What are companies doing with regards to 'Personal Growth'

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.

First thing every Monday morning at Genesis Associates an activity is carried out based on interaction and communication, this could be a quiz, a team drawing activity or a team model building activity. The company run frequent individual team building events including dinners, lunches and team incentive rewards. At Genesis Associates they have inter-team competitions such as the ‘Premier League', based on performance as a team, a Premier League ranking is updated on a weekly basis with the top team being rewarded, this encourages team members at Genesis Associates to work together in order to achieve a weekly goal. There is external and internal training in place to help employees achieve as best as they can. At Genesis Associates they have away days where the whole office will undergo training or skill development in an alternative location, they mix up all of the teams to ensure full office integration. The company like to go Go-karting where employees are put into teams of 2 from different sectors of the business for a mini tournament, this encourages team communication and interaction. There is a reward and recognition group- this provides employees from different areas of the business the opportunity to interact and work together. At Genesis Associates they use the feedback from meetings to generate projects for employees to work on in small teams, helping again to integrate employees from different areas of the business enhancing cross team interaction and communication.

At Genesis Associates they have a competency based assessment for their employees to gain promotions. The company work to a meritocratic policy whereby management promotions and opportunities are awarded based on performance and competency based assessment. Each applicant for management has the chance to demonstrate their applicable competencies towards a position, and all employees are eligible to apply for this role. If an employee does not currently possess required competencies for a promotion, then an action plan is developed so they have a detailed plan of what is required in order to get there. At Genesis Associates both internal and external training is provided to management level employees, from coaching on how to carry out reviews of performance with team members, through to external training such as enabling change, on how to become a top performing manager which was delivered to both existing and up and coming management. There is ongoing coaching and mentoring provided from director level, with reviews of performance and action plans based on improvements/skill development. Genesis Associates hold a networking event that 4 different managers will attend on a monthly basis to gain insight and guidance on their future role in leadership.

The company's Vision, Mission and Values are communicated to their internal employees through: On boarding packs, posters and office branding, Intranet and internal newsletters. They also reinforce their values to their clients through client presentations and also communicate their values through their website. The aim is for their colleagues to live and breathe these values and one of the reasons the business was created 10 years ago was to give people the tools to be successful in an ethically, people-centric environment.

First thing every morning the Managing Director runs a daily sales meeting in the middle of the London office. During this meeting all account managers give updates on what they are working on and an overview of important roles they are recruiting for. This encourages all the sales teams to help each other out with roles and share news about clients they are engaging with.

The company focus on clear, open communication that is delivered through a number of methods from traditional management meetings to addressing the whole company every Monday morning and Friday afternoon. Every month and quarter they hold a detailed and fun monthly/quarterly ‘wrap up' and ‘kick off' of the next month/quarter ahead. These company-wide meetings will include awards, recognition of top performance and presentations on key aspects they need to focus on for the following month. All information is documented and presented in a pdf pack so anyone not available for the meetings has access to the details. The company is also fortunate to have our walls covered in white boards and television screens that constantly update the business on the day-to-day news, successes, rewards and our core values throughout the day.

The company focus on clear, open communication that is delivered through a number of methods from traditional management meetings to addressing the whole company every Monday morning and Friday afternoon. Every month and quarter they hold a detailed and fun monthly/quarterly ‘wrap up' and ‘kick off' of the next month/quarter ahead. These company-wide meetings will include awards, recognition of top performance and presentations on key aspects they need to focus on for the following month. All information is documented and presented in a pdf pack so anyone not available for the meetings has access to the details. The company is also fortunate to have our walls covered in white boards and television screens that constantly update the business on the day-to-day news, successes, rewards and our core values throughout the day.