Last year Gemini People spent a large portion of their profit on training their managers and hired an external business coach to work with managers on a 1-2-1 basis and in group sessions. The company now have a formal training programme for all of their managers which runs on a monthly basis. The training is spread out over 12 months and covers everything from learning about “emotional intelligence” through to “what does it mean to be a leader?” The training is being facilitated by the company's Head of Talent, the Directors and the CEO and they have also appointed an external training company. The company also decided to split the management team into two groups so that managers are working in small groups and getting lots of attention in these sessions. Gemini People have recently rolled out a new review process and have been running one to one sessions with each of the managers on how to implement this process with their teams. Gemini People believe that everyone is an individual and one size does not fit all so they are conscious about this when it comes to training.

With a nurturing ethos that supersedes any sense of hierarchy in the business, the senior management team at Gemini People are committed to leading the company through collaboration, fun, inspiration and integrity. They hold Friday wrap-up meetings for the whole company, where they publicly recognise the week's best efforts in the office. They are the first people in the office each morning and the last people to leave at night, they hold regular cross-team meetings, where they share client information and they also run a host of training courses to up-skill everyone in the company. They are always the first to be involved in Gemini CSR initiatives, they have an open door policy and are always there to talk to. The senior management team at Gemini People also lead by example and are the top performers in the business. They would never ask a team member to do something they wouldn't do themselves (even clean the kitchen on their team's day on the rota!) and they frequently use WhatsApp as a quick way to chat about any issues their team members have out of hours.

G Adventures has 25 community projects in the destinations their travellers visit. They have just committed to launching another 50 projects in the next five years. All 50 social enterprise projects – known collectively as G Adventures for Good projects - are under development by G Adventures and its non-profit organisation, Planeterra Foundation. Together they will invest more than CAD$5-million in social enterprises over the next five years. G Adventures is constantly evaluating potential new G Adventures; For Good projects and these are selected according to the biggest impact in terms of community benefit and traveller numbers. The projects are primarily located in communities where indigenous people, women and youth have been disadvantaged by a lack of access to education, jobs and income opportunities.

All the senior management team wear Core Values t-shirts and set-up and host Summit Talks, where different business leaders and people with interesting stories come in to the office for an open forum chat about their job and how they got there. They support both The Monarchy (culture team) and Green Queens (sustainability ambassadors) in their goals to create happiness and community, and to do the right thing. They are also the barometer for the office ensuring morale is well and people are passionate in what they do every day!

Manager's competency is assessed so that bespoke training and development can be provided on a regular basis with checks to ensure quality. L+D works to support managers by regularly assessing their training and coaching skills, providing feedback and development to improve this. Managers attend induction training to embed the vision and values and lend valuable context to their work across the business. L+D works hard to coach managers to provide the best feedback, support and development utilising a sports coaching methodology, ensuring that all staff at all levels of the business can expect the same consistent level and format of support. Lead Advisors are supported on their unique development path by L+D Managers to ensure their vision of a new career in management is fulfilled.

Freedom Finance has a charity committee. The committee holds various activities and competitions where all proceedings go to their chosen charity, St Anne's Hospice. At the end of each month they hold a dress down day where employees have to pay £1 to participate, the event has proven to be extremely popular with employees. Employees have participated in the Manchester Midnight Walk for St Anne's Hospice and also helped and attended a Quiz Nights and Bake Sales. Other events that staff have organised for another charity called Brainwave are a sponsored 5k run, fancy dress days, and formal dress Wednesdays. Freedom Finance holds an annual event called Freedom Festival, which is run across the entire workforce for their chosen charity. The activities that were in this year's festival included mangers participating in several events across the week such as limbo, races and treasure hunting events.

All Fourfront employees are enrolled in to the Fourfront Academy and are given a career development training programme, tailored for their specific needs and job role. The company invest three times the national average on training which helps the Group retain and attract some of the best talent. The Fourfront Academy is important not only to individual development, happiness and success, but is vital in ensuring Fourfront Group remains a leading organisation in the industry and, more importantly, delivers excellence to their clients. Fourfront Group also recognises that specific groups can have specific developmental needs, so has launched a number of initiatives. NextGen creates a platform for innovation and networking and gives an opportunity for young talent to feed their expertise back into the business. Women in Fourfront supports women in their career development through a workshop-style learning environment with quarterly meetings and coaching sessions. The company has trained internal mentors support individuals throughout the business in their career development by passing on knowledge and experience. This programme enables the company to bring fresh new talent into the business and give students studying towards relevant degrees and opportunity to learn and develop. Outstanding interns are sponsored during their final year at University with a view to bringing them back as full time employees. Fourfront invests in the learning activities through which professionals develop their abilities and ensure they remain effective and increasingly capable. This is achieved through a programme of accredited seminars, supplier visits and payment for employees' annual professional body memberships.

All Fourfront employees are enrolled in to the Fourfront Academy and are given a career development training programme, tailored for their specific needs and job role. The company invest three times the national average on training which helps the Group retain and attract some of the best talent. The Fourfront Academy is important not only to individual development, happiness and success, but is vital in ensuring Fourfront Group remains a leading organisation in the industry and, more importantly, delivers excellence to their clients. Fourfront Group also recognises that specific groups can have specific developmental needs, so has launched a number of initiatives. NextGen creates a platform for innovation and networking and gives an opportunity for young talent to feed their expertise back into the business. Women in Fourfront supports women in their career development through a workshop-style learning environment with quarterly meetings and coaching sessions. The company has trained internal mentors support individuals throughout the business in their career development by passing on knowledge and experience. This programme enables the company to bring fresh new talent into the business and give students studying towards relevant degrees and opportunity to learn and develop. Outstanding interns are sponsored during their final year at University with a view to bringing them back as full time employees. Fourfront invests in the learning activities through which professionals develop their abilities and ensure they remain effective and increasingly capable. This is achieved through a programme of accredited seminars, supplier visits and payment for employees' annual professional body memberships.

Their Communities Team run c120 community events a year, including sports, arts, fun, recreation, guided walks and coach trips to interesting destinations. They also run a structured volunteering programme called Step Up which engages with c50 volunteers a year aged 12 to adult; these volunteers work at Fortis's events, help at community gardens and organise events in their own neighbourhoods. The team also supports a network of community gardens. In the first instance staff organise the meetings and oversee operations, but with time the gardeners are enabled to form constituted groups with bank accounts and supported by the Fortis Fund Raiser and Bid Writer to seek independent funding for their garden. One of their gardeners won a Community Cohesion Award last year as a result of her work in their Droitwich garden. In 2015 they delivered their second annual Communities Week during which colleagues tidied 28 gardens for elderly and unwell tenants, collected over half a tonne of food for local food banks, ran a sports camp for disadvantaged children, painted and repaired fencing in five neighbourhoods and ran a Pop-Up 50p Shop in a deprived neighbourhood and raised £780 for a local charity nominated by colleagues. The shop alone represented 160 colleague working hours. The Fortis Social Club Committee organises monthly charitable events like dress down days, a bake sale or themed day. The organisation corporately supports the CAB, the local children's football league and lends out its Fund Raiser and Bid Writer to local charities and community groups.

Fortis Living have a strong believe in lifelong learning which support employee development in a variety of offering to suit differing learning styles and ability. These opportunities include:- Professional, Academic and Vocational courses from level 2 to level 7, this will either link to current role or career aspirations, supported financially and with time off as appropriate. Secondments to other departments and teams from 3 to 18 months, workshops and Seminars, Open Courses and networking group to support sharing of best practice. Training courses delivered in traditional style, from 2 hour bitesize course to 8 day programmes spread over a period time to embed the learning. They delivered 365 events last year using internal and external training at their offices. E- learning is used to provide Health and Safety updates and support in house training courses. Toolbox talks for short updates for operatives to give them training updates, coaching is encouraged and supported throughout the organisation, managers are given a bespoke series of training day to give them the skills to be able to support a coachee. 12 % of Fortis Living employees have gained promotion and they have examples of employees starting and undertaking an apprenticeship and progressing to supervisor level.

As part of their work for the Footprints Foundation they have sent 2 teams of their employees to go out to South Africa and help build an Orphanage for a period of 2 weeks. The company also did the same last year and it has been a great success.

Grapevine is an internal employee forum. It is all about 2 way communication and sharing best practice across the business. As they want to be the best, they want everyone's feedback to get there. There are nominated employee's who act as representatives from various different areas of the business who meet quarterly to bring key questions to the table. A representative will pick up the question and look for an answer within a specified time to feedback at the next meeting.

Every member of the management team has access to the company's leadership pathway to further develop their leadership skills. They hold two Assistant Team Leader and Team Leader conferences every year to support development and offer them a forum to share experiences and ideas. This year, they have also introduced a new training session called ‘New Learning Methods'. During this one-day course, Team Leaders will learn how to better engage their teams and promote understanding by using a number of different learning styles. Management Team are also sent on external courses for job specific training. They also have an entire department dedicated to supporting the management team so they may reach their full potential. Leadership Academy hosts training sessions and one-to-one mentoring with the management team to help them develop their skills and also to support them as they create a succession pool within their team. Finally, financial assistance is offered for external professional training courses and development.

Every member of the management team has access to the company's leadership pathway to further develop their leadership skills. They hold two Assistant Team Leader and Team Leader conferences every year to support development and offer them a forum to share experiences and ideas. This year, they have also introduced a new training session called ‘New Learning Methods'. During this one-day course, Team Leaders will learn how to better engage their teams and promote understanding by using a number of different learning styles. Management Team are also sent on external courses for job specific training. They also have an entire department dedicated to supporting the management team so they may reach their full potential. Leadership Academy hosts training sessions and one-to-one mentoring with the management team to help them develop their skills and also to support them as they create a succession pool within their team. Finally, financial assistance is offered for external professional training courses and development.

The company's Vision, Mission and Values are communicated to their internal employees through: On boarding packs, posters and office branding, Intranet and internal newsletters. They also reinforce their values to their clients through client presentations and also communicate their values through their website. The aim is for their colleagues to live and breathe these values and one of the reasons the business was created 10 years ago was to give people the tools to be successful in an ethically, people-centric environment.

FPG shows it supports employee development by its organic growth strategy. They make clear to employees in the yearly business strategy presentation that opportunities will always be given internally before bringing external resources in. Leading by actions has given a clear message to FPG employees, they open offices around the world but only in locations their staff want to live and work. With each of the 9 overseas offices, the managers of those offices started out in a graduate role in the London office. Training and qualifications are encouraged especially in the support functions such as finance. External leadership and team leading training has been particularly useful to their managers and aspiring managers.

Each year, as a reward for outstanding performance, 10% of staff are chosen to attend the annual “Boat” event. The event takes place the first week of September and sees the top performing staff across categories such as most permanent vacancies taken, most new accounts bought on, best internal feedback, and best customer journey. The luxury boat is privately charted by the company from Hamble Harbour in Southampton. Employees get to spend 2 days sailing around the Solent, before docking on the Isle of Wight taking lunch in Colwell Bay with an overnight stay and dinner in Cowes. Winners of this unique reward are announced at the Annual Company Awards evening in June each year. Feedback from those that attended this year's event included comments such as “What a fantastic way to reward staff for all their hard work and “A relaxing day at sea, time to spend with colleagues and lovely food and drink – a perfect couple of days”

Each year, as a reward for outstanding performance, 10% of staff are chosen to attend the annual “Boat” event. The event takes place the first week of September and sees the top performing staff across categories such as most permanent vacancies taken, most new accounts bought on, best internal feedback, and best customer journey. The luxury boat is privately charted by the company from Hamble Harbour in Southampton. Employees get to spend 2 days sailing around the Solent, before docking on the Isle of Wight taking lunch in Colwell Bay with an overnight stay and dinner in Cowes. Winners of this unique reward are announced at the Annual Company Awards evening in June each year. Feedback from those that attended this year's event included comments such as “What a fantastic way to reward staff for all their hard work and “A relaxing day at sea, time to spend with colleagues and lovely food and drink – a perfect couple of days”

The company has 3 values: Expert, Dynamic, Scrupulous Expert: continuous learning via two Directors being members of two bimonthly peer support groups (Cranfield BGP Alumni group and the Property Academy Leadership Group); speaking at local events; taking part in Sunday Times National Awards as judges to keep in touch with best practice; contribution to industry trends as spokespeople to trade press and national media; proximity to planning legislation via the MD being a Steering Group member of his Neighbourhood Plan. Dynamic: constantly pushing new ideas into the organisation. Other new innovation includes their own bespoke Property Inspection iPad app to streamline arguably the most valued part of their Property Management. Sourcing of new developments and opportunities such as the 24 apartments they bought and furnished for clients in Reading. Scrupulous: honesty and integrity when dealing with clients; fair judgements during the settling of any minor or major customer complaints; walking the walk each day in their demeanour and treatment of colleagues.

Team events/meetings happen every day at Finders Keepers. Every office has a team meeting first thing in the morning, to focus the team on what is happening, what the priorities are, where they are against target. They also use these meetings to celebrate success; probationary periods passed, promotions, exams passed, first year anniversaries -all rewarded with a bottle of wine and a card. On three occasions a year, they have a staff meeting - two breakfast ones and one annual lunch one where they take all the staff to a venue. At the breakfast ones, they have a 'fun' team exercise followed by an update on business activities and awards for staff who go above and beyond in demonstrating their values - these nominations are from their peers. At the annual staff meeting, after an update on the year's success, they reward long service, and the 'best' in class, again nominated by their peers. There is usually a gap in these meetings in the summer to allow for their busy seasonal period but this year they decided to bridge the gap with a shortened version of the quarterly meetings, in the form of a Pimms party by the river, this took the form of a quick update, awards for their values but the main focus was a huge thank you to the staff for their hard work.