What are companies doing with regards to 'My Team'

The Charles Russell Bard Award is BARD's premier recognition and reward program for outstanding corporate and community citizenship. Winners receive an all-expenses paid trip to New York with a partner. The Eureka award is for an employee who has a moment of brilliance. Maybe they have come up with a cost saving suggestion of significant consequence or put together a new process/initiative that contributed to a successful end result. The Outstanding Service Award is for the employee who exudes Bard's values of ‘Quality, Integrity, Service and Innovation'. The Allstars Award recognises and reward exceptional results and contributions of a team that had a significant impact on the business. The Presidents Club is for sales employees who have maintained their target 3 out of 4 years consecutively and receive a trip of a lifetime to the Four Seasons Resort on the island of Mauritius and partners. The Directors Club includes £3,000.00 bonus on entry, extra day's holiday, a 2 day annual meeting full of treats such as helicopter rides, wine tasting etc. The One is the quarterly sales person of the quarter and includes criteria other than sales numbers i.e. additional training, supporting colleagues. The winner receives their name in lights and £500 John Lewis vouchers.

By engaging in the best companies survey process it has demonstrated that engagement is on the strategic agenda for the business. The focus is on receiving employee feedback and acting on it, rather than on the score they receive. An employer branding initiative has been launched by the company.

Banks Sadler actively encourages cross company collaboration, across teams, offices and countries. All new starters have a BIG - Banks Induction Guide. The BIG usually takes the new starter to lunch on their first day and is around to help them integrate into Banks Sadler during the first few weeks. All new employees also have a lunch with the CEO. They actively encourage new employees to join in with Friday socials or quarterly social committee activities to try to engage them with other teams. They also arrange various new start initiatives, to encourage team interaction. One such past event was a speed dating style networking in the canteen over pizza, with set questions to get people talking to other new and existing employees from across the organisation. As an Event Management agency, they regularly have opportunities for all staff to help on site at events. This not only enables them to develop professionally, but also gives them the opportunity to work with other teams. Apart from the social committee, they also have a charity committee and various focus groups, that regularly work together

Our Vision, mission and values are all displayed on the intranet. We encourage a transparent working environment, with an open plan work layout. The managers are also governed by the same work rules of holiday, sickness leave and benefits. As previously mentioned, each year we hold a company conference which provides an excellent vehicle for sharing our vision, mission and values

Our mission and vision is communicated via our Induction Process for new starters, via the Staff Update twice a year and it is displayed on notice boards. Success is measured via KPIs.

Our mission and vision is communicated via our Induction Process for new starters, via the Staff Update twice a year and it is displayed on notice boards. Success is measured via KPIs.

The Chief Executive Award is run annually, and is an opportunity for managers to nominate teams and individuals who have excelled at work. The selection criteria is linked to Aster's strategy and its values. In particular nominators need to highlight colleague's strong customer focus, positive behaviour, sustained performance and contribution to Aster's strategy. The Group Chief Executive selects a short-list and those colleagues are invited to an Executive Board lunch where the winners are announced: one individual and one team. The prize is £2,500, which the winners can spend on a memorable experience. This recognition process is widely communicated across Aster, and in 2016 they received their highest number of nominations since the award began. Research was conducted in June 2015 to gain feedback from previous winners and runners up. The positive feedback evidenced that the award, process and experience were delivering what they were set out to; to recognise and reward colleagues for their great work.

Aster's internal training offer via The Academy provides a comprehensive range of short training courses that are open to all employees. Much of the training is delivered by Internal Trainers. They have at least 40 active trainers at any one time. They support this group by providing the necessary skills training. In addition their team of internal coaches are there to provide coaching to any individual that requires it. This team went through rigorous selection and training and keep their skills up to date. This year 38 individuals have had coaching sessions. The company have run mentoring workshops and provide a mentor/mentee workbook for those that wish to pursue a mentoring relationship. Their internal L&D team are available to support team development needs across the business, and last year supported 35 team events, by either facilitating events or advising managers on options. This kind of support is critical for a business such as Aster's where there have been large-scale changes to teams and ways of working. The L&D team have access to a range of tools to support these kind of events, such as Belbins Self-Perception Inventory and Insights Colour model. Their annual apprentice programme allows them to bring up to 12 young people into the business each year. They work with managers to make sure their skills are retained by the business. This programme has been running since 2010 and is now well-embedded into what they do.

The company has their values printed on blocks and placed around their offices in the UK, Australia and America. They use these tiles all over their collateral and are all constantly reminded of their purpose and goals.

If an employee has given an outstanding contribution to the organisation they will be recognised by the management team for their efforts. They can receive a bronze. silver or gold award which represents varying monetary rewards. Gold 5%, Silver 3%, Bronze, 1% (percentage of annual salary). The managing Director delivers the awards to the selected employees and their pay slips are adjusted accordingly.

The company has a senior management team with a very open and honest attitude, and particularly that the Founding Partners live and breathe the values, and demonstrate them. It starts with the welcome induction from their founder. They do lots to support and engender a push towards innovation and being remarkable; tangible initiatives like the Tech Bench (an area that holds pioneering edge tech gadgets that aids our research and development) to intangible things as having a simply open door policy for advice. The company focus less on departments and instead on small ‘pods' of people who are committed to a project from start to completion. The small teams approach extends beyond client projects and into agency operations where responsibility is devolved down to the level of the people on the ground to make decisions they seem appropriate. Each quarter the senior management team host a compulsory attendance company gathering.

One of the core values as a company is ‘Be Remarkable'. On the surface this sounds like a grand statement that rewards BIG achievements, but this is not the case. ‘Be Remarkable' is about approaching every part of your day with the same enthusiasm and always striving to go the extra mile (or meter, or centimetre). Their platform for rewarding Folk follows the same ethos. Whilst they do have big rewards for some of the biggest stars like our Global Exchange Programme, the opportunity to work in our micro-network of offices in London, NY, Sydney, Portland and Hong Kong they are passionate about ensuring Folk are rewarded for doing the little things. Nothing symbolises this more than their Weekly Nominations where Folk submit their nominations for a remarkable performer of the week. Nominations are read out at the Friday meeting with each nominee receiving a warm ovation and the winner a playful prize. We reward our Folk for their dedication and loyalty by celebrating their AnalogFolk birthday by gifts and gestures. Service is also rewarded with enhanced benefits.

Leaders focus on delivering business results through engaging their employees. This approach is embedded within the whole culture and there are a number of different activities which drive improvements in this field. According to their internal employee engagement survey (called The Pulse), they have seen favourable responses increase year on year, along with the number of employees choosing to participate in the survey. The entire organisation is guided by Blue Box Values. These reflect who they are and what they stand for and clearly state commitment to customers, quality, people, integrity, teamwork and good citizenship. Examples of senior management commitment to their Blue Box values include a culture of ‘skip level meetings' where employees have the opportunity to meet with senior leaders and ‘townhalls' Where employees are updated with key organisational information. They can also be seen in the senior sponsorship of their Employee Networks. These bring together people with shared backgrounds and interest to engage with and learn from each other outside of their daily work lives. They give participants the opportunity to broaden their networks as well as their knowledge of the business, and in many cases, give back to the local community. A final example is the strong relationship with Albion in the Community, the charitable arm of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club. This provides volunteering opportunities for employees as well as work experiences and programmes for key groups in the local community.

On 5 February 2015, the company led a major employee engagement initiative in support of Time to Change's ‘Time to Talk' Day. They have set up a mental health steering committee to support this activity with representatives from across the business. UK American Express employees were encouraged to support the campaign by taking 5 minutes to have a conversation about mental health, either in one-to-ones, or in team meetings. Email calls to action to all employees were distributed, printed materials were provided in the communal areas, plus a one minute video was provided as a conversation starter. At the same time, they promoted their ‘Healthy Minds' employee assistance programme as a go-to resource for emotional wellbeing, so that employees could share information about the resources available. Employees were asked to bank their conversations via a data collection tool. The aim for the public campaign was 24 hours of conversations across the country. The day at the company started with the HR leadership team focusing on the topic at its leadership day programme. A road show event in key operation locations saw hundreds of meaningful interactions, and the Occupational Health team dedicated the day to mental wellbeing activities. Employees across American Express UK took up the challenge, banking a total of 26 hours and 45 minutes' worth of conversations about mental health, exceeding the target set by the campaign. As a result the company has sought to normalise the conversation around mental health.

The Executive Board demonstrate their commitment to their four company values, Caring, Connected, Excellent and Responsible in a variety of ways. They do regular walk-arounds and attend team meeting to stay connected with what is happening at all levels of the business. The Executive Board take part in an ‘Exec Tea Run' twice a year, delivering tea, coffee and cakes to employees on every floor of our head office. They also lead by example when it comes to CSR, regularly taking part in volunteering days and our company wide events for Children in Need. During our bi-annual Communication Forums the members of the Executive Board present with a focus on the four values.

The Executive Board demonstrate their commitment to their four company values, Caring, Connected, Excellent and Responsible in a variety of ways. They do regular walk-arounds and attend team meeting to stay connected with what is happening at all levels of the business. The Executive Board take part in an ‘Exec Tea Run' twice a year, delivering tea, coffee and cakes to employees on every floor of our head office. They also lead by example when it comes to CSR, regularly taking part in volunteering days and our company wide events for Children in Need. During our bi-annual Communication Forums the members of the Executive Board present with a focus on the four values.