QAC have taken a strategic approach to encourage an open culture and enthuse staff to bring forward information and ideas to take the college further forward. For example, an invitation was sent to all staff to send in a personal statement as to why they should be chosen to go to the AOC Conference of the year. There is an open door policy with no appointments required.

QAC have taken a strategic approach to encourage an open culture and enthuse staff to bring forward information and ideas to take the college further forward. For example, an invitation was sent to all staff to send in a personal statement as to why they should be chosen to go to the AOC Conference of the year. There is an open door policy with no appointments required.

Postcomm has a culture amongst its staff to raise money for charity. A number of staff have undertaken bike rides, runs for a variety of charities, e.g. Anthony Nolan Trust, British Heart Foundation, Breast Cancer awareness.

There are regular social events organised by staff. These events continue to be very popular 10 years after Postcomm's creation. They continually get feedback from staff saying Postcomm is the best place they have ever worked, not just because of the opportunities and rewards but because it is the friendliest place they have ever worked.

Staff are encouraged and supported to express their views and opinions on how they can make Poplar HARCA a better place to work and contribute to how they deliver services to residents which makes them feel valued. Poplar HARCA have an excellent range of benefits such as health screening, legal and personal counselling, childcare vouchers and subsidised schemes.

There is a reward for presenting ideas about Poplar Harca's Intranet New staff initiative where staff can pitch new ideas and be recognised for the best ones at the staff conference. There are Customer Service awards, HARCA Heroes award for excellent service and a 10-year recognition and Lifetime Achievement award for long service.

The College employed an in-house management development consultant for two years to support managers, SMT and some team development. Managers identify support networks to join in and the College is a member of a college peer review group and support each other in the group. HR provides regular in house training on policies and managers' role in them.

There is a staff Christmas party and Oscar ceremony with part employee contribution and summer staff barbeque also part contribution.

Assistance is offered via North Staffs Quit Smoking service to those who wish to stop. There are training courses for managers, self help CD available for employees to help manage stress and Cholesterol/glucose screening sessions organised for those staff who wish to have them. Additionally health information is available on the staff intranet, evoice. Health screening days are provided for osteoporosis, arterial stiffness assessment and healthy prostate is available. Lunchtime yoga classes are also offered to staff.

Progression through salary grades and additional leave linked to five years service are provided to reward staff for their efforts. In addition to this the Council also have the employee recognition scheme.

On average employees receive fifteen hours formal training each year, with an average spend of £250.75 per year per employee. examples of the sorts of training activities available are as follows: Safeguarding Children Training (Foundation, Level 1 and level 2) Equality & Diversity (Training and Qualifications) Awareness of special learning and other needs of students – e.g. autistic spectrum awareness, dyslexia awareness, visual impairment awareness, mental health awareness training E-Learning – innovative use of modern technologies to encourage personalised learning – e.g. podcasting on mobile phones, on-line teaching and learning, how to use blogs Management Techniques – e.g. performance review training, grievance & discipline training ICT – e.g. MS Office, in-house data management systems Finance and budgetary control Risk assessments Pastoral Tutoring training Setting SMART Targets.

There is pay/support for external management qualifications via application for further studies, Annual performance review, with development targets and resources aligned to outcome is in place. There is internal coaching/mentoring for all new starters,Teachers within ITT programme and newly qualified teachers are supported by specialist mentors. Capability and performance indicators are assigned for specialist mentoring/coaching support, dependent upon topic. Specialist network memberships are available e.g. teacher educator forums, strategic local partnerships to encourage engagement with the local community.

They pay average market rates for jobs but also have an excellent benefits package which is constantly being reviewed and benchmarked to maintain competitiveness and to attract and retain employees. As part of the benefits package they have a final salary pension scheme which remains open to new employees. They have recently introduced a dedicated staff benefits discount website, which enables their staff to obtain discounts on local services such as dining out or car leasing; discounts on leading brand names as well as holiday discounts, cheaper energy tariffs, home and car insurance deals and vouchers for discounts on family days out to theme parks and zoos. Managers regularly praise employees for doing a good job - verbally and through treats such as buying chocolates/cakes/biscuits/bottles of wine for the team.

The Director of Housing recently took his managers off site for a strategy awayday. The content of the day allowed managers time to self reflect and consider: What are the three best things about working in the Housing Services Department at Muir i.e. stuff you would never want to change? What consistently irritates you about working in the Housing Services Department or for Muir, this needs to be things they can change or influence? How do you think other Departments would describe the Housing Services Department and do they need to try to change this, if so how? The Director of Housing Services suddenly becomes the Chief Executive (this is hypothetical) and you have the opportunity to request one major change at Muir to make it a better and more effective organisation, what would it be? What practical ways can they improve how effectively they work as a team? What practical things can they do to improve motivation and engagement with their staff and teams, particularly across teams? How do they raise their profile with their teams and improve the staff views of ‘management'.

On average employees receive sixty hours of formal training a year and have included teacher training, Masters, Professional Qualifications, stress awareness, operational and NVQ's. Formal qualifications are supported either through time off, funding or other resources roughly four hours remission per week is given and one day per week to attend college.

Team celebrations and events are run by the manager of that Unit or School. Employees undergo formal team building. This happens on average once a year and is driven by individual managers.

Instant recognition is provided in the form of cards and personal notes from managers and senior managers. Internal communication is provided through 'Principal's Briefings' sent via e-mail to all staff. Full staff meetings, team meetings and briefings are also provided to communicate with staff. They also conduct other surveys including Investors in People, Customer Service Excellence (formerly Chartermark) and whilst these are not 'formally' Employee Engagement Surveys, they give the College a snapshot of staff views and give staff an opportunity to explain their feelings about the College.

The organisation has a budget specifically for fun and social events and have included the annual staff Christmas Party. The College provide wine and mince pies at the end of the Autumn Term to get employees in the Christmas spirit for the holidays. Employees have formal team building 3 – 5 times a year, 3 times per year for Academic staff as part of course reviews, less so for support staff. Management teams have 'away days' and teams undertake informal team-building activities.

There is internal management development training comprising of developing leaderships skills, influencing and negotiating skills, motivation, coaching and mentoring.

There is internal management development training comprising of developing leaderships skills, influencing and negotiating skills, motivation, coaching and mentoring.