Leadership - How employees feel about the head of the organisation, senior management and the organisation's values and principles
Leadership has the biggest influence on how employees feel about the organisation.
Leaders need to create inspiring visions and provide clear direction to positively Impact the My Company factor.
When it comes to Wellbeing, no amount of free fruit or stress busting classes are going to address an imbalance. Employee Wellbeing is a by-product of the leadership and management culture.
If there’s pressure at the top of your organisation, it won’t take long to be felt throughout.
Fever-Tree is passionate about physical and mental health. Through its benefits package, it provides mental health resources and physical health initiatives. These include sports tennis, running, and football clubs. It also hosts hobby clubs such as baking, books, and singing. Additionally, it encourages its people to speak up if they are struggling mentally.
‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ is a golden rule. As an organisation, it is very focused on 'citizenship' and ways of being. Citizenship refers to proactivity and ideation within everyday work. Its leaders encourage people to be ‘radiators’ and solutions hunters and to be involved in community initiatives.
Fever-Tree cares about rewarding its employees. It ensures this for its people through everyone receiving a bonus potential of no less than 10%, through spot bonuses and recognition awards, share options, SAYE share schemes, and its competitive remuneration offers.
CEO Jamie and the leadership team regularly send out updates to the business outlining any changes. Additionally, every month in its Global Review meeting, there is a section called 'ask the CEO'. Employees can anonymously submit questions and have those answered and addressed in the meeting providing clarity for everyone.
InterEx Group has a generous commission structure and career pathways with reward schemes and incentive criteria for individual contributors and people managers in contract, permanent and delivery roles, as well as pathways for Talent Acquisition and Business Support Teams. It also prides itself in delivering world-class incentives, including trips abroad, monetary bonuses and vouchers.
Its own development program, ‘InterExcellence’, consists of 4 learning pathways. Engage ensures a smooth onboarding process. Enhance focuses on refining the initial skills needed to succeed. Excel is designed to equip those going through their first steps in mentoring. Elevate is a management development program, focusing on supporting managers to help the next generation.
Following feedback, the charity's top team are doing more to keep their employees in the loop. This includes monthly live Q&As, quarterly video updates on organisational priorities, regular emails and site visits. There's also a quarterly presentation to the leadership group cascaded to all employees via the 'TeamTalk' meeting pack for line managers.
Clinical teams get in-house CPD delivered by PDSA's own clinical experts, providing learning opportunities for subject matter experts and attendees. The charity offers around 20 placements for newly graduated clinicians, with staying on in permanent roles. And there are also apprenticeship opportunities for staff to develop their skills.
Around 400 managers and leaders are enrolled on a six-month leadership development programme covering practical and theoretical topics to help them better understand their teams and feel more equipped to lead them to success. Participants are encouraged to 'buddy up' to create a support network across the organisation once the training is complete.
With access to Spill, employees have easy access to therapy. They can ask a therapist a question about their own wellbeing or how to support others, and they can also arrange one-off counselling sessions. Peak also has trained mental health first aiders and supports employees’ physical wellbeing through its Peak Fit Club.
‘Open’ is one of Peak’s core values. Every Friday, it has a company-wide standup. Peak ensures that these are in-person where possible and provides pastries or lunch as another reason to get together and socialise. The theme for each week is different and are more detailed if at the end of the month or quarter.
Values are core to Peak’s culture. In the last year, it has updated its Culture Manifesto. Innovation and entrepreneurial spirit drive the business to succeed. Employees are included in company initiatives and strategy as its leadership ensures the organisation remains an open and collaborative workplace.
Both physical and mental health are important at Pico. It has a group of mental health first aiders that provide aid to employees who feel they need support. Additionally, Pico provides a free gym for its employees, and it holds lunchtime forums on eating and sleeping right.
Managers at Pico have a chat room in which they can share tips, offer advice for less experienced managers, and ask questions. Additionally, there is a monthly recruitment drop-in session so that managers can keep up to date with their interviewing skills as well as partake in some roleplaying exercises.
Its leaders have ensured that their teams have both their full support as well as facilitating a supportive environment. They arrange regular coffee catch-up sessions with their teams to chat about their personal lives. They also run a social media blog where leaders discuss achievements from the month and challenges coming up.
The leadership team has developed a people charter. It holds an annual conference where all employees are invited to get together in person. It holds monthly team meetings which reinforce company values, mission, and objectives. These meetings have included the opportunity for employees to get involved in people and company strategies.
In terms of pay increases and rewards associated with performance, it offers a completely transparent promotion scheme to all employees. This enables consultants to fast-track their careers and reach Director-level at their own rate. The scheme is designed to be measurable and fair; employees also have promotion opportunities every six months.
Prime People continues to run its Salary Sacrifice scheme supporting a small orphanage in South Africa. One of its London team leaders has recently run a successful charity golf day to raise money for company charities. More employees have also run/walked 50 or 100k of the Thames Path to raise money.
Quanta’s leadership encourage employees to live by company values through its rewards and recognition scheme ‘Qudos’. This recognises employees who exemplify the organisation’s values and is celebrated throughout the business. The senior management team live and convey the values through internal communications and employee reviews of gathering feedback on themselves.
It has introduced LinkedIn learning for those employees who have requested training in specific areas. It has also recently launched a new mentor programme where employees are paired with senior members of the business to mentor and guide them with professional advice, development, and or within a specialist subject matter.
During the last year, it has run collections for the local children’s ward – including an Easter egg hunt. Employees held a number of bake-off events in the office as well as taking part in the dragon boat race for its local hospice.
The outcomes of Leadership Team meetings are cascaded down to all levels of the organisation. Employees can voice their opinions openly through the employee consultation forum. St Michael’s Hospice’s CEO also regularly provides update videos to keep employees informed on all the latest organisation news.
The organisation provides a number of opportunities for managers to learn new skills and for prospective managers to learn what is takes to take that next step. St Michael’s Hospice supports manager apprenticeship, degrees, and offers in-house training, coaching, and mentoring.
St Michael’s Hospice offer to facilitate sessions for teams to explore effectiveness and team relationships. Furthermore, teams are provided with support given by the organisation’s Spiritual Care Team and by Mental Health First Aiders for clinical colleagues on site.
The organisation has a staff counselling service which is available to all Touchstone employees and volunteers. Staff can access up to 6 confidential sessions, paid for entirely by Touchstone. It also pays for counselling from a therapist of staff’s choice, including a male or female counsellor, BME or LGBTQ+ background.
The CEO is an ex-Touchstone service user with lived experience of mental health and is supported by a Senior Leadership Team who also have lived experience of mental health and neurodiversity conditions. The CEO produces videos for employees and attends team meetings highlighting his personal vision and experience aligning this to Touchstone’s mission and values.
The organisation organises at least two fun away days per year, with teams doing additional social days as well. In September 2023, it held an whole organisation away day at Herd Farm. The day allowed staff to take part in activities such as giant swings, archery, pottery, walks, face painting, and much more.
The organisation asked its teams to have some fun and make videos to show how proud they are of what they do and the impact they have on our customers experience. It had a huge response with videos parodying Bake Off, M&S adverts, ABBA, game shows, Johnny Cash, and fairy tales.
VIVID’s internal talent programme targets non-managers who have a desire to develop into management. It has a rigorous selection process involving online tests and an assessment centre. It also has a job mentoring and rotation feature in the programme as well as virtual delivery of management skills by our own trainers.
The senior management recognise and reward employees across VIVID for living the values. Monthly winners of its Values Awards are communicated at the Let’s Talk VIVID monthly events and receive ‘love to shop’ vouchers. It also details the behaviours that the organisation wants all levels of staff to demonstrate in order to live its values.
