At the end of each project the project team host a 'learning lunch' sharing the project's details and learning's from the project. The team celebrate each new project win by a bang on the gong and follow up with a company-wide email with information on what the project is about, value and a thank you to the team who helped to win the work.

At the end of each project the project team host a 'learning lunch' sharing the project's details and learning's from the project. The team celebrate each new project win by a bang on the gong and follow up with a company-wide email with information on what the project is about, value and a thank you to the team who helped to win the work.

Monthly the company award a spot prize, a bottle of bubbly and a £50 voucher based on feedback they receive. The company recognise nominees as well as winners. The Managers will thank people outside this process too. The CEO also pushes the “beer trolley” round on a Friday afternoon to thank everyone for their efforts or take teams out for lunch if they've completed a particular project or delivered a client event. Most Fridays the company have a company credit card behind the bar at their local pub. Additionally each team has a team entertainment/reward budget. It's up to the team how they spend this; it may be for a project well done or maybe because they have all been working really hard on something or maybe to welcome a new recruit, it's really up to them. On top of the generous benefits package they have an annual discretionary bonus. This is open to everyone who has 6 months service or more and is a set % of their salary to ensure an equitable and fair approach. It's based upon the financial performance of the Company not the individual. The company have also introduced a Christmas bonus too. This isn't about performance or length of service. This is about recognising that everyone needs a thank you at this festive time of year. Everyone gets exactly the same amount, regardless of service, salary, position.

All of the Senior Management team have been internally recruited or promoted. That is testament to robust recruitment, engagement and the approach they use in developing and supporting their staff. Each senior manager and other non-senior managers have external mentors to help develop them individually. The SMT have coaches who meet with them every six weeks and the HR Director also holds a Coaching qualification and coaches other managers across the business. Ultimately people leave managers not businesses and the company understand that the way they manage has an undeniable effect on the engagement of their staff and subsequently their performance. Developing managers is key to that. The company like to believe they recruit the best people and truly believe they deserve to be managed in the best way possible, the best way for them so they have in place a set of management behaviours that they recruit, develop and appraise against. The company is very transparent so having a common understanding to what's required in terms of competency, skills and attitude is key. Every quarter they hold a manager's quarterly review session off site where each manager shares their achievements against targets and upcoming challenges. The company's CEO will often hand out rewards, prizes and thank you's too in these reviews. Many of the managers work flexibly too, to help promote a better work life balance.

Their quality housing standards are displayed across all their sites and clearly sets their commitment to providing high quality accommodation and support to the young people accessing their service. Additionally, over the last five years the organisation has made a substantial investment in their property portfolio on the basis that every young person should have a safe place to live, free from abuse, neglect and discrimination. This investment has totalled circa £5million and has been generated via grant applications, fundraising and use of reserves. In making the decision to invest these funds, the management team has demonstrated both its commitment to the core values of the organisation and their belief that young people should have access to high quality provision. In achieving this standard the organisation has ensured that every accommodation unit within their two main sites (84) has en suite washroom facilities as well as access to a communal kitchen and communal leisure space. Empower: The senior management team ensure that every young person has access to education, training and work opportunities as well as leisure opportunities to enhance their life experiences. Enrich: The senior management team have supported a number of young people to gain both local, regional and international experiences as well as opportunities to participate in activities that could have been viewed as beyond their financial means.

As well as regular informal 1-2-1 meetings, Line Managers also conduct formal performance review meetings with their staff 3 times per year. During these meetings staff have the opportunity to discuss training, development and support needs, including successes, challenges, and grading's for Key Performance Indicator's (KPI's) and organisational core competencies . Other performance supporting documentation includes performance development and improvement plans and work programmes. The organisation's core competency framework aids recruitment (person specifications); performance management (performance reviews) and employee development. They deliver their own mandatory training programme (including personal safety, competency, equality & diversity and health & safety), alongside arranging job specific training. There are opportunities for secondments into other areas of the business, as well as with other partnering agencies. Where a training needs analysis has been carried out and a qualification in a specific area is desirable, the organisation covers the costs involved in the course as well as enables the employee's time off for study leave and exams Other examples of staff development include career progression routes, whereby staff are encouraged and supported in working towards promotion to senior positions and by them also actively applying for vacancies within the organisation. Employees also have opportunities to upskill their numeracy and literacy grades and several have participated in on the job NVQ Information Advice & Guidance qualifications, therefore enhancing their skills in this area.

The company have a strong culture of learning within the organisation which is built into their cultural values. Their aim is to deliver unique and tailored learning and development opportunities to all levels of their teams. The have a structured training programmes for all levels joining their teams to the teach knowledge and skills required. The company regularly refresh the knowledge of their restaurants teams through their ‘passion sessions' which are designed to refresh existing team and inspire newer employees. These complement the daily ‘pre-shift meetings'. The aim of both is to keep restaurant team's level of knowledge to the required standard but also to keep maintain the passion and culture for excellence. Organised trips to suppliers eg farms, markets, butchers etc, helps develop knowledge, which can be passed onto the rest of the team. This year's focus has been growing their own chef talent. The company now offer apprenticeships to unskilled chef candidates which include an NVQ 2 qualification is professional cookery. NVQs are also offered to existing chefs who would like to further develop their skills. The company are launching a ‘chef olympics' to allow talented chefs to stretch their cooking and creative skills. Jamie's successfully delivering monthly ‘Foodspiration' sessions, run by their most senior chefs for the junior chefs. They are taught new skills and knowledge on subjects not related to our menu e.g. french sauces, butchery. To ensure chef development is continual we have a unique, practical appraisal system to appeal to chefs ways of learning.

The company have a strong culture of learning within the organisation which is built into their cultural values. Their aim is to deliver unique and tailored learning and development opportunities to all levels of their teams. The have a structured training programmes for all levels joining their teams to the teach knowledge and skills required. The company regularly refresh the knowledge of their restaurants teams through their ‘passion sessions' which are designed to refresh existing team and inspire newer employees. These complement the daily ‘pre-shift meetings'. The aim of both is to keep restaurant team's level of knowledge to the required standard but also to keep maintain the passion and culture for excellence. Organised trips to suppliers eg farms, markets, butchers etc, helps develop knowledge, which can be passed onto the rest of the team. This year's focus has been growing their own chef talent. The company now offer apprenticeships to unskilled chef candidates which include an NVQ 2 qualification is professional cookery. NVQs are also offered to existing chefs who would like to further develop their skills. The company are launching a ‘chef olympics' to allow talented chefs to stretch their cooking and creative skills. Jamie's successfully delivering monthly ‘Foodspiration' sessions, run by their most senior chefs for the junior chefs. They are taught new skills and knowledge on subjects not related to our menu e.g. french sauces, butchery. To ensure chef development is continual we have a unique, practical appraisal system to appeal to chefs ways of learning.

The company have department specific recognition programs. for example in support they have engineer of the quarter and engineer of the year awards who get recognition and rewards for their efforts.

The company communicate via their own communication platform: Pure cloud. This is a system by which they can chat and call and look for specific skills of their employees. The company have a very relaxed and open environment in the office.

MGROUP has a unique and innovative appraisal system which incorporates 360 degree feedback. Staff and managers are able to appraise how the previous year has gone and put together a plan for the year ahead. They use a matrix-based system that measures each individual aspect of the role being appraised (including its skills), and ask staff if they have anything they want to improve on. This process creates a growth plan for every employee, technical or otherwise. Development needs are agreed between the employee and their line manager, and are then communicated to HR to allow them to be built into the annual resourcing plan. This allows employees to be trained to maintain excellence and also provides access for employees to any aspirational or cross-platform development that will help to further their career goals. In this way, they are able to support a wide range of career and development goals, including Microsoft certifications, shadowing, in-house and external training, membership of professional bodies and even part-time college and university courses. On average, each employee has 20 days of professional development per year logged in our timesheet system. There are also regular quarterly reviews to alter and update employee training plans where necessary, making each plan a responsive, constantly evolving document. They encourage staff to meet monthly with their professional development manager to review their ongoing activities. They have also added 'post-project feedback' where employees can give and receive feedback at the end of a project so that individual contributions can be recognised before moving on to the next project.

IMGROUP have introduced the OpenSpaces format, an exciting and unique new methodology that gives employees the space to create new ideas and helps make IMGROUP a better and more innovative place to work. OpenSpaces happens on a quarterly basis, in which employees are invited to submit workplace challenges in advance. Challenges might include, for example, ‘how to improve the office space' or ‘how to improve project management methodology'. An afternoon is put to one side for the event, and each individual who has submitted a challenge with potential to be converted into a development area (as judged by a combination of their peers and senior leadership team members) takes a space in the office and is joined by other colleagues who are interested in the idea to brainstorm on the challenge. Colleagues can join in on multiple sessions. At the end of each session selected individuals take ownership on moving the idea forward, with time deliberately set aside in the working week to encourage this process. For a less formal submission of ideas for improvement, there is also a Suggestions Box in the main London office which can be used anonymously. Innovation and collaboration across teams and hierarchies is further encouraged by the completely open-plan layout of the office. IMGROUP also runs employee engagement surveys. They are recognised as an Investors in People employer and recently won the Investors in People Silver Award after a representative sample of their staff were interviewed about their experiences. Only 6% of companies in the scheme have attained this accolade. They also received recommendations for improvement from the Investors in People survey, many of which they are currently acting to address.

The company has an office in India and has opened up secondments to the UK based teams whereby volunteers are able to visit the India office to meet their colleagues, who ordinarily would only be interacted with via telephone, email or video conference. Though that communication takes place many times a day, there is not a replacement for face to face relationship building. The secondment opportunity was open to all levels and all departments, and in fact, the majority of the secondments are very junior level. There is currently a project being undertaken where new functions are being opened up in the India office, and a broad range of employees are travelling to the India office to share their knowledge and working practice and to meet their overseas colleagues face to face. In addition, cross functional meetings have improved knowledge sharing, best practice deployment as well as better working relationships. This is something they will continue to develop as it has been hugely rewarding and successful.

Core principles are communicated through email using examples of individuals who have demonstrated them, as well as having them on posters throughout all their offices. Although they do not have one defined vision/mission, their plans for the future have been communicated to employees through the annual sales conference and through their Friday night meetings.

To help in the company's recruitment efforts and as an added incentive for their employee referral programme, they offered an all-expenses paid weekend trip to Ibiza for an employee and 1 guest for a successful recommendation. Each month senior management recommend their team's 'innovator of the month' to recognise their efforts to go above and beyond. In the summer the company put all the winners names year to date into a hat and drew 4 names who were sent to the Home House Summer Festival for an all-expenses paid trip. The company also offer spot bonuses to mid-level/ junior team members who they feel have made a significant contribution to the business outside of their key responsibilities e.g. as a reward for new business leads or work on projects which are so outstanding they end up being nominated for an industry award. An added perk of working on an award-winning piece of work is attendance to a glamorous awards dinner.

Hanover regularly sends their employees on secondments, in order that they can learn a more holistic view of their role. Currently they have a number of people working on short to medium-term secondments within their clients, e.g one of our Account Directors has just completed a 6 month secondment with Sky. He spent Mon - Weds every week at their office, working with the government affairs team on projects worked on by their agency. He has learned so much as a result of his being 'on the other side' and in a few weeks will be delivering a Lunch & Learn to his colleagues to share his experience. Every 2 months the company also send junior members of the team to their office in Brussels, where they learn about EU politics, get a tour of the European Parliament buildings, meet clients locally and build relationships with their colleagues in this office. Social activities are woven into the schedule and they stay in a furnished apartment within minutes of the office, and sightseeing trips are also offered to those who are not familiar with the city.

Guidance Marine Ltd has a profit related bonus scheme which is up to 4% half yearly. This is paid dependent on the individual employees performance and also that of Guidance Marine Ltd. This scheme reflects the company's intention to share their success amongst their employees.

The company provides a company-wide health shield plan that is available to all staff. Health Shield is an award winning friendly society and market leading provider of health cash plans and health and wellbeing benefits. The cash plan can be used by children of the employees and includes benefits such as: food and entertainment, gifts, dental, optical, shopping etc.