Nine homes are ranked “outstanding” by the Care Quality Commission and Barchester has been placed in the Top 20 Large Care Home Groups on carehome.co.uk for four consecutive years. In-house Barchester Care Awards recognise excellenct performance in teams across the company's 236 homes and six mental health hospitals.

Employees share in the commercial success of their care home/hospital through an annual profit share scheme. A Rewarding Excellence scheme financially recognises the contribution of every employee in receiving a good or excellent regulatory rating. More than 1,000 key nursing staff had their NMC membership fee paid.

During the pandemic, the chief executive Maria Mills and director of care Jade Vallance worked many shifts in residential service and used video calls to ask teams about how best they could be supported. Employees' contributions were recognised by Maria Mills delivering hampers by hand to each service. Gift vouchers were sent to all staff.

During the pandemic, more than £300,000 was reinvested in the community. Money went to the Surrey People's Group, which enabled those with learning disabilities to support each other; technology to help service users connect with friends and families; and sensory and communication equipment to help manage anxiety and challenging behaviours.

The chief executive holds virtual All Company Update meetings twice a month to stay in touch with team members across 1E's locations around the world. All managers have been encouraged to increase their interactions with colleagues and hold more frequent team meetings using video.

The company has made it a priority to encourage staff to take breaks, and blocks out time in all employee calendars to reinforce the point. Health and wellbeing workshops, run by external providers, are given. Flexible working is available for all employees.

After lockdown started, the managing partners divided a list of staff names between them and did weekly check-ins. It was an opportunity for employees to take a little time out and talk about whatever was on their mind – anything from the latest advertising trends to Strictly Come Dancing.

After lockdown started, S3 took over a billboard space in Cardiff for month for its #CelebratingCreativity campaign. The billboard carried a series of ads, designed by agency staff, thanking people for the creative ways they were responding to Covid-19. Public nominations for the ads included whole streets doing sing-a-longs.

To give employee an engagement a boost during lockdown staff created videos of themselves covering the famous Beatles song Here Comes the Sun and competed in a virtual Olympics. When the videos were premiered Prestige sent everyone popcorn to enjoy as they watched them.

For every pound of weight that employees lost during an eight-week fitness programme this year, Prestige Telecom donated £5 to charity. Senior managers and directors also took part in a ration challenge, in which they ate the same food a Syrian refugee is allocated, to help Concern Worldwide raise over £1.5m.

Having a mechanism for employees to anonymously ask questions and for every question to be answered during its townhall meeting reflects Hamlyn Williams' principle of transparency. Employees are also regularly encouraged to share their feedback and concerns through their managers and speaking to the human resources team.

Hamlyn Williams rewards staff with benefits including medical, dental and vision insurance, free vacation between Christmas & New Year, a 40 hour working week which finishes at 3:30pm on Fridays as well as an in-house training programme and clear promotion targets.

The first company-wide virtual learning summit was such a hit it that senior leaders kicked off a whole month of learning, bug hunting and phishing for National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Employees could learn something new and show off their skills in a challenge – and won swag for participating.

Employees at Auth0 have the option of donating money or volunteer hours to causes close to their heart. Throughout the pandemic, when so many people in the community were struggling, Auth0 gave its software product free to organisations on the front line fighting the effects of the coronavirus.

Senior managers use Facetime to call and talk to individual employees, especially those in thee vulnerable category, to check in with them. The feedback was that the calls were enjoyed by staff and a good way to get to know managers better.

Teamwork is important to First Contact and staff are encouraged to take part in charitable ventures, including supporting St George's Crypt, which offers help to homeless people, Westways Open Arms, drop in facilities for those in need, and a beach clean-up near Scarborough.

XLN have found that Shadowing is the most effective form of support. Their team always feedback that learning by directly following someone with experience in a higher grade role gives them the confidence to step up. It offers the knowledge and clarity of what is expected. It's the simplest way to find out what good looks like and also identify potential areas where they can make improvements to the way the roles are managed.

XLN prides itself on “promoting within” and as an organisation that can only be achieved by constant employee development. If any employee requests any training, whether specific to their role or not, they will always say yes. They believe if an employee wants to better themselves, then they should do everything possible to retain that ambition within the business and offering unlimited training resource is key to that.