What are companies doing with regards to 'Personal Growth'

The company's brilliant office space plays a big part in promoting collaboration. Double height ceilings and multiuse furniture solutions make it an extremely flexible place to work. All employees are provided with a MAC laptop on arrival, so everyone has freedom to hot-desk. They offer plenty of desk space, sofas and amazing break-out areas for people to have informal meetings and brainstorm. They also have a dedicated canteen/lunch area in the basement where staff can gather over lunch, or break off to one of the snug areas fitted with sofas and soft lighting for more relaxed chats. Rufus knows the importance of taking time out together. Each team has an allocated budget that they can use for social activities. In addition, the events team Freshly Squeezed puts together a bespoke programme of monthly classes and events to help motivate and inspire. These include everything from shoe design, sushi making and movie nights – this means many opportunities to work together with colleagues in smaller groups. They also run regular clubs, including Wine club and Book club. Their Party Animals team also organise lots of opportunities for teams to bond outside of work. Every month, they run an initiative called “Life Lessons With…” These are a fortnightly team challenge where staff nominate a topic, then get together and present their understanding of the topics to each other. In addition they run monthly ‘Masterclasses' - show-and-tell sessions designed to share with each other the work in their respective areas.

Aside from their fixed and regular reward initiatives like the Employee of the Month award, Xtra Mile programme and end of year Red Lion awards, which are voted for by colleagues and directly reward staff performance with tangible benefits of up to £1000, they have worked hard to develop one of the most diverse and comprehensive benefits packages in their industry. Part of their benefits sees the company curate a programme of cultural events called Freshly Squeezed, which aims to cater for the ‘whole person' by offering a wide range of topics. Staff are encouraged to get involved at their leisure and within work hours to develop new skills. This gives staff the opportunity to take a break, with the intention of feeling valued and making Rufus a rewarding place for them to come to work. Rufus have had fantastic feedback from both permanent and freelance staff who say they haven't seen such a wide-ranging and unique initiative at any other agency. Their benefits seek to reward staff with everything from time off to discounts on leisure activities (1 free cinema ticket for Vue and Cineworld each week; 40% off British Airways flights; 25% off Eurostar) to looking after their physical and emotional health and wellbeing. On a daily basis, if people need to work late to hit a deadline, they'll be provided with as much beer, pizza and ice cream as they can manage!

They sit in an open plan office so they are with the rest of the team. They know everything there is to know about the brand. They have an "open door" policy when it comes to asking/answering questions. They are extremely approachable. They live and breathe the company. They take ownership.

They sit in an open plan office so they are with the rest of the team. They know everything there is to know about the brand. They have an "open door" policy when it comes to asking/answering questions. They are extremely approachable. They live and breathe the company. They take ownership.

Rocket Fuel have a Town Hall teleconferencing meeting with all their offices worldwide to communicate the company vision and strategy.

Every Monday morning Rocket Fuel hold an All Hands Europe Meeting, where they use a teleconferencing visual system to connect all their Europe offices together for a Europe Team meeting that is led by SVP and General Manager EMEA . During the 1 hour meeting it give the entire team a commercial update and to share communication in a collaborative interactive way. Each office has an opportunity to share their weekly successes and challenges. Rocket Fuel hold Quarterly Business Review meetings with the whole team and discuss the performance of the past quarter, along with a variety of presentations on new products, new incentives and client and agency feedback. The UK Managing Director runs the meeting and acknowledges the top performers of the quarter in each department, presenting each individual with gifts. The meeting lasts for 3 hours in a collaborative way, offering each department time to present. After the meeting the team have team drinks in the bar to encourage open communication and cross departmental interaction in a relaxed social environment. Rocket Fuel also hold social events in the office every quarter such as Halloween parties, Hawaiian BBQ's, celebrations of birthdays, births and engagements which also creates a good social platform for teams to celebrate and have fun together during work.

Supported cascaded training , Management training in numerous topics is delivered by managers, which results in a greater understanding of the material.

Teams are encouraged to use communal areas to boost communication and creativity. Activities such as pool and table tennis are available as well as computer consoles. Benches outside are available for meetings.

Qubit offers a number of options for employee development, and they encourage all employees to take an active role in their own development by discussing career options with their line manager. They offer financial support for training qualifications that are for employee's current or future roles, as well as extra skills they would like to learn. For example, they have sponsored a member of the client team to attend an intensive coding course to further his knowledge of how our client engineer team work and to develop his skill set. Furthermore, the company sponsor several members of the finance team to complete their qualifications .They offered our client team several SQL and tableau sessions. The company is piloting a Lynda.com subscription for use in our marketing team. As well as using external providers, they run weekly internal training on our product updates, competitor information, sales processes and other requested topics. The company also run annual peer to peer appraisals, supplemented with the employee engagement survey tool which offers employees to give feedback to their peers whenever they wish.

Qubit runs a monthly bonus scheme named the Voice it, Own it, Do it Award. The purpose of this is to reward employees for work that goes above and beyond their day to day job role and improves organisational efficiency. This aims to reward those that embody the company values- Voice it, Own it, Do it. There are monthly open nominations, where peers nominate their team mates and detail the reasons for nomination. The winner is decided by senior management and announced company wide in the weekly kick off meeting. The company also share why everyone was nominated to all Qubit offices. The winner is also entitled to a monetary bonus of £1000.

The company hold regular Company Celebration Days and reward employees for their efforts as part of this event. Staff are recognised for their contribution and their successes and the contribution they have made to the lives of young people. The Celebration day is held at a special venue and attended by all staff across the organisation and is a unique opportunity for staff to meet and socialise with staff from other teams. Staff receive Awards and vouchers for specific categories of awards that are chosen carefully by senior management. These events help us to let our staff know that they are valued and recognised.

The company are committed to the training and development of their workforce and to this end they have achieved Gold status with investors in people. Some examples of their employee development include: structured induction and probation process comprehensive training plan for all new employees bespoke training to meeting additional needs of young people. All care staff expected and supported to achieve QCT level 3 in care. All managers expected and supported to achieve QCF level 5 in management. The development of a bespoke performance management supervision tool which addresses the Focus, Skills and engagement of staff and helps managers give constructive evidence based feedback across all areas thereby enhancing performance and engagement in the work place. Supervision policy ensuring regular supervision and support is provided to staff Mentoring and coaching to support new staff and existing staff develop skills Development of life skills through our company wide IT skills development program enabling all staff to achieve NVQ level 2 in IT. Giving opportunities for staff to champion areas of work in the organisation such as Health and Safety, Environment thereby developing additional skills such as chairing meetings.

All team leaders and managers enter into a specific training programme within the company which is a combination of professional ILM qualifications and in house training. All managers are then encouraged to specialise in their specific area of expertise, such as marketing or finance, so by the time a manager oversees a department, they have a combination of both experience and qualifications. Managers are provided with time off to attend courses and study packages and encouraged to continually share learning and best practice amongst colleagues. There is a strong coaching and mentoring culture within the company, which means that all future team leaders and managers benefit from the experience of those already in post.

The company has always encouraged cross department and team working, with a 'one company culture'. Every week, team members gather at HQ for an information sharing and learning session. This not only gives support to those that are in isolated offices but also ensures that everyone has up to date information and shares best practice and achievements. The company also encourages team away days, so they can focus on the future of their departments and what the plans are for the year ahead. The company try to incorporate some competitive activities too, such as the Property Management away day which had quad biking and clay pigeon shooting activities mixed with some sessions with the Director on the future of the business.

The company support AAT finance qualification CIPD for HR CIMA ILM Leadership. There is Training Professional People Practice for managers. Also, How to manage performance for managers. The company offer Sales and selling skills Coaching and mentoring training. The company also offers induction training, time management and business planning.

Employee Business Forum Values are used in all employee communications and featured in all internal training materials.