About Information Management Group Ltd

MGROUP has a unique and innovative appraisal system which incorporates 360 degree feedback. Staff and managers are able to appraise how the previous year has gone and put together a plan for the year ahead. They use a matrix-based system that measures each individual aspect of the role being appraised (including its skills), and ask staff if they have anything they want to improve on. This process creates a growth plan for every employee, technical or otherwise. Development needs are agreed between the employee and their line manager, and are then communicated to HR to allow them to be built into the annual resourcing plan. This allows employees to be trained to maintain excellence and also provides access for employees to any aspirational or cross-platform development that will help to further their career goals. In this way, they are able to support a wide range of career and development goals, including Microsoft certifications, shadowing, in-house and external training, membership of professional bodies and even part-time college and university courses. On average, each employee has 20 days of professional development per year logged in our timesheet system. There are also regular quarterly reviews to alter and update employee training plans where necessary, making each plan a responsive, constantly evolving document. They encourage staff to meet monthly with their professional development manager to review their ongoing activities. They have also added 'post-project feedback' where employees can give and receive feedback at the end of a project so that individual contributions can be recognised before moving on to the next project.

One of the company’s practices is to encourage the wellbeing of employees and treat individuals who are unfortunately in the position of taking long-term sick leave. They alter the utilisation targets of those individuals to ensure that they are not penalised for being ill, and offer them a flexible return to the workplace. Another of the practices they feel is particularly important in a consultancy is project rotation. They always take into account an individual’s skills when being placed on a client site, but also take into account their home life, outside commitments and career aspirations. If any individual is unhappy, they will work hard to move them or to at least improve the situation. Their high retention rate for staff proves that this approach is successful.

IMGROUP have introduced the OpenSpaces format, an exciting and unique new methodology that gives employees the space to create new ideas and helps make IMGROUP a better and more innovative place to work. OpenSpaces happens on a quarterly basis, in which employees are invited to submit workplace challenges in advance. Challenges might include, for example, ‘how to improve the office space’ or ‘how to improve project management methodology’. An afternoon is put to one side for the event, and each individual who has submitted a challenge with potential to be converted into a development area (as judged by a combination of their peers and senior leadership team members) takes a space in the office and is joined by other colleagues who are interested in the idea to brainstorm on the challenge. Colleagues can join in on multiple sessions. At the end of each session selected individuals take ownership on moving the idea forward, with time deliberately set aside in the working week to encourage this process. For a less formal submission of ideas for improvement, there is also a Suggestions Box in the main London office which can be used anonymously. Innovation and collaboration across teams and hierarchies is further encouraged by the completely open-plan layout of the office. IMGROUP also runs employee engagement surveys. They are recognised as an Investors in People employer and recently won the Investors in People Silver Award after a representative sample of their staff were interviewed about their experiences. Only 6% of companies in the scheme have attained this accolade. They also received recommendations for improvement from the Investors in People survey, many of which they are currently acting to address.