The agency's underlying value is People First. By practising open communication, inclusivity, and providing channels for feedback and employee representation, it creates a supportive and engaging work environment. To encourage open dialogue, the organisation established an Ask the Board channel. This platform allows all employees to directly ask questions or provide feedback to board members.

Rocketmill has launched its Academy; a structured 3-month training programme across its 2 largest departments. Each attendee has a mentor and works through the same syllabus with the aim to complete a final test and be awarded a permanent contract. This programme has allowed the agency to nurture and grow talent.

All teams have morning meetings to get them motivated. Activities include spinning a wheel to win a prize. Team nights out aren’t just about drinking, but also doing competitive activities or games such as bowling, escape room and shuffleboard. On a Friday each month it holds a fun activity within the office like ‘X-Factor Friday’.

The Charity Champions team organises a programme of fundraising events throughout the year and last year the organisation raised £18,000. Fundraising activities included The Royal Parks Half Marathon, The Queen’s Jubilee Bake sale, World Cup events in the office, Football Jumper Day, sponsored a music evening, Christmas Jumper Day donations, and Halloween dress-up day.

The leadership team and other key staff use an all-staff cinema event to communicate the company’s overarching strategic goals. These goals are utilised throughout ARAG’s performance management system to ensure all staff can clearly see what their efforts mean to those goals. Clarity of message is reinforced through fortnightly updates led by the Managing Director.

Clarity is an essential value to ARAG. Company comms are achieved through a number of ways, including online video calls from key managers and leadership team members, general initiatives and outcomes that staff are not only responsible for but passionate about, news posts, intranet pages, videos, animations, and more.

At Admiral, its employees have access to a unique benefit – its Share Incentive Plan (SIP). This came into existence with the Finance Act of 2000 to give employees Tax and National Insurance advantages when given shares in their place of employment. The organisation believes share ownership helps to motivate and reward longer-term performance.

Its senior managers sponsor the Ministry of Fun (MOF) which encourages colleagues to enjoy their time whilst at work. Each month a different department or group of departments are responsible for organising in-office and hybrid fun events, with each month sponsored by a different senior manager.

Interns are welcome at Brandpie. A new recruit is hired quarterly – bolstering the team in any department from design to project management. They get a ‘buddy’ and are involved in all aspects of project work, from insights and research to client presentations. They also have skills training in areas like communication and IT.

The company helps young people from underrepresented backgrounds get into managerial and leadership roles through a mentorship programme with the Aleto Foundation. And Brandpie’s supporting those affected by the war in Ukraine. This has included the London to Kyiv challenge, where its team walked, swam, cycled or ran a collective 1,340 miles for sponsorship.

Employees now benefit from greater transparency around the competencies they need to progress through the ‘Grades Reimagined’ scheme. It splits everyone into sub-levels within their job grade, showing what they need to do to move up the grades. The initiative has involved benchmarking with recruitment agencies and across the marketplace.

‘Alchemmy Gives’ has been set up to help local causes. Alchemmists donated coats to the ‘WrapUp London’ campaign and ran a charity raffle raising more than £1,600 for Breast Cancer Now. And there’s a half-day company-wide volunteering session every year, with the last one supporting the upkeep of a community garden.

As well as a pre-starting welcome gift, recruits are introduced to their company ‘buddy’ to help them ease into their new role. Every quarter, there’s a new starter event where joiners get a complete overview of the strategy and values and get to join others in the same boat for fun, team-building activities.

Employees are empowered to own their development. They're free to suggest courses or training relevant to their role or personal growth, and internal courses cover various behavioural, people and management skills. There's also coaching supported by personality profiling and opportunities for secondments, additional responsibilities and internal moves.

During their induction, new recruits get time with the Managing Director to help them understand the company's history, vision and values. They also get to meet many key people from all levels, from the finance director to the admin team, to reassure them that there's always somebody on hand to help.

As it's a challenging process to become chartered and can take years to achieve, Tenos offers its employees expertise and project diversity to ensure they have the experience they need before they put in their Chartered Engineer applications. The company also has a formal mentor scheme.

Almost one in five new hires have come via Node 4’s generous employee referral scheme. Staff get £1200 if they successfully recommend a candidate. An initial £500 is awarded when they complete their three-month probationary period and the remaining £700 after they’ve been employed for six months.

Node4’s Trans4mation Leadership Development Framework is an internal five-level training programme for all tiers of management and leadership across the business, from helping new managers navigate policies and processes to boosting senior leadership experience, including the option of an ILM Level 5 qualification. The principles of ‘Exceptional Service as Standard’ (ESaaS) are embedded throughout.

New managers – new to management or new to the organisation – are supported through a bespoke management induction, including toolkits to get them up and running quickly. And the Group offers two management development programmes – one for aspiring managers and one for new or future heads of service focused on leadership and strategy.

The Group's Homes Plus My Community Fund provides grants of up to £30,000 annually for grassroots organisations looking to make a difference to communities. This has included sponsoring the Best Kept Village Community Competition in Staffordshire, helping young people make music in a Scout and Guide Band and supporting a group of women taking-up football.