The Leader of the organisation, Justin, commits a huge amount of his time to communicating and engaging with colleagues. From the face-to-face events that he does every month and his weekly store visits to the regular 'all colleague letters, responses to the Tell Justin suggestions and filming the monthly briefing and column in the Journal. The impact that this has is tangible as colleagues show huge warmth and respect for him and clearly find him very approachable. Every member of the board holds a ‘Start the day with' session every month. These are breakfast listening groups held with a colleague from every store in a region. With no set topic these are a chance for colleagues to say what is on their minds and to ask questions raised by themselves or their colleagues back in store. The operating board and directors tend to spend most Friday's visiting stores or depots to spend time face to face with colleagues and customers to hear first hand what is working well and where the opportunities are to improve the way they work or the way they implement new ideas for their customers.

The Leader of the organisation, Justin, commits a huge amount of his time to communicating and engaging with colleagues. From the face-to-face events that he does every month and his weekly store visits to the regular 'all colleague letters, responses to the Tell Justin suggestions and filming the monthly briefing and column in the Journal. The impact that this has is tangible as colleagues show huge warmth and respect for him and clearly find him very approachable. Every member of the board holds a ‘Start the day with' session every month. These are breakfast listening groups held with a colleague from every store in a region. With no set topic these are a chance for colleagues to say what is on their minds and to ask questions raised by themselves or their colleagues back in store. The operating board and directors tend to spend most Friday's visiting stores or depots to spend time face to face with colleagues and customers to hear first hand what is working well and where the opportunities are to improve the way they work or the way they implement new ideas for their customers.

Colin Forrest, the Chief Executive at ISG Pearce, attends every new employee induction session, is visible sitting along side other employees at the head office and will answer any question posted to him on the "ask Colin" intranet forum. He also holds a Q&A session at each of the twice a year business presentations and is happy to be put on the spot and address any issues or concerns or general comments made by employees within all levels in the company. At least one member of the Executive team will always attend the company social events organised.

Any member of staff can undertake a Performance Development Plan (PDP) to plot their progress through ‘career pathways'. The purpose of the PDP could be for career progression, technical or soft skills development in a current role. They also provide their employees with extensive training such as commercial awareness training for all site staff to improve knowledge of contracts and ISG Pearce commercial processes, equality and diversity training and operational processes training to maximise consistency in the use of ISG Pearce systems and processes across all sites. They also offer training of a variety of soft skills such as assertiveness, conflict avoidance and stress management and avoidance, all of which their delegates have found to be useful at both work and home. The ISG Pearce Graduate Training Scheme includes a structured 2 year programme that develops graduates' technical knowledge and skills and improves their awareness of the company and construction industry in general.

The appraisal system incorporates a training plan where any courses/qualifications that will enhance performance are identified. This incorporates management qualifications. Internal management development training is available and whenever possible Inventures recruit internally. Succession planning is supported through mentoring and coaching to develop management. This approach enables knowledge and skill transfer. The appraisal process is 360. Internal coaching/mentoring is facilitated for all new starters and where there are specific requirements for knowledge transfer. Where there are opportunities or specific requirements for knowledge transfer external coaching/mentoring is arranged. In addition, external experts are regularly invited to attend internal meetings to share their knowledge and experience. Inventures also provides mentoring to external organisations. Board meetings are held on a quarterly basis. Other managers forums and seminars are held when there is a business need.

Inventures was established following a management buy out in 2005. The Leader of the organisation, David Lawrence, purchased Inventures with five fellow directors and established it as a consultancy in the private sector. The Leader met with each individual and discussed what opportunities were available for them and recruited people into the new private sector organisation. This entrepreneurial move saved many people's jobs and ensured that the new organisation retained specialist skills and experience that benefited Inventure's unique selling point and enabled its transition into a profit making enterprise. The leader ensures that he meets all new recruits personally to welcome them to the organisation and assure them that his door is open to them. His approach is very personal, taking time to know every single member of staff, to understand their interests inside and outside of work.

i-level operate a monthly staff meeting in one location where different leaders host each month. They also have live Q&A or surgery sessions. The workspace is open plan even senior management sit on the same floor and not closed off from other employees. The layout of the office promotes easy access for all employees. The company hold Intranet blogs or present regular pieces of information in the organisation newsletter/magazine. They believe the sort of communication should be face-to-face. For a company of close to 150 employees, he knows everybody by name, position and contribution to i-level. The company is undergoing significant cultural and structural change and the leadership have ensured they hold regular updates at monthly meetings as well as ensuring he is accessible to every member of the business. The leadership believe in a strengths based culture and this involves tearing up the old rule book to identify and nurture what people are naturally good at and to tie this into their individual performance development structure.

i-level works extensively with the strengths academy and external management consultancy that focuses on helping employees to identify and nurture their strengths, and how to best apply this in their careers, the work-place and in their contribution to building super teams and department road-maps. Whilst it is a recession and most companies have held back on hires, i-level have a legacy of developing outstanding media talent. They recruited 19 graduates to participate in a comprehensive Graduate Development Programme this year known as i-Cademy. To promote work life balance and new experience, i-level provide all employees with a £150 allowance per year to spend on any training, with the specific condition that it is non work related. Continuous Professional Development (CPD) logs are an initiatives that operate an “on-line learning CV” where all professional training is recorded and used as a record for professional development and performance reviews. i-level have a comprehensive Performance Appraisal System. Employees are appraised at 3 months, 6 months and 12 months when they commence with i-level and then every 6 months following this. they take their appraisal process seriously and the annual reviews involve 360 degree feedback from clients, suppliers and colleagues. Employees also have their opportunity to provide detailed feedback about their progress and how they would like to develop professionally and personally.

The culture of Idis is very dynamic and encourages entrepreneurship. This is clearly driven by Natalie, their leader. She is a charismatic leader and passionate communicator, who is keen to provide updates and communicate with all staff. Examples include, leading the ad-hoc company “bus stop” meetings and attending team meetings. They also run a lunch with Natalie programme, where a couple of times a month a staff member will go to lunch with Natalie, individuals are randomly selected and it could be an employee from any level or department. The purpose of this is to get first hand feedback from staff and temperature check what the organisation are doing well and what they could be doing better. Natalie also leads our staff innovation team, providing a monthly forum to explore new ideas and how they can be implemented into the business.

The HR department work in strong partnership with people managers in Idis to coach and empower them to be more effective in their roles. To encourage people managers to further develop their skills the company support and fund external qualifications and 360 feedback is provided annually to senior managers, members of the directors team also have access to external business coaches as well as Management and Leadership academies.

Employees are rewarded and recognised for their efforts. Managers are encouraged to acknowledge good performance directly with their staff. Milestone recognition is given and usually takes the form of a celebratory event and a gift and instant recognition is usually by email.

Employees are rewarded through various means. There is an appraisal process in place during which employees and managers are encouraged to give balanced feedback. All employees are also eligible for a bonus. This is directly performance related therefore recognises those who have achieved.

Hyndurn Borough Council recognise and reward high performance teams and individuals in various ways such as Local Heroes in their newsletter, the Great Big Thank You event, Hyndsight, personal letters of congratulation from the Managing Director and token payments in recognition of staff who go the extra mile. Job evaluations are conducted regularly to ensure that salaries are paid equally for jobs across the organisation.

Over the last few years HBC has introduced many actions to reduce CO2 emissions and related environmental impacts from its operations. Some highlights of this include innovation in the vehicle fleet including environmentally friendly mayoral car and caretakers vans, measures to encourage staff to purchase more fuel efficient vehicles and efficient use of computer equipment with a central energy management system. More recently, the energy performance of 10 of the main buildings has been audited and they are committed to considering how to bring forward improvements to the energy efficiency of those buildings. To help with this, they created a Property Services post with an increased emphasis on energy management.

Teams are rewarded and recognised in many ways. These include Bar3 events, which are themed events designed for all employees to come together, relax and have fun. There are Christmas party's held in Maidenhead and Glasgow and all employees are invited. For the employees working in retail stores and unable to attend, they provide £30 per head for local arrangements to be made. Individual teams also run annual events which are about connecting as a group as well as focussed on work. There are also team celebrations, for example, the retail team has monthly store team incentives to celebrate successes in different campaigns and successful teams are rewarded and recognised via their 3 Cheers scheme, where they will receive both a thank you and voucher or points to be spent in the online prize store. Formal team building also takes place. For example, they recently ran a two day event for an HR team. It started off with an icebreaker and a session from the manager describing her view of the challenges the business and the team faced. There were development exercises focused on being more influential in the business and with each other as well as how to make effective requests and commitments in this team.

Most of the management and leadership development is about how to manage relationships with others. They have a micro-site that supports managers on the Fearless programme which contains pre and post course materials as well as discussion boards and additional content. They also provide a managers tool kit to support managers with the performance management process. They have internal management and leadership programmes, Aspire and Inspire, which includes coaching and a 360 degree feedback element. Should managers wish to take external qualifications they offer sponsorship, funding of fees, contribution towards the costs of core texts and materials, travel costs and they also provide study leave and time off for exams.

There are various events organised to ensure that teams spend time together outside of the workplace including the annual dinner and dance, educationals and theme park visits. There is also a fund in place which can be used at the team's discretion to arrange such events. Formal teambuilding events are also held several times a year. The most recent involved the senior management team and directors spending an away day brainstorming new ideas and discussing the progress of the company in the future. This ended with a social meal.

There are various events organised to ensure that teams spend time together outside of the workplace including the annual dinner and dance, educationals and theme park visits. There is also a fund in place which can be used at the team's discretion to arrange such events. Formal teambuilding events are also held several times a year. The most recent involved the senior management team and directors spending an away day brainstorming new ideas and discussing the progress of the company in the future. This ended with a social meal.

Under the Hats Off awards program, employees can nominate their colleagues for awards that recognise their efforts and achievements. As well as rewarding employees, this also serves to form stronger bonds between teams.

Hitachi Data Systems have an on line management resource centre, providing a central hub for all people related transactions, performance management, management development tools and compensation planning. All managers also have access to Skillsport, an on-line training resource that can be accessed at any time to develop a wide range of management skills.