Despite the pandemic, outsourcing firm Delt Shared Services has maintained its charity initiatives through matching up to two days of staff annual leave to support charitable causes and also ran its annual Foodbank appeal with the workforce coming together to donate 1,600kg of food, drink, pet food and toiletries.

During the first lockdown, employees also pitched in to help with PPE distribution and packaged up food boxes for the most vulnerable in their communities.

Founded in 2014 by its shareholders, Plymouth City Council and the Devon Clinical Commissioning Group, Delt originally started out running and managing the two organisations' IT services. Since then the private Plymouth-based company has expanded and now provides a range of office support services ranging from IT, cyber security and digital transformation to project management, human resources and organisational development and payroll, with any profits generated returned to its public sector shareholders.

Good communication and the personal touch has been key to keeping staff engaged at people-centric Delt. In addition to sending weekly direct emails and vlogs, chief executive, Giles Letheren hosted a virtual hangout invite every Friday lunchtime for the first five months of the pandemic to provide a place for staff to drop in and talk about everything but work. Bosses also organised regular virtual social team activities including celebrating birthdays as employees would have done when everyone was allowed to socialise in person.