing respect and being passionate, active and take pride in everything they do. Their esteemed management team do this from leading from the front and demonstrating superior conduct and professionalism. The management team acknowledge the success and talents of individuals but also realise that true excellence is delivered through the combined efforts of team members so rewards tend to be team based, such as department trips to Dubai. This also enables global teams to meet and interact which cultivates a positive working relationship.

Every Monday morning at 8.45am every team member meets in the sales office for a kick off meeting. The London team skype in from the office so that all team members know what is happening across the UK. This boosts motivation for the week and allows all departments to update the rest of the company with the main highlights from the previous week and what they are looking forward to that week. In addition to this and to encourage interaction between departments and offices, Select Property Group holds regular social events both in and out of work time to allow all team members to participate, regardless of personal circumstances. Examples of this have been a series of summer lunch parties at both the Alderley Edge and London office – Paella Day, BBQ Day and Pizza Day are just three examples. All events are run simultaneously in both Alderley Edge and London with group images and video calls made in real time in order for the two offices to bond.

Enabling Your Potential -Ethics of coaching and developing so people know where their future is within the company.

Impact Awards - A global award programme celebrating the positive impact on clients, each other, and the world. Core Value awards, Buddy Awards, Bonus

Aside from their fixed and regular reward initiatives like the Employee of the Month award, Xtra Mile programme and end of year Red Lion awards, which are voted for by colleagues and directly reward staff performance with tangible benefits of up to £1000, they have worked hard to develop one of the most diverse and comprehensive benefits packages in their industry. Part of their benefits sees the company curate a programme of cultural events called Freshly Squeezed, which aims to cater for the ‘whole person' by offering a wide range of topics. Staff are encouraged to get involved at their leisure and within work hours to develop new skills. This gives staff the opportunity to take a break, with the intention of feeling valued and making Rufus a rewarding place for them to come to work. Rufus have had fantastic feedback from both permanent and freelance staff who say they haven't seen such a wide-ranging and unique initiative at any other agency. Their benefits seek to reward staff with everything from time off to discounts on leisure activities (1 free cinema ticket for Vue and Cineworld each week; 40% off British Airways flights; 25% off Eurostar) to looking after their physical and emotional health and wellbeing. On a daily basis, if people need to work late to hit a deadline, they'll be provided with as much beer, pizza and ice cream as they can manage!

The company's brilliant office space plays a big part in promoting collaboration. Double height ceilings and multiuse furniture solutions make it an extremely flexible place to work. All employees are provided with a MAC laptop on arrival, so everyone has freedom to hot-desk. They offer plenty of desk space, sofas and amazing break-out areas for people to have informal meetings and brainstorm. They also have a dedicated canteen/lunch area in the basement where staff can gather over lunch, or break off to one of the snug areas fitted with sofas and soft lighting for more relaxed chats. Rufus knows the importance of taking time out together. Each team has an allocated budget that they can use for social activities. In addition, the events team Freshly Squeezed puts together a bespoke programme of monthly classes and events to help motivate and inspire. These include everything from shoe design, sushi making and movie nights – this means many opportunities to work together with colleagues in smaller groups. They also run regular clubs, including Wine club and Book club. Their Party Animals team also organise lots of opportunities for teams to bond outside of work. Every month, they run an initiative called “Life Lessons With…” These are a fortnightly team challenge where staff nominate a topic, then get together and present their understanding of the topics to each other. In addition they run monthly ‘Masterclasses' - show-and-tell sessions designed to share with each other the work in their respective areas.

They sit in an open plan office so they are with the rest of the team. They know everything there is to know about the brand. They have an "open door" policy when it comes to asking/answering questions. They are extremely approachable. They live and breathe the company. They take ownership.

They sit in an open plan office so they are with the rest of the team. They know everything there is to know about the brand. They have an "open door" policy when it comes to asking/answering questions. They are extremely approachable. They live and breathe the company. They take ownership.

Rocket Fuel have a Town Hall teleconferencing meeting with all their offices worldwide to communicate the company vision and strategy.

Rocket Fuel HR team provides one to one coaching for people managers and offer fortnightly people focused coaching meetings for new managers recently promoted. They have a management mentoring programme of junior staff members on industry knowledge and technical which gives them experience to learn and coach junior team member. In Rocket Fuels Marvels Training programme they offer management courses to up skill managers with management tools, The following training is provided to all managers. Accelerated Feedback training, The versatile manager, Challenging conversations along with accelerated leaders programme to up skill their talented employees in the business to develop in their careers. HR also work with people managers to set out quarterly objectives for their team members, to support them in providing challenging and measurable objectives that are non revenue focused. Rocket Fuel also carry out a twice a year performance review of all employees allowing managers to fill in a self evaluation form along with feedback provided to them directly by their managers in a formal performance meeting. The strong culture in Rocket Fuel is team work and everyone working together to achieve the business success.

The One Riverside Annual Training Plan & the launch of ‘Learning to Lead.' 100% of employees have an annual performance appraisal, containing a two-way discussion between employee and manager to evidence competencies and objectives. Training needs are identified and agreed. This forms the basis of Riverside's annual training plan. Each employee reviews development through a regular 1-2-1 meeting with their own manager. This training plan guarantees employees a range of elearning, workshop-based training, non-work related personal development opportunities, and the opportunity to apply for funded professional development – often with time off to study. All business areas have provision for learning adaptations, staff events and conferences and a continuous professional development. As part of this commitment and to provide the business with a bench strength of ‘ready talent to entry level line manager roles, the company launched a new talent programme called ‘Learning to Lead' – with applications open to those wishing to become ‘job ready.' This talentpool of 40 employees completed an assessment centre, 360 feedback, a series of skills, knowledge and behaviour workshops, heard from guest leadership speakers, and had unlimited access to a line manager elearning suite of modules. Each employee had a mentor throughout the 6-month programme. One year after the launch, 70% of employees in the programme had successfully been recruited into line manager roles, reducing our cost and time per hire and raising engagement with this talentpool and retaining their skills rather than lose them to other organisations.

Riverside has an in-house, bespoke, modular manager development programme called ‘Cornerstone'. This ILM accredited programme is mandatory for our over 400 managers and provides them with workshop based modules. Each module is highly participative and creative – with an onus on reflective review between modules to embed the learning through application of the learning back in the workplace. Cornerstone has won the 2015 Investors in People Leadership Development Programme of the Year. Feedback to the programme is consistently excellent and the theme of the programme is engagement through how to ‘inspire and challenge' by developing behaviours that will engage to drive performance and consistency in the business. The cost per delegate for the entire programme is £900 – an indication of the commitment to the managers who they know from previous Best Companies data to be the conduit to employee engagement at Riverside. The company utilise ‘Yammer' to build a network of delegates for Cornerstone – to share good practice, experience and challenges.

Ridgeons have a range of activities throughout the year as fundraising events for charity. All branches recently took part in the Macmillan coffee morning. Branches have also organised dress down days, sponsored cycle rides, dragon boat racing etc. A number of the branches will also respond to requests from local organisations for free building materials. Each branch has a separate community budget that they control. As a company they are also members of Business in the Community and take part in their Business Class initiative where they partner a local school. Ridgeons partner North Cambridge Academy and facilitate a range of events including mentoring students to learn about the world of work, providing pre-employment skills to students, offering work experience and have just introduced an annual competition for 13 year olds to design a display stand to be used in one of their branches.

Ridgeons have a range of activities throughout the year as fundraising events for charity. All branches recently took part in the Macmillan coffee morning. Branches have also organised dress down days, sponsored cycle rides, dragon boat racing etc. A number of the branches will also respond to requests from local organisations for free building materials. Each branch has a separate community budget that they control. As a company they are also members of Business in the Community and take part in their Business Class initiative where they partner a local school. Ridgeons partner North Cambridge Academy and facilitate a range of events including mentoring students to learn about the world of work, providing pre-employment skills to students, offering work experience and have just introduced an annual competition for 13 year olds to design a display stand to be used in one of their branches.