About livin

Connected Leaders is livin’s flagship. The company know that by connecting people to their purpose, values and strategy they will boost engagement and performance, with leadership being the vital link. The Leadership Development Programme, delivered in partnership with Cirrus, is an international organisation that works across a range of industries with many market-leading and widely admired businesses, all to accelerate change. The programme gives 40 leaders the skills and confidence they need to build critical connections that lead to faster change. This is done via Team Cascades, engaging leaders with why the business strategy is important and involving them in the part they play in delivery. There is also the Disruption Programme, creating teams of people who don’t normally work together to work on critical business projects. There are even Manager Skill Bursts, which are short and sharp tools and techniques to improve leadership effectiveness. The programme covers all leaders and represents 25% of livin’s workforce, meaning an investment of £1500 per head.

To celebrate livin’s 52nd position in the Times Top 100 they ran 52 ‘Great People Moments.’ The moments were designed to make staff feel good about themselves and their role in the business and ranged from fun activities to surprise treats. Examples include a One Direction ticket extravaganza, free health checks, free Starbucks, a hike in the Lake District and much more. In addition to the Great People Moments the company also invested significantly in the health and wellbeing of staff with the launch of the Every Penny Helps scheme. 85% of staff take part and the extra pennies from their monthly salaries has raised nearly £1400 for the Healthy livin Fund. Matched by livin, nearly £3000 has been raised to fund a range of activities, facilities and staff services. The funds are put towards fitness classes, fitness equipment hire, healthy lunches, bikes for use over lunch breaks, group walks, beauty and massage treatments and health checks. A telephone based Employee Assistance Programme is available 24/7 for all staff and their immediate families to access counselling and guidance on matters as diverse as financial worries, stress and household issues. Livin’s commitment and approach to staff wellbeing was recognised last year with the award of the Better Health at Work bronze award and this year they’ve just been evaluated for silver status.

With a real focus on team interaction and to support the delivery of Plan A, livin’s new business strategy this year launched 'Connected Leaders.' All participants undertake a transactional analysis questionnaire to identify individual behaviour preferences and how these effect relationships. Through a series of coaching sessions staff are then equipped with skills to effectively manage their own and others behaviours to improve relationships. Ongoing team interaction is supported through livin's internal social media platform, Yammer. 100% of staff have profiles and the platform has 98% engagement rate, with 44 subgroups of cross department teams working of specific projects. 'Eurofever' was a companywide employee engagement event which demonstrated livin's multi-cultural awareness at the height of the European football event in 2016. Teams were selected randomly at a FIFA-style grand draw, with the Chief Executive presiding. Departments were challenged to display not only their own football team’s colours in their work areas but to also come up with innovative ways of promoting the countries culture. Flags were raised, fascinating weird and wonderful facts were presented in wall art, histories were written and fun was had through quizzes and interactive art. The Berlin Wall was raised once more and staff were encouraged to write slogans on it - even The Hoff was resurrected (but didn't appear for a visit). Staff even brought in sweet and savoury food they had made to share with their team from their 'countries', including German sausage, pizza, pasties and goulash.