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.
The Women at EngageTech group was launched to reflect the growing number of females in the business. As well as a chat channel for regular socials and catch-up calls the group meets once a month to discuss relevant issues and more women are consequently now involved in late stage interviews.
The new Mental Health & Wellbeing Committee organise activities including cooking, book clubs, yoga and strength classes and Strava running and cycling clubs with prizes as incentives. Employees are also encouraged to use their flexi-time to get away from their desks and go on walks and runs.
During the pandemic EngageTech staff were given time off to support the NHS volunteer scheme, delivering medicines and acting as a social point of contact for people shielding. For Mental Health Month employees picked a daily fitness challenge and secured sponsorship, raising more than £5,000 for various mental health charities.
After carrying out a project on collaboration within the business, in which every employee had their say, it launched multiple communication channels. It found some people preferred to listen at work and others to discuss, some to read and others to watch, and adapted its approach accordingly.
Mental and physical wellbeing have been at the centre of everything Everflow has done for its employees since the pandemic began. Mental health courses, informal virtual get-togethers and quizzes were supplemented by a cycle-to-work scheme and encouraging exercise during daylight hours for those working from home.
The company calculates that by being exclusively paperless, it avoids using 2 million pieces of paper a year on traditional billing and envelopes. It also helps the environment by providing smart meters and giving advice to customers on saving water and preventing blockages.
Fair Ways believes the key to successful, motivated and engaged teams is having an inspiring and supportive leader. In addition to the management development training programme, which includes external training and coaching sessions, there are regular drop in masterclasses on topics from culture and supporting organisational change to coaching for managers.
During lockdown in place of the usual monthly staff lottery which has a £100 prize, Fair Ways introduced a quarterly lottery where employees can win a £1,000 for a holiday of their choice. Staff can also now choose how they would best like to work in the future.
During the pandemic Fair Ways set up internal and external Help Squads to support vulnerable members of staff and the local community. Fair Ways staff helped colleagues or their families with shopping and picking up prescriptions and organised the donation of over 1,000 items to local food banks.
The organisation showed its work family it cared during the pandemic with paid days off to recognise the contribution they had made, thank you days focussed on fun and wellbeing plus treat bags accompanied by a note of appreciation from Chief Executive, Marcia Sinfield.
FHA has always invested significantly in training and development even in challenging periods and last year it introduced a Leading Change Programme, open to all while 30 staff took up the opportunity to increase their skills and qualifications through apprenticeship programmes.
Teams have had coffee mornings, quizzes and opportunities to just talk about how they are feeling with support from Time to Change Champions and they have been encouraged to take a walk during their breaks to appreciate nature with WhatsApp groups featuring different activities and beautiful views from across Wales.
When a director joins the company they spend time on the shopfloor getting to know the business and meeting people across all sites for a wider understanding of the business and to increase approachability. All senior managers post updates and interesting facts about their roles on the in-house platforms.
Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Yapster, its in-house comms platform, were useful tools in helping drive engagement while the bulk of the Flat Iron workforce was on furlough. Weekly quizzes, Zoom Friday beer meetings and cooking competitions with everyone voting for their favourite dish became a weekly event.
Pre-pandemic, Flat Iron had selected Bread and Water for Africa, which helps to provide food, education and healthcare to some of the world's most deprived and vulnerable children, as its lead charity. Its second principal good cause was Cool Earth, which fights climate change – the company being conscious that beef production is part of the story.
The council offers internships, work experience placements and apprenticeships, which can lead to a full-time job. It recently initiated a scheme with the University of Kent to develop a talent pipeline for the planning department and successfully recruited newcomers into graduate planning roles.
The organisational development team has delivered a full learning and development programme over the course of the pandemic, opting to embrace online methods and rolling out Zoom and Skype training. Managers asked for feedback and found that many people preferred the virtual learning experience.
Staff can get discounts at hundreds of retailers and hospitality venues through a Reward Gateway account. Winners of the authority's popular quarterly recognition scheme, who are nominated by colleagues for their commitment to key values such as Customer First, also receive £25 vouchers.
Every month two staff exemplifying the company values are presented with champagne and shopping voucher by chief executive, Enrico Sanna, at the all-company update and Fora has a “Team Takeover” every fortnight where different departments create some entertainment for the company on that day
As an alternative to its annual ForaFest weekend away, the company sent staff food and drinks and organised a pizza cook-along, cocktail making class and interactive activities including musical Bingo. It also announced the winners of the Golden Palm awards for outstanding contribution.
Fora encourages biodiversity by building bat boxes, beehives and bird houses and ensures plants in its gardens are bee friendly. Fora only buys food or toiletries that are free from palm oil as well as local produce from ethically sourced suppliers and it uses renewable energy for its electricity.
Chief executive, Rich Keith and chief operating officer, Catherine Cheetham, have weekly or bi-weekly 1-2-1s with all managers offering coaching and mentoring and making sure they are listened to and supported. They also operate an “open door” culture with no need for people to wait for meetings.
Last year Fourth Floor Creative conducted a pay review and gave a pay increase to employees who had been with the company for longer than a year and passed their probation and it is planning to hold a company summer party whenever it can get the whole team together.
Fourth Floor Creative introduced an anonymous wellbeing support line and established a Wellbeing Warriors employee group who coordinates inclusive activities from book clubs, gaming nights and Friday night meets at the 'Online Arms' to daily #watercoolers online chats, a lunchtime scavenger hunt, pancakes and pumpkin carving
Managing directors encouraged staff to take lunch breaks and gave everyone an afternoon off to relax and do something fun instead of working. Each member of the leadership team also headed up a team in the 24 days of advent challenge completing 24 minutes of physical activity every day.
The bonus scheme is based on company performance and individual performance against personal objectives. As 2020 was such great year, everyone achieved more than 100% of their bonus with the managing directors giving everyone another 10% to recognise the great efforts and achievements during such an extraordinary year.
As well as carrying on with the normal work-based coaching and development during the pandemic, the firm boosted staff skills in Excel, project management and innovation and launched a management training programme. Freixenet Copestick also provides a weekly recruitment update to showcase opportunities across the company.
Fresenius Kabi encourages an open-minded creative can-do culture that offers employees of diverse cultures and backgrounds a wide range of fulfilling and challenging career and personal growth opportunities, domestically and internationally.
Motivated and dedicated teams work well together, supporting each other and encouraging each other. Empowerment and a strong team spirit are embedded in the culture.
Last year, Fresenius Kabi Germany gave €20,000 (£17,400) to the GoBanyo initiative which helps homeless people in Hamburg. The GoBanyo shower bus offers people the opportunity to shower free of charge and supply themselves with clean towels, clothes and hygiene products.
