Kainos Group is a Belfast-headquartered IT provider with 15 offices in the UK, Ireland, continental Europe and the US that specialises in two business areas: digital service and workday practice. Working on a simple philosophy of making life easier for its global clients through technology, it employs more than 1,700 people worldwide.

The first Northern Irish tech company to make the FTSE 100, it is proud of its pandemic-related projects in the UK, which have included helping the government with technology that supports self isolation, home testing and Covid 19 contact tracing. It has also helped to manage financial payments to those in need and with managing repatriation flights.

Internally, it has viewed the pandemic as an opportunity to improve the future wellbeing and skillsets of what it considers to be its most important asset, its staff. It has accelerated the redesign of its mindset and coaching programme, moving more of it online as well as producing practical guidance on remote working and self-care guides on emotional, financial, social, career and physical wellbeing.

It believes in rewarding good performance. Staff can nominate colleagues for bonuses of up to £250 for work which reflect company values while Kainos gave all staff a £1000 “thank you” last July for their hard work during the pandemic. This was repeated in January.