The company recently hosted a stress awareness training course for the Store Managers. Hilary Horton delivered the presentation and activities based on her extensive experience in coaching stress awareness through the NHS, H.M Prison Service and while serving as a Squadron leader with the RAF. Other innovative examples of classes and services they company have organised for their employees to enhance their welling include laughter yoga, massage, mock-tail sampling, healthy picnic lunch at the launch of our new financial year and a wellbeing fair.

The fortnightly Head Office Huddle run by the company's CEO and exec team allows the company to share news from product launches to sales figures in an open forum and casual setting. Similarly, quarterly cross-functional Listening Groups occur where colleagues share thoughts on topics and voice concerns. The CEO meets with each head office team/department every 6 weeks to discuss key topics and listen to any concerns. The company use a variety of methods to communicate with their 242 stores including, ChocSource , postal packs and the Retail Managing Director uses a voicemail system to all stores for key messages. Head of Operations runs quarterly factory briefs to all employees across the 24/7 operation and also sends out a fortnightly newsletter containing news,blogs and competitions. Educational displays are set up in the canteen and reception to enhance learning and encourage employee discussion. For example, “From cracking the cocoa pods to chomping the choc” run by 7 cocoa experts from Cargill to educate employees on the cocoa trail from bean to boxed chocolates. The mock shop displays new products and promotions so colleagues in head office are aware of what the shoppers are experiencing in store. The Factory Tours programme has been running for 4 years where employees who are trained as Tour Guides take great pride in voluntarily sharing the factory experience with fellow colleagues. They also benefit from the cross functional teamwork that is an integral part of the factory tours programme.

All of the Directors, in both offices, sit in the open plan space with the wider team at The Test People. This allows for collaboration and communication and a closer relationship with employees. The Senior Management Team are prominent sources of expertise in the TTP Community and also the wider testing community. The SMT commitment to the values has also recently been illustrated by the agreement to include the company values in the new Talent Management framework, which will soon be launched. This will ensure that the values are prominent and reinforced by all of the company's managers to their teams during performance chats. The main way in which the SMT promote their values is to lead by example. At Director level, there is a strong commitment to creativity and ensuring TTP are at the forefront of new initiatives within Testing. Senior Management also empower their teams to work autonomously and find new solutions to complex technical and testing challenges.

All of the Directors, in both offices, sit in the open plan space with the wider team at The Test People. This allows for collaboration and communication and a closer relationship with employees. The Senior Management Team are prominent sources of expertise in the TTP Community and also the wider testing community. The SMT commitment to the values has also recently been illustrated by the agreement to include the company values in the new Talent Management framework, which will soon be launched. This will ensure that the values are prominent and reinforced by all of the company's managers to their teams during performance chats. The main way in which the SMT promote their values is to lead by example. At Director level, there is a strong commitment to creativity and ensuring TTP are at the forefront of new initiatives within Testing. Senior Management also empower their teams to work autonomously and find new solutions to complex technical and testing challenges.

The Red Consultancy has REDucation which is their internal training programme, run by Board Directors internally as well as external training sessions for all staff. There are 26 sessions catered to different levels and the sessions run throughout the year. The company provide every staff member with a booklet detailing courses and explaining which courses are relevant to their levels of experience. They also run some external training sessions and last year have provided different external training for all staff from their Graduates to their Senior Directors. The Red Consultancy also run a graduate training scheme for our graduate intake - this is run by the Board Directors and comprises of 14 different sessions. All staff are given a "coach" who is a senior staff member, responsible for helping with that persons development. They run the employees appraisal and reviews and generally help to give them advice on their career progression.

The Red Consultancy have quarterly individual, team and long service awards which are announced at their quarterly company meetings and are presented by the CEO. Individual awards; Managers and Directors nominate people for outstanding work and contributions to the company. Individuals receive a certificate and £100 shopping voucher. Team Awards: Teams are invited to present on the work/project they have done in the last quarter and show their achievements. The winning team receive a dinner and drinks evening paid for at a top restaurant. The second prize is a team drinks evening paid for at a bar of their choice. Long service awards - these recognise long service contributions to the business (e.g: 10 year anniversaries) and the company announces these at company meetings and give them a gift.

Employees can apply to study for the Certificate in Football Management - FA Edition. This has proved very popular and the organisation recently sponsored 23 FA employees, 9 international people and 2 from the counties. The HR team complete a review of their core learning and development needs across The FA Group. They identified a number of key training requirements as follows: handling difficult people and conversations, negotiating and influencing skills, advanced project management, essential skills for team members and managing your wellbeing, effective minute taking, unleash your creativity, advanced handling difficult people and conversations, personal effectiveness and managing your wellbeing, recruitment and interview training, disciplinary, grievance and formal performance training.

Employees can apply to study for the Certificate in Football Management - FA Edition. This has proved very popular and the organisation recently sponsored 23 FA employees, 9 international people and 2 from the counties. The HR team complete a review of their core learning and development needs across The FA Group. They identified a number of key training requirements as follows: handling difficult people and conversations, negotiating and influencing skills, advanced project management, essential skills for team members and managing your wellbeing, effective minute taking, unleash your creativity, advanced handling difficult people and conversations, personal effectiveness and managing your wellbeing, recruitment and interview training, disciplinary, grievance and formal performance training.

To recognise the hard work of Stateside Foods workforce, the company holds a Family Fun Day for all employees and their extended families each year. The day is held at Bolton Arena, a local sports facility and employees are treated to fun activities and a BBQ lunch free of charge. The event is well attended year on year and the feedback is always excellent with employees really appreciating the opportunity to meet with their colleagues' families and socialise. The event is great for young children, as the company provides lots of entertainment such as a climbing wall, inflatable activities, football shoot-outs and face-painting. The workforce are always keen to hear about the dates for the next fun day and planning and preparation for next year's event will begin soon! Stateside Foods also recently rewarded their Employees of the Month with an all-expenses paid trip to London to see Lee Evans at the O2. The Employees of the Month were able to take their partners away to this event to celebrate their hard work and commitment to the Stateside Foods behaviours.

Stateside Foods has a strong record of developing its people and identifying high potential employees for further progression. The company work to an internal recruitment target of 80% and many of their senior team have progressed through the Company from entry level roles. Many managers are often promoted for their technical ability and it is important to ensure that Stateside Food's managers are supported with training in management skills, to ensure that they are equipped to succeed in a management role. To achieve this, all managers participate in a Leadership Development program, externally accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management. Between each module, delegates are required to apply their learning within their departments and take opportunities to develop their new skills. The most effective aspect of the course is the modules 5 workshop; during which participants are given the opportunity to role play some key management conversations supported by the Directors, who attend to play the role of the 'employee'. The event is conducted in a light hearted manner but managers always ensure that they prepare thoroughly for this module, so that they are able to practice their new skills effectively. Feedback has been extremely positive from all participants to date.

The biggest company event of the year is the two day company away day which this year took place at Centre Parks, Suffolk, when they closed the office and all 479 employees attend. The Away Day provides a fantastic opportunity to bring everyone together to update them on the latest news in the agency. This year they also had a specific focus on inspiring creativity and creating the environment for creativity to thrive as they prepare to move into a new building in 2015.

They are constantly looking at ways to develop their industry leading learning and development programme. This year they introduced Myers Briggs Type Indicator team sessions into the business. These sessions are about supporting individual growth and ensuring that teams gain a greater understanding of working styles and to ensure further cohesion and harmony in their work. They have taken over a 100 people through the sessions. These are facilitated by the Regional HR Director and Head of Learning and Development, both of whom are qualified MBTI practitioners and bring their own experience and creativity to the sessions. They developed the programme from an initial half a day workshop exploring preference type to a full day session that explores the impact of the different preferences on one another at work. These sessions have been invaluable as they have taken senior teams, client teams and board members through these practical, fun and experiential workshops. This is some of the feedback received “I found it very interesting not just learning about my own typology but also about my peers. I will definitely have some new added perspectives now when managing my team and pitching ideas.”

Spark44 hold an annual Summer Event and this year they arranged a ‘sports days' themed event at a country house in Oxfordshire for the London and Birmingham Offices. Separated into teams, people tried their hands at everything from egg and spoon races to backwards jeep driving. The day culminated in a BBQ. They also held a company party including both UK offices providing transport and accommodation in London for the Birmingham team.

Employees at Spark44 are asked to contribute their ideas of what the company values should be, and then their values were defined using the feedback and thoughts.

They continuously encourage staff to let them know of any other benefits they may like and how they can improve the ones they have. They have increased the amount of football the staff can play during the week and introduced discounted yoga sessions earlier in the year. They have recently expanded into a new office and this will allow them to create a dedicated chill out area with, pool/snooker, games, chess, computer consoles and general space to relax for staff.

Once all the feedback is in, management will sit down and go through all the ideas that have been put forward. These are then divided up into the relevant teams and that team head is then responsible for implementing their teams ideas. They produce documents that can be viewed by staff across the company so they can see the progress being made. A list is put up on the internal intranet so staff can see in real time what has been achieved and what is still to be done.

They had a summer team event where all clinics had to work as a team to put together a band and perform. Everyone had a lot of fun and enjoyed themselves.

The buddy system allows employees to buddy up with a more experienced member of the team to learn more and to have a mentor. Both parties are able to learn and develop their skills. They also invest £1500 per physio for their CPD training in order to develop themselves.

A pub bell. Someone suggested that they were not around when everyone went off to the pub so they now announce it on Yammer and have bought a ship bell, so they ring the bell when they go to the pub on a Friday!

Flu jabs are offered, return to work discussions and in one case they offered a taxi for someone to get in and back from work. They provide fresh fruit every day in the office and sustainably sourced drinks. They also have access to the health care scheme.