Strategies for Improvement

During the pandemic, GLL rethought its operations, introducing a new digital system for customers and multi-skilling staff to improve operational agility. They established a customer service centre and knowledge hub, transforming front-of-house staff into concierge staff who advocate for customers, provide digital support, and offer health guidance.

Leadership visibility increased, and engagement activities soared, with membership levels and participation reaching an all-time high in 2023. Transparent communication became a priority, with regular updates and personal connections fostering a strong psychological contract between staff and the organization.

GLL also focused on the core skills needed by managers and leaders, encapsulated in the 4Is of leadership: Improving, Inspiring, Including, and Imagination. As a Real Living Wage employer since 2022, GLL’s commitment to fair pay was evident in the increased satisfaction levels in their 2023 We invest in people assessment.

Benefits of IIP Accreditation

Achieving the Gold standard for We invest in people has provided numerous benefits for GLL.

Working with the IIP framework offers a benchmark for reviewing and improving people practices. GLL’s active community of IIP managers and champions helps maintain momentum for continuous improvement. The Gold standard requires local responsibility and daily practice of good principles, fostering ownership and accountability among managers.

Feedback from IIP assessments has guided GLL in focusing on key areas of improvement, leading to significant increases in survey scores. The IIP Gold accreditation also gives GLL a unique selling proposition and a competitive edge when pursuing new business opportunities.

GLL’s extensive Learning & Development (L&D) offer includes work experience, free qualification courses, apprenticeships, and talent schemes. With 177 apprentices across various levels, GLL leverages the apprenticeship levy to support workforce skills, earning recognition as a finalist for the UK Active Award Educator of the Year in 2023.

Embedding a Positive Culture with IIP

GLL’s long-term association with IIP, holding the award since 1996 and achieving We invest in people Silver in 2016 and 2019, set the stage for a cultural transformation. Integrating IIP principles into daily operations, rather than viewing them as an additional task, catalyzed this change. The dramatic improvement in survey scores and the positive reception of the We invest in people Gold announcement highlight the culture shift within GLL.

Building a community of skilled people champions and aligning good leadership with business success has strengthened GLL’s organizational culture. The IIP framework is now an integral part of GLL’s identity, fostering a sense of pride and achievement among employees.

“Gold standard means that we are independently acknowledged as a good employer – one that excels in creating an organisational culture that provides a clear vision for the future, values and develops our people and creates high degrees of trust”

Lorraine Patrinos, People Director, GLL

Recommendation for Prospective IIP Clients

For other organizations considering IIP accreditation, GLL’s journey offers valuable insights. The IIP framework supports better people management, continuous improvement, and alignment with organizational values. As an international and respected standard, IIP accreditation enhances credibility with partners and opens networks of like-minded organizations for sharing good practices.

“IIP has played a crucial role in GLL’s development in helping us drive our ambition of becoming the best social enterprise in the UK and laying the foundation for our goal of creating a 100-year company. For any organization looking to enhance its people practices and foster a positive, high-performing culture, partnering with Investors in People is a highly recommended step”

Peter Bundey, CEO, GLL

Practitioner Insights

Matthew Filbee, the Investors in People practitioner for GLL, praises their unwavering commitment to prioritizing its people, a practice that culminated in achieving the Investors in People Gold accreditation. He highlights the significant rise in engagement scores post-Covid, a testament to the leadership’s transparency and steadfast support during challenging times. This approach fostered a deep trust in leadership’s commitment to people-focused decisions.

Matthew also notes the beneficial effects of multiskilling staff, which has enriched job roles and increased employee enthusiasm. The organization’s diversity has visibly improved, enhancing ideas and connection with the community. Through constructive feedback and collaborative reviews, and support from Investors in People, GLL has been guided toward actionable improvements, fostering a comprehensive understanding and embrace of the Investors in People framework, strengthening GLL’s status as a model employer committed to its social purpose and community impact.

The post GLL’s Journey to Investors in People Gold Accreditation appeared first on Investors in People.

Traditionally many people have seen the hospitality sector as a transient job rather than a career full of opportunities.

Coming out of the pandemic, there was a recruitment crisis throughout the UK and it led many hotel companies to fall down and fail on their service, as the highly-skilled and motivated workers simply weren’t there to employ.

Thankfully we recovered quicker than most, as our reputation as an employer of choice meant we were able to attract people, where others couldn’t so easily. 

A way around this issue, was through the work we did with the universities both before and during the pandemic, and this ensured that graduates wanted to join us and saw Red Carnation Hotels as an employer of choice. Our award-winning management programme then ensured we got through that really difficult period and a lot of the recruits we took on after the pandemic are still with us now.

The post The Red Carnation Hotel Collection: Our Story appeared first on Investors in People.

Face masks hiding our smiles. Hand sanitiser stinging our skin and a national shortage of toilet roll. In a year unlike any other, 2020 will never be forgotten.

However, 2020 will not be forgotten for very different reasons at Oyster Partnership. Like many businesses around the world, we will remember the past 12 months as the year that changed the way and how we worked. Moving to a completely agile workforce and ensuring our high level of service remained was a key priority but with a dedicated and committed team, we knew this wouldn’t be the biggest hurdle we would have to overcome.

Keeping the team motivated was the biggest challenge that we faced in 2020. In a sales environment such as recruitment, people love (and thrive in) the atmosphere in the office, the camaraderie with colleagues, and at Oyster these colleagues become genuine friends. As a business we pride ourselves on the culture that we have created so when lockdown was announced and working from home became the new norm, we knew if not handled correctly, this could have a huge impact on the morale of the business.

MD, Sasza Bandiera’s forte is his consistency and transparency in communication with the business. Throughout lockdown he continued to ensure that messages, both positive and negative, were conveyed in a timely and sensitive manner, the only difference being he was communicating via video calls. Sasza was conscious that whilst many organisations were having numerous meetings throughout the day and Zoom Quizzes, he didn’t want to inundate people with unnecessary screen time, so meetings were kept to a minimum as well as the Zoom quizzes. This is something that was welcomed by the workforce. Sasza personally spoke to all employees on a one-to-one basis, regularly throughout the lockdowns, and everyone was given the opportunity to ask questions. As well as their Managers, Head of People Hannah Clarke, spoke to all employees, offering advice and support for the wellbeing of individuals.

A pivotal moment for the business arrived in September 2020 when Sasza made the decision to present his business plans for the next 10 years to the whole company. This was an unprecedented move, but he felt that the time was right. He wanted to motivate the team by showing them what they could achieve, whilst highlighting the faith that he had in the business, even in a Pandemic. This presentation detailed where we had been as a business 10 years ago, where we were at present and where he wanted to go in the next 10 years. It included financials, the company structure, different brands that he wants to open as well as new potential business ventures. By presenting this to the whole of the business (both sales and non-sales) Sasza was able to show his vision for the business longer term, something that perhaps Trainee’s may not have witnessed before. He included everyone in the presentation, detailing where their future was within the organisation. In a time of uncertainty, this gave the workforce confidence in the business.

Furthermore in order to keep the sales team motivated, targets were appropriately adjusted to ensure that they were achievable. Teams that were significantly affected by the Pandemic were redeployed to help with busier teams. Sasza promised that anyone who had hit their target would not ‘lose out’ on their bonus (a company holiday) and as soon as we are able to travel, every person who had hit their target would be invited.

Sasza was keen to keep business as normal as possible throughout the lockdown, and another way in which we kept the team motivated included keeping promotions as normal. In fact, we celebrated 22 promotions, an amazing 32% of the workforce. We wanted to maintain that if people were hitting their targets, upholding the company values and hitting the promotional criteria, they would still be rewarded and celebrated. As a business we also made the decision to continue with growth plans, hiring 27 individuals to join the business over the year.

Oyster Partnership continued with the Investors In People accreditation which was planned for September/October 2020. We knew that it was vital to undertake an Employee Engagement Survey as we wanted to know how our employees were feeling and although we were in constant contact with all employees, we felt that the anonymous survey would perhaps yield more honest answers. We had utilised many of the suggestions from the first accreditation that we took with Investors in People, so we were confident that we could rely on the impartial feedback and recommendations that we would receive.

We were highly impressed with the results and we were thrilled to have been awarded the GOLD standard. At a time when further restrictions were announced, the results boosted morale across the team and have motivated us to strive for better. Receiving the GOLD Standard has increased the confidence of our Management team, whilst allowing us to take stock of the recommendations that our assessor gave us.  We are only a few months in from receiving the review and we have already implemented a number of ideas, and we hope that when the restrictions are lifted, we will be able to put more of the suggestions in to place.

We’re almost a year on from the very first lockdown and although we may be far from life as we once knew it, Oyster Partnership has managed to maintain sales, retain staff and we hope to come back to the office more positive and appreciative than ever before.

The post Oyster Partnership | We invest in people | Gold appeared first on Investors in People.

Our technology infrastructure, our working practices, our culture and our people’s agility and commitment, facilitated the swift and successful transition to a new day, a new norm; a completely virtual working environment.

Our people, our top priority

From the outset, our aim has been to keep close to our people, provide them with support needed, look out for their wellbeing and build a positive spirit. We continued offering our well being and mental health interventions but in a virtual form; virtual nutritional services, virtual psychology support, virtual physiotherapy services and virtual fitness classes.

We also introduced enhanced flexibility options to support all our people, giving them more control over their work life balance. Acknowledging the increased responsibilities and challenges faced by parents, we offered special flexibility arrangements to all parents/guardians with children under 15 years old.  Therefore, for any hours they could not work during the period that schools remained closed, they had the flexibility to work these hours in the months after schools reopened, without affecting their salary or annual leave.

Staying connected

During the period of being physically apart, we remained focused on being closer together and overcoming the challenges as one team, supporting each other, whilst continuing to provide quality services to our clients.

To do this, we established open communication through various channels. Regular informative webcasts ran for all people from the CEO, the Head of People and the Head of Operations, whilst email communication was frequently sent to keep our people updated regarding Health & Safety measures and how the gradual and safe return to the office would take place.

Moreover, a dedicated internal site was developed with useful information around the pandemic progression, tips on working from home, ideas with creative things to do whilst being at home and home made videos from our Partners who shared their own stories on how they were experiencing working from home, inspiring and empowering our people even more. Also, a digital community was created for all our people to share their happy moments, thoughts, concerns, jokes, photos, videos, feelings and anything else we wanted in order to strengthen our relationships even more and bond our team spirit.

Key decisions around remuneration and career progression were also communicated to our people, reassuring them that their jobs and remuneration were secure. At the same time and having as a priority the continuous development of our people, our annual performance assessment and feedback cycle ran normally.

Valuing our people’s views

In such a critical and volatile time, it was paramount to gather our people’s thoughts on how they are experiencing the current situation and their input on what else needs to be done so that we successfully navigate our firm and our people through these challenging times. To this end, we ran two pulse surveys covering topics on wellbeing/stress, flexibility, technology quality, leadership and communication effectiveness, teamwork and coaching. The first survey went out during lockdown and the second one while transitioning back to the office. These two surveys revealed high levels of engagement amongst our people with our people feeling proud on how we have responded to the pandemic, demonstrating in practice our core organisational values of care, working together, reimagining the possible and bringing our purpose to life.

Investing for the future

In responding to the pandemic, our strategy has been to focus on the medium to long term sustainability of our practice. To this end, we decided to proceed with all of our internships and graduate recruitment mixing virtual and physical participation.

We also used any downtime to invest in the learning and development of our people. Prior to the pandemic we had committed to invest two million Euro over the next four years to strengthen the skills required in the digital era, upskilling our people and services. In this context we had launched virtually the ‘New world. New skills’ program. During the lockdown period, we continued to digitally upskill our people and converted all of our learning and development programmes to virtual. Moreover, we ran a special virtual edition of our Business Skills Programme, aiming to support our people with challenges faced by everyone with the new way of working.

Engaging in the marketplace and supporting our community

True to our purpose, we remained committed in bringing positive change in the society and solving important problems. During lockdown we offered our people, clients and community PwC’s digital fitness app for free till the end of July. Moreover, since the beginning of March, our website has been adapted to provide materials, tools and advice to our clients and markets, to help them manage the crisis and assist them in getting prepared for the day after.  These included three CFO pulse surveys carried out capturing the priorities and concerns of CFOs in Cyprus and also webcasts and thought leadership publications on the economic impact of COVID-19 on the Cyprus economy and our vision on how to restart the Cyprus economy.

The day after: Reimagining the way we work

As we are transitioning back to the office we bring with us the lessons learned from working remotely – a more agile mindset and new ways of working and connecting in a disrupted and virtual environment, making us stronger as an organisation, as teams and as professionals.

As we shape our strategy going forward, we seek to leverage the lessons learned and engage collaboratively with our people in reimagining our future working practices – aiming to continue strengthening our flexibility, wellbeing and team collaboration practises in our way of working.

The post A people first approach to crisis – PwC Cyprus appeared first on Investors in People.