What are companies doing with regards to 'Personal Growth'

The company promote a virtual shares programme called ‘Brickies' to reward employees. Employees can invest part/all of their annual performance-related bonus into Brickies, and the company guarantee that this amount will grow in line with the agency's revenues during that period. It's a tax-efficient way for employees to feel that their savings are growing in line with the company's growth. In keeping with the agency values of 'Above & Beyond' the company also hold monthly Above & Beyond awards, where employees nominate colleagues who they believe have embodied the Above & Beyond spirit. The person with the most votes gets £50 in cash to spend on whatever they choose.

Team interaction and communication is very much an intrinsic part of day-to-day company life. The company have always recognised the importance of getting everyone together so have built a forum for this around Friday lunchtime. Every week free food and drink is provided for everyone in the reception area. As well as sharing lunch together they use this opportunity to update employees on news: To celebrate new business wins; to recognise those that have gone ‘Above&Beyond'; to share work. But most importantly to keep everyone updated. The company believe the best teams are built when there's total transparency. Communication is key to this whether to celebrate success or to ‘dig deep' and move on from a more challenging experience. In addition, training sessions will typically bring people from across the agency together. The company host fortnightly 'Well Red' sessions for the whole agency where industry professionals come in to share their areas of knowledge & expertise. Other training sessions vary from all company day sessions to smaller bits of training typically attended by between 3 and 10 employees. Less formally there are two company parties each year: The Summer Party and Christmas Party. The second would typically be expected, but the first is the company's opportunity to give something back.

The organisation work with a company called Lifetime Training, to offer their employees NVQ equivalent training in management and catering roles. This is available to anyone without prior higher education qualifications, and who has lived in the European Union for the last three years. There are strong opportunities for employees to grow and develop with The Good Eating Company. When recruiting they look for general assistants with the potential to become supervisors, supervisors with the potential to become managers and managers with the potential to become operations managers. Many of their most successful employees started work with them at a junior level. Their Head of Operations, and the three Operations Managers all started working for the company as general café assistants.

The Company actively tries to work on promoting the idea of the company as a family. They look to build a strong sense of belonging to their family within their employees. This is evidenced by a wide number and variety of social events and parties they arrange for employees, and they take significant groups of employees to prestigious restaurants and bars. Small early gifts at the outset of employment also enhance this. For example, they often treat a manager to dinner, or buy them a bottle of champagne once they have completed an early milestone like the successful management of a client event.

The BIO Agency have regular offsite company meetings which involve breakout groups, feedback sessions and presenting back great and inspiring work to the company. They recently launched BIO DIVERSITY – an initiative to increase internal sharing and collaboration through lunchtime sessions putting a spotlight on different areas of the business. All of their employees have been trained in the last six months in Agile and Scrum methodologies, which ensures everyone at The BIO Agency is aligned and working in the most collaborative way.

The BIO Agency has an office dog called Philip. Research has shown that having a dog in the workplace reduces stress and this is certainly the case at The BIO Agency. Philip is a well-loved member of the team and provides an opportunity to de-stress during times of pressure. They offer some really nice perks, like a gourmet breakfast delivery once a week for the whole agency and personalised Hummingbird Bakery cakes on birthdays. After work the breakout space turns into a cocktail bar with one of the employees mixing a menu of freshly made cocktails. This boosts interaction and is a positive and rewarding way to end the working week.

To ensure that the company's principles, mission and their ambitions remain core to how The App Business operate rather than an abstract ideas, the company maintain regular and open communication of them. It is both the values and vision which shape their annual mission statement, formulated and revised by the Co-Founders with input from our Senior Management. This mission is presented to the team by the Co-Founders. It then cascades down to each Community Practise e.g. iOS to establish tangible goals and initiatives for how their department will deliver again the mission for the coming year. Team members will refer to this mission at the start of each initiative to give a perspective and focus for their work and ensure it remains front of mind. The company principles are communicated extensively in our working day and life at TAB from a new starter's first day induction sessions to their welcome meeting with the Founders focusing solely around our principles, which ensures their recognition from the outset. Self-organising project teams use them to set goals for each sprint cycle to drive direction and efficiency as well as retrospectives which aid future problem solving. Findings from these retrospectives are offered shared in their Friday ‘Wrap Up' meetings so everyone can benefit and remain true to the Agile environment. The Principles are also used as a basis of who they hire as well as how they assess individual's progress and development areas.

Last year the company engaged an external consultant to work with the Senior Management team, alongside the rest of the company, to participate in various workshops. This allowed the company to take a step back and re-evaluate the previous values of the company, reworking them into 7 new TAB Principles which can be applied to daily life at TAB. Since then, the Senior Management team has embedded these core TAB Principles into the following processes; -Interview assessment to ensure all potential hires can demonstrate their adherence to company values; -On-boarding sessions focused solely on TAB Principles from one of the Founders within the first 3 months at the business; -To help articulate feedback at the end of probation periods, and use this as a guidance for highlighting improvement needs; -Guidance for ways of working in the daily work of Senior Management team members; -During retrospective sessions with clients to ensure the team builds on delivery and continuous improvements; -In the weekly Senior Management meetings to steer decision-making and problem solving; -End of year annual reviews where salary reviews are based upon fulfilling these principles.

The ‘Project Compass' initiative was presented and explained to all employees when it was launched. An infographic displaying all the key points of the initiative is displayed in the kitchen area for people to refer to at any time. Each new starter meets the CEO who gives them an overview of the Company's mission, core values and vision. The company's performance management platform has been set up to mirror the Company mission by measuring the company goals of Customer Experience and Operational Excellence. The competencies measured against each employee match the core values and behaviours. Each person within the company has at least one KPI that directly impacts the main goals. This is known as the golden thread. The platform allows us to track the golden thread more effectively and embed it in the culture of the organisation so that everyone feels a collective responsibility to achieve the Company mission, values and vision and knows how their contribution affects the overall business objectives.

The company is happy to try new work patterns to accommodate people's requests, which helps enormously with the stresses of the work/life balance. The company ensures employees have the necessary IT infrastructure and support to allow them to work remotely. They are as flexible as they possibly can be without compromising the quality of their service or work. To encourage people to choose healthier alternatives to the cakes and sweets which usually feature in the kitchen several times throughout the week, Tectrade has a weekly fruit delivery which everyone is invited to enjoy as well as jars of nuts as an alternative to the sweet options.

10% of all gross profit growth is awarded to branch teams at the end of the year in the form of a cash bonus (this is in addition to the mainstream monthly bonus awards).

Essentially to convey the message that they are a unique company, large enough to provide opportunities for future career development yet small enough to recognise and care about the wellbeing and success of every team member.

It is not necessarily innovative but the company's CEO lives and breathes the core values and leads by example in his interactions with all employees. There is a giant poster in their office displaying the values and the company send a postcard of the same design to all new starters before they join.

It is not necessarily innovative but the company's CEO lives and breathes the core values and leads by example in his interactions with all employees. There is a giant poster in their office displaying the values and the company send a postcard of the same design to all new starters before they join.

The company's Senior Management team operate an open door approach and very visible within the organisation.

The company provide English language classes for the Housekeeping department.

Vision and values are vital at Skyscanner and they communicate them in multiple ways. When someone joins Skyscanner they will have an induction session with senior members of the team to explain their vision and values and how these are practically applied within the organisation. The values are reinforced throughout the offices and Skyscanner are extremely proud of them. They are displayed to visitors and their employees by being integrated into their office design. Company communications also continue to reinforce their values, they have quarterly company updates which allow the entire company to be updated on their progress towards their vision, CEO lunches and COO question time where employees are invited to lunch with the CEO and ask anything they'd like. The vision statement and what is being doing to achieve this is central to these discussions. Skyscanner store a lot of information on their knowledge management system and intranet but find that the most effective way of communicating the vision and values is through their employees, they have become advocates for their values, using them to guide behaviours but also communicating them others around the business.

In addition to pay reviews, bonus and commission schemes there is a staff reward system called Sky High. Sky High is a scheme that enables individuals to nominate colleagues for making an over and above contribution. One of their core values is Collaborate to Comp(l)ete and this scheme supports this value by enabling employees to nominate colleagues for recognition as a result of an over-and-above contribution, rewarded by vouchers in their local currency. On top of this, every quarter one of those individuals nominated for a SkyHigh award is chosen as the overall winner of the “SkyHigh Quarterly Award” and receives a cash prize.

The company hold regular charity events that get everyone at SilverDoor involved. One of which, their annual sports day, is held at a local cricket club and, this year, was attended by more than 80% of employees. The day included a mixture of team games, relay races and other classic sports day events. They even rented a 115ft inflatable obstacle course and put on a BBQ that encouraged higher donations. The annual boys vs. girls netball game is another date in the SilverDoor calendar that everyone looks forward to each summer. The company also host quarterly SilverDoor Parties for all staff at the office in Chiswick. The company supplies food and drink for the evening and members of the SilverDoor Academy organise pool, darts and table football tournaments. The company's Marketing department put together quarterly internal mail outs ‘Inside SilverDoor' which contain all the latest goings-on in the company, industry gossip and highlights from the previous three months. There's also a section, ‘SilverDoor Recognised', which allows managers to acknowledge employees with exceptional performance.

The company have two 5-a-side football teams and a netball team that are free for all staff to join. They also offer discounted memberships at Virgin Active and Fitness First Gyms which is available to all staff. SilverDoor provides on-site shower facilities that staff are able to use after attending the gym or cycling into work. Employees can join the cycle to work scheme which allows them to purchase a bike using a company interest free loan which they are then able to pay back monthly over the following year.