About Think Money Group

The company run regular "off sites" for teams in the business. For example, once a quarter the Internal Comms team organises an IT team offsite. This will involve all 100+ members of staff from IT. The event usually takes place in the purpose built auditorium and in the staff restaurant and takes a full afternoon. Typically it includes: Information share - members of various team or project groups will present short updates on their project and share learnings. The company survey staff before the event and ask them to put forward topics that they would like to know more about. They also have non IT speakers, such as the MDs of the business units, who will come and talk about their plans for their business. Ideas generation - the teams will split into groups to brainstorm a particular topic and will then present back Team building - usually some sort of game-based team. The company deliberately engineer the teams to bring together people who don't work together day-to-day. Social, each event ends with beer / wine and pizza being served in the staff restaurant. At the end there is a follow up with another survey to assess the event.

For many years Think Money Group has been a Platinum payroll giving provider. However, this year the company decided to move away from Charities Aid Foundation to a new scheme administrator, Give All. There are three main advantages: Give All doesn't charge a fee so all donations make it to the charities; Give All operates entirely online and staff can administer their own accounts and, finally, Give All distributes money to charity with 48 hours rather than weeks. To make the move the company have to get staff to sign up to Give All. The company automatically set up their accounts with Give All - all they needed to do is to login, confirm their charities and confirm their donation amounts. 82% of staff did just that - matching the number that donated on the old system. In fact the company asked staff to increase their donations and many did - so they now give more than ever each month. After many years of supporting Seashell Trust in Manchester staff voted for a new local charity this year - Cash For Kids. Through Cash For Kids the company can support deprived children across Greater Manchester.

This year the company have rolled out the Living Wage, 90 staff received a pay rise to achieve this. The company did this because they felt it was the right thing so do for their people. In addition, so far this year over 130 staff have been rewarded as part of the staff rewards scheme. It allows managers to reward staff who have gone "above and beyond" with a gift that is tailored to the individual member of staff. There are no specific budgets or items. Typically the manager will contact the staff welfare coordinator and discuss the member of staff that he or she wants to reward. It will then be researched what that individual might value as a reward and make a recommendation back to the manager. For example one staff member with a large family was rewarded with a voucher to take his family bowling and for a meal. Another keen cook received a voucher to go to a cookery school, a music fan was rewarded with Ticket Master vouchers. Managers can also nominate their team members for Employee of the Month. The winners receive a tailored gift, and a trophy. Every three months the directors take all of the quarter's winners out for lunch at one of Manchester's top restaurants, it is often a lively affair so staff go straight home after the meal.