What are companies doing with regards to 'Personal Growth'

MBA created #MBAgoodtimes to help build really positive relationships internally and to ensure that their agency is a really fun place to work. Initiatives include: - Friday nominations: They select someone who has done a particularly good job that week, a new starter, or someone celebrating a milestone to choose the lunch time pub destination and Friday afternoon Spotify theme. They go to a different pub every Friday so they are making the most of the amazing location of their office, And everyone suggests their songs that go with the Spotify theme which are played from 5pm. - Monday work out sessions: Over summer they had a boot camp every Tuesday night. To keep everyone fit and healthy! - Summer Party: The London and Brighton agency teams donned their finest nautical dress-up gear and they were on a boat for the afternoon cruising around Brighton. And this was followed up with a BBQ on the beach in the evening. Lots of fun in the sun. - Beer pong: They are the proud owners of some beer pong tables that get a serious work out. Competition is tough – people take their beer pong very seriously at MBA.

MBA have begun to share the business performance index in order to update employees on new business on a regular basis. They have also been increasingly encourage staff across the business to share their work in Monday assembly. MBA have continued to introduce more social activities, with a dedicated social budget throughout the year. They introduced Slack so people can share amongst each other and socially connect. They have decided to give staff a day off after the Christmas party to give back to them.

Lucion's Managing Director, Patrick Morton delivers a directors message in each newsletter. Every month Patrick will focus on a different sector and discuss the progress within this sector. He also makes reference to the company values and praises employees on their abilities to act in accordance with these. Regional Manager calls and Commercial calls take place weekly, with Patrick attending both. This enables smooth communication between all departments and ensures that employees are aware of what we are working towards as an organisation. These minutes are all saved onto Google drive, which all employees can access and make comments on. In all our offices throughout the UK there is a strategy board which shows how the company aim to progress from 2015 to 2018. For those working on site this company strategy is available on the Google drive. This strategy has been rolled out and been widely communicated, with Patrick discussing the company strategy in the monthly newsletters and highlighting key points which will help us to reach our goal in 2018. This strategy comes directly from board of directors at Lucion and helps employees to understand the plan of action and where the company has the potential to achieve.

Lucion's Managing Director, Patrick Morton delivers a directors message in each newsletter. Every month Patrick will focus on a different sector and discuss the progress within this sector. He also makes reference to the company values and praises employees on their abilities to act in accordance with these. Regional Manager calls and Commercial calls take place weekly, with Patrick attending both. This enables smooth communication between all departments and ensures that employees are aware of what we are working towards as an organisation. These minutes are all saved onto Google drive, which all employees can access and make comments on. In all our offices throughout the UK there is a strategy board which shows how the company aim to progress from 2015 to 2018. For those working on site this company strategy is available on the Google drive. This strategy has been rolled out and been widely communicated, with Patrick discussing the company strategy in the monthly newsletters and highlighting key points which will help us to reach our goal in 2018. This strategy comes directly from board of directors at Lucion and helps employees to understand the plan of action and where the company has the potential to achieve.

Every quarter Limelights hold company wide meetings that take place during the working day. The purpose of these meetings are to act as a knowledge sharing platform, provide an opportunity to celebrate success and create a platform to ensure the team are aligned to their strategy. The format of these meetings vary according to the content but are always interactive, participative and provide a unique platform for the team to input into wider strategies or projects as well as share ideas. Many of the sessions will have an element of sport built into the day, for example in March they held a session for the team at Fitness First's Fusion gym. As sport is what they do, the team are passionate about sport and physical activity and therefore, they use as many opportunities as they can to allow the team to take part in sport and try new fitness or sporting opportunities. Once a year they also hold an annual summit, which across three days and has previously been held at Watergate Bay, Cornwall. This provides an opportunity for team bonding, sharing of new strategies and the team to input new initiatives as well as a chance for them to celebrate success and reward employees for their hard work throughout the year. These quarterly meetings have proven invaluable over the past three years that they been in place in terms of team building, cross department integration and celebrating success.

An example of how Limelight support employee development was demonstrated with Alice. Alice was working as a co-ordinator in the CRM team and in the middle of 2013 she expressed an interest to develop her technology skills and asked that if there was an opportunity to work in the Technology Department, could she be considered. Following conversations between Department Heads it was decided that Alice should be given the opportunity, as she demonstrated passion, commitment and a desire for excellence and was transferred to that department at a co-ordination level. Whilst working in that team it was soon recognised that Alice had an aptitude for UX Designing and therefore, an opportunity was created to allow Alice to become a UX designer. She was put on a 5 day intense UX designing training course, which resulted in her achieving 88% in her final exams. Supporting staff who have a desire to develop in other areas is a key part of their talent management strategy and they will openly support and encourage employees who wish to develop their skills in other areas of the business. This was also seen with Rachel, now a Project Manager in their experience team who had expressed her desire to develop her live event management skills whilst working in the Marketing team. As a result she attended a CIPD course that introduced her to management and helped her to develop the skills she would require to manage a team.

The company has the Liebherr "Future Faces" incentive scheme which is designed to reward current employees that take an active and personal interest in the development and progression of Liebherr, by introducing individuals they feel have the ability to succeed as future team members.

Last year, the company paid for each employee to have a cash plan with BUPA, this gives each individual a pot of money to which they can claim against in areas such as dentistry, physiotherapy and prescriptions. This benefit also included up to 4 children under the age of 21, each with their own pot. This has now been extended to spouses. Liebherr-Great Britain Ltd have also worked closely with Hampton Knight last year in terms of occupational health; putting together a matrix showing critical areas that should be assessed on a regular basis.

Hunter Adams' Managing Director leads from the front in every aspect of their business. His style of communication is open and transparent and he has openly shared the business strategy with all employees. For the past two years Hunter Adams' number one strategic objective has been the retention of the team and the Managing Director puts employee engagement at the forefront of the agenda to ensure they continue to do this. He provides honest and transparent monthly business updates on how they are performing to plan and invites comments and questions from the wider team that he is happy to answer in an open forum. He is passionate about communication and engages with the wider team using a variety of communication mediums. His drive and energy acts as a real motivator to the team and his commitment to growing and developing the business is evident from his actions. The development of the team is also one of his priorities to ensure that Hunter Adams attract, develop and retain the very best HR talent in the markets they operate in. He was instrumental in the creation of their own HR Academy helping to develop their own talent. He empowers his Leadership team and challenges them to be accountable for the growth of their service area whilst providing an entrepreneurial vision for the future growth of the organisation.

Hunter Adams social committee put together a wide range of events with several of them focused solely on the wellbeing of their team. They have entered teams into several 10k races. Their main charity event was a kayaking expedition with a total combined distance of 96 miles. Managers have set their teams pedometer challenges and have organised local hill walking trips. The team also take on personal challenges such as the London Marathon and two of the team have successfully completed the trek up Kilimanjaro. Hunter Adams encourages their team to be fit and active and live healthy lifestyles.

By creating an environment that is informal and friendly, and where people genuinely love coming to work because they get on with the people and like doing the work.

Hugo & Cat are a straightforward company where great people really count. For the right people there's a real opportunity to make a difference and to be given real responsibility. Their structure is non-hierarchical, and they listen to their staff to create an environment and culture that everyone has helped shape.

Hoxton work very closely as a team when qualifying, implementing and communicating ideas. They encourage people to make the bold decision and not the easy one which goes back to their value - only dead fish swim with the current. Hox-in-a-Box, a pop-up hotel container at BoxPark which came from an idea the brand director had. They then ran this for a limited period, got the whole team involved in coming up with ideas for events in the box and PR'd it to great effect.

Employees will get £50 - tax paid by employers, as bonus when they are recognised for their outstanding service by their guests.

Hangar Seven run an Employee of the Month award whereby everyone votes for a crew member who has really gone the extra mile and delivered against their company values. It's a great accolade and the winner receives £100 to spend as they wish. They also have a yearly overall winner who receives £500. This is a person with the most votes over the year. Hangar Seven operate a company wide profit share scheme and they have the most elaborate fully paid for Christmas parties in the industry.

Hangar Seven run an Employee of the Month award whereby everyone votes for a crew member who has really gone the extra mile and delivered against their company values. It's a great accolade and the winner receives £100 to spend as they wish. They also have a yearly overall winner who receives £500. This is a person with the most votes over the year. Hangar Seven operate a company wide profit share scheme and they have the most elaborate fully paid for Christmas parties in the industry.

Golin/Virgo have ‘G4 Superhero' and the ‘Veritable Virgo' awards. These awards are announced publicly at team meetings and the winners are chosen from a short-list of peer-nominated candidates which are reviewed by the leadership team to find the winner. The awards recognise and reward individuals who model the company values and behaviours to achieve exceptional results. The winner receives a bottle of champagne, and the choice of an experience, either dinner in a top London restaurant, a spa day, a trip to see a west end show, a flight in a hot air balloon or a chance to drive a top sports car. The overall winner at the end of the year gets the opportunity to travel to one of their global offices - recent winners have travelled to New York and Chicago for a week of cross-office/cultural learning.

Golin and Virgo are led by President Matt (Golin) and two CEOs/MDs Sarah and Angie (Virgo). All three are all very well respected in the communications industry and this is a definite draw for employees who choose to join Golin/Virgo. They are all very hands on and accessible, encouraging team members to come and pick their brains about any challenges they may be facing as well as actively mentoring junior members in order to nurture their raw talents. They all bring the values to life setting an example to the team and perpetuate an environment where hard work and outstanding performance is rewarded and success is celebrated on a regular basis. The senior leadership has high visibility at team meetings in both office locations, presenting, sharing and demonstrating excellence and best practice across the company.

At Global Reach Partners they ensure all of their staff receive a comprehensive induction programme, to give them all the skills to be successful in their role as well as giving them the training and exposure to understand what the organisation does and how departments work together to produce the end result via their job swap timetable. Their induction programme is made up of a variety of line manager training, departmental job swaps, education on company policies and procedures and a session about the companies mission, vision, core values and culture. Global Reach Partners' sales team are currently going through an internal, in-depth training programme which has been hosted by a number of senior sales managers and team members. So far they have covered off communication filters, buying signals and will cover products and security of funds for the remainder of the year. They encourage their sales team to continue their own development by using the resources and experience around the business by planning training such as call coaching and meeting preparation.

At Global Reach Partners they ensure all of their staff receive a comprehensive induction programme, to give them all the skills to be successful in their role as well as giving them the training and exposure to understand what the organisation does and how departments work together to produce the end result via their job swap timetable. Their induction programme is made up of a variety of line manager training, departmental job swaps, education on company policies and procedures and a session about the companies mission, vision, core values and culture. Global Reach Partners' sales team are currently going through an internal, in-depth training programme which has been hosted by a number of senior sales managers and team members. So far they have covered off communication filters, buying signals and will cover products and security of funds for the remainder of the year. They encourage their sales team to continue their own development by using the resources and experience around the business by planning training such as call coaching and meeting preparation.