My Company - The level of engagement employees feel with their job and organisation
My Company is what we call an ‘output’ factor, it focuses on people’s ‘love’ and ‘pride’ in working for your organisation.
Now unfortunately you can’t directly make people feel these emotions, but when all of the other seven factors are doing well, people will be far more likely to experience that love and pride ultimately improving the My Company factor as a result.
Riverford gives all co-owners the opportunity to refer a friend for any of its live vacancies. If the referred candidate is successful in getting the role, once they have passed their probation period, it pays the co-owner who made the recommendation £400. The friend they recommended will also get £100 – this is an unlimited
Fair pay is fundamental at the organisation, particularly for those co-owners at the lower levels of pay. It is a Real Living Wage employer. To offset the gender pay gap, it has overhauled its role banding, increased transparency over the rates for different levels, and installed measures to ensure that these bandings are consistently applied.
Riverford has a whole host of developmental opportunities for its people. Including captured learning, personal and professional needs during 1:1s, establishing aspirations, and providing learning to support the individual in improving confidence, performance, and motivation. It also runs an internal management programme that focuses on performance coaching and development conversations.
Teams at the organisation are encouraged to build working relationships through regular team meetings that provide structure and support to a typical day or week. Teams also have quarterly get-togethers and wellbeing events are hosted by the wellbeing team. LHP also arrange community events such as canal rubbish cleaning.
The organisation uses SharePoint as a source of news for everyone in the company. It hosts an annual company conference to allow everyone to get together, alongside smaller team and directorate meet ups. Everything is reinforced by the “LHP way” and its new People & Culture Framework which details the behaviours expected from staff.
All managers at LHP attend a four-day programme which teaches them some basic managerial skills, with topics including: what is good leadership, effective communication, performance management, managing a team, my impact on the organisation, delegation, motivation and morale, decision making, analysing what is going well, and action planning. Managers can also study numerous other modules.
Many managers are currently completing apprenticeships both internally and through the local university, and everyone at manager level has the support of an aligned people services business partner. Internal and external coaching is offered, as is a thorough induction process for new managers.
CEO and Principal Mike Gaston posts weekly Moment with Mike vlogs and there is an informal evening Time to Talk meeting with the Vice-Principal. Senior leaders all work to metrics set against the college's Drive to 25 strategic plan, and this filters through to teams in terms of performance plans and objective setting.
With the college based at three different campuses, the pandemic actually encouraged people to work together on platforms such as Microsoft Teams, without having to gather in the same geographical place. This had the silver lining of cutting commutes and preventing travelling time or traffic getting in the way.
